Skip to main content
🔦

Cryptid Field Guide: Bigfoot, the Yeti, Nessie and More, by Region

Every creature the Knowledge Base covers, from Bigfoot and the yeti to Ogopogo, Champ, the Beast of Bodmin, the thylacine and Mokele-mbembe: where each is reported, what kind of creature it is said to be, when the reports begin, and a line on what the evidence shows.

North America

  • Bigfoot

    Also: Sasquatch

    ApelikeForests of the Pacific Northwest, and across the United States and CanadaReports begin 1958 (the name)

    A huge, upright ape said to roam North American forests, named after the Bluff Creek footprints of 1958; every hair and tissue sample tested has come from a known animal.

  • Champ

    Also: Champy

    Lake monsterLake Champlain, between New York, Vermont and QuebecReports begin 1819

    America’s best-known lake monster, reported in Lake Champlain since 1819 and photographed by Sandra Mansi in 1977; no specimen or clear proof has ever turned up.

  • Jersey Devil

    Also: Leeds Devil

    WingedThe Pine Barrens of southern New JerseyReports begin 1909 (the panic)

    A winged, hoofed devil of New Jersey folklore whose legend exploded in a week of newspaper reports in January 1909.

  • Mothman

    WingedPoint Pleasant, West VirginiaReports begin 1966

    A tall, winged figure with glowing red eyes reported around Point Pleasant in 1966 and 1967; a wildlife biologist suggested a sandhill crane.

  • Ogopogo

    Lake monsterOkanagan Lake, British ColumbiaReports begin 1924 (the name)

    A long, humped creature said to live in Okanagan Lake; the Syilx people know the lake’s sacred spirit by another name, and most modern sightings look like otters, beavers or logs.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Chupacabra

    Also: Chupacabras, Goat-sucker

    OtherPuerto Rico, then Mexico, Central America and the southern United StatesReports begin 1995

    A blood-drinking killer of livestock first reported in Puerto Rico in 1995; its best-known description matches a creature from a film the eyewitness had seen.

Europe

  • British big cats

    Also: Beast of Bodmin Moor, Beast of Exmoor

    Big catBodmin Moor, Exmoor and across BritainReports begin 1970s (Exmoor)

    Black panthers and pumas reported on Britain’s moors and farmland; a few escaped cats were real, but no breeding population has ever been shown.

  • Loch Ness Monster

    Also: Nessie

    Lake monsterLoch Ness, in the Scottish HighlandsReports begin 1933 (the modern legend)

    The world’s most famous lake monster, a sensation since the 1930s; its best-known photograph was a hoax, and a DNA survey of the whole loch found no reptile but a great deal of eel.

Africa

  • Mokele-mbembe

    Lost speciesThe Likouala swamps and Lake Tele, Republic of the CongoReports begin 1909 (in European writing)

    A large river creature of the Congo Basin that Western writers recast as a surviving dinosaur; the explanation that fits best is the rhinoceros that once lived there.

Asia

  • Yeti

    Also: Abominable Snowman, Meh-teh, Migoi

    ApelikeThe Himalayas of Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and IndiaReports begin 1921 (in English)

    A shaggy, apelike creature of the high Himalayas, known to the West since a 1921 Everest expedition; every sample tested so far has come from a bear or another known animal.

Oceania

  • Thylacine

    Also: Tasmanian tiger, Tasmanian wolf

    Lost speciesTasmania and mainland AustraliaReports begin Since 1936 (after the last known animal)

    A striped marsupial predator, real and well documented, whose last known animal died in 1936; sightings have never stopped, but none has been confirmed.