by Darren Naish
It is also highly vocal. Its loud call - repeated three times and described as a terrifying, howl-like "AH-OOooooo" - supposedly explains its name. Other behavioural snippets provided for the Ahool are that it flies low over rivers in pursuit of fish, that it kills people with its claws (rather than with its teeth), and that - when at rest - it squats on the forest floor with its wings held close to the sides of its body. The only specific account ever mentioned in connection with this creature is that reported by Ernst Bartels in either 1925 or 1927 while he was in the Salek Mountains near Cjengkol, Java. Apparently, he was woken by the sound of flapping wings and heard an animal call that could be described as "a-hool".
Can we explain the Ahool?
Could this creature really be what it sounds like: a gigantic bat, the largest by far? The reference to large claws on the wings could perhaps refer to the large claws that fruit bats possess on both their thumbs and first fingers (in other living bats, the thumb is the only claw-bearing digit in the wing). Noisy flight, large eyes and a primate-like face are also features more typical of fruit bats than other kinds of bat. However, fruit bats possess long muzzles and, facially, are more like lemurs than monkeys. Furthermore, they are (as is well known) frugivores, not predators that eat fish or attack people. For these reasons it has been proposed that the Ahool accounts actually refer to a gigantic species of microbat: a member of one of the various bat lineages that use echolocation and frequently have short faces and proportionally small eyes (it turns out that 'microbats' are not a natural group, since some are closer to fruit bats than they are to other 'microbats'. Read on).
The largest known bat (the Large flying fox Pteropus vampyrus) has a maximum wingspan of 1.5m (or maybe a little more) and it may or may not be plausible that another bat species has reached a wingspan of 3 or even 4m. However, the various characteristics described for the Ahool are incongruous. Bats do not produce loud howls and are ill-suited for a style of resting that involves squatting on the ground.
One final point deserves mention. Most of what we think we know about the Ahool (that is, most of what we read about this creature in cryptozoology books) comes from a single 1966 article written by naturalist and author Ivan T. Sanderson. As mentioned in our introduction, Sanderson reported an enormous number of mystery animal accounts and peculiar animal observations over his career that were novel and never recorded by anyone else. Maybe he really was extraordinarily lucky, but there are widespread suspicions that some of the information he reported may not have been wholly trustworthy. In short, our suspicion is that the Ahool never existed at all.
Where the Ahool is real
For the purposes of entertainment, however, let's now suppose that the Ahool does exist. Its wings and mammalian nature show that it really must be a giant bat, but it's certainly a highly novel one, with a unique vocal behaviour, flattened, anthropoid-like face and aggressive behaviour making it unlike the members of any known lineages. This combination of features is fascinating since, while they are inconsistent with the traditional idea that bats can be nearly divided into 'megabats' and 'microbats', they are less problematical when viewed within the context of recent molecular bat phylogenies.
Recent work indicates that 'microbats' are not a clade, but, rather, that horseshoe bats and their relatives (the rhinolophoids) are closer to megabats than they are to remaining microbats (Teeling et al. 2000, 2002, 2005, Hutcheon & Kirsch 2006). Bat experts have used several different names for these new groupings, with the most appropriate probably being Pteropodiformes for the rhinolophoid + megabat clade, and Vespertilioniformes for the clade that contains all other bats. Anyway, the point is that there is a major bat clade that includes both the typically large, 'fox-faced' megabats (with their digit I and II wing claws) and the typically short-faced, notoriously ugly horseshoe bats. Giant size has also evolved within rhinolophoids, since the predatory ghost bats - the largest of which have wingspans of about 60cm - are members of this group.
The obvious conclusion is that the Ahool - it's called Pithenycteris ahool - belongs to a previously unrecognised pteropodiform lineage that still possesses the high wing-claw count primitive for modern bats (and still present in megabats), but is short-faced and (to our eyes) disturbingly ugly in facial form. Pithenycteris also has unique features of its own: it's remarkable in being a burly predator that rests and walks bipedally on the ground, and it even brings prey to the forest floor after tackling it in the air. Given that its lineage diverged from the megabat-rhinolophoid common ancestor more than 40 million years ago, it is somewhat expected that it followed its own, unique evolutionary pathway. Hm, funny how cryptids so often represent unique and unprecedented lineages within their respective groups...
Hutcheon, J. M. & Kirsch, J. A. W. 2006. A moveable face: deconstructing the Microchiroptera and a new classification of extant bats. Acta Chiropterologica 8, 1-10.
Simmo ns, N. B., Seymour, K. L., Habersetzer, J. & Gunnell, G. F. 2008. Primitive Early Eocene bat from Wyoming and the evolution of flight and echolocation. Nature 451, 818-821.
Teeling, E. C., Madsen, O., Van Den Bussche, R. A., de Jong, W. W., Stanhope, M. J. & Springer, M. S. 2002. Microbat paraphyly and the convergent evolution of a key innovation in Old World rhinolophoid microbats. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99, 1431-1436.
Teeling, E. C., Scally, M., Kao, D. J., Romagnoll, M. L., Springer, M. S. & Stanhope, M. J. 2000. Molecular evidence regarding the origin of echolocation and flight in bats. Nature 403, 188-192.
Teeling, E. C., Springer, M. S., Madsen, O., Bates, P., O'Brien, S. J., Murphy, W. J. 2005. A molecular phylogeny for bats illuminates biogeography and the fossil record. Science, 307, 580-584.
Trinity Alps Salamander
Giant river salamanders of the Californian mountains
Location: Trinity Alps, northern California, United States
Time: 1939 or 1940 to present
The lore and literature
Among North American herpetologists, explorers and adventurers, accounts of giant Californian mountain salamanders have circulated for a long time. Roughly the size of alligators, these animals have eluded all attempts to locate or capture them. While some consider them to be the product of exaggerated accounts or fisherman's tall tales, the presence of similar animals in Asia may hint at a different conclusion.
Giant salamanders are, today, restricted to Asia (despite a fossil record that involves North America and Europe). Over the past several decades, however, there have been persistent rumours that an unrecognised population of giant salamanders of the sort otherwise unique to Asia (and belonging to the genus Andrias) inhabit California, in particular the Trinity Alps in the north of the state.
The first report dates to 1939 or 1940 when Stanford University's George S. Myers was invited to examine a live Andrias kept as a pet by a commercial fisherman. The fisherman claimed to have captured the animal in a catfish trap in the Sacramento River. Myers considered the possibility that the animal might belong to an unknown, native Californian species: he thought that the brownish (rather than grey) ground colour and presence of large, well defined, yellowish spots on the animal's upper surface made it look different from Chinese and Japanese giant salamanders (Myers 1951). In fact, both features are present in Chinese and Japanese giant salamanders, something not noted by the cryptozoologists who have discussed this case. Myers also noted, however, that the animal might have originated as an escape since, in 1936 or 1937, a San Francisco firm had supposedly imported a consignment of giant salamanders. Chico State College's Thomas L. Rodgers (1962) stated that he had examined the Sacramento River salamander two days after it had been captured. According to Rodgers, it belonged to an "odd-fish fancier" called Wong Hong and was named Benny. Rodgers regarded this as the end of the mystery, and 'escaped pet' is the generally accepted explanation today.
As Rodgers (1962) and others have explained, however, additional people claimed to see and even capture gigantic salamanders in the Trinity
Alps. An animal handler called Vern Harden said that he saw "a dozen" of them in Hubbard Lake in 1960, one of which he hooked and (allegedly) found to be 2.5m long. During the 1920s, Frank L. Griffith reported seeing a group of giant salamanders in New River, the biggest of which was 2.75m long (Rodgers 1962, Coleman 1997, Coleman & Huyghe 2003). Most recently, sightings from 2002 and 2005 were mentioned by cryptozoologist John Kirk.
A sorry verdict on giant salamanders
As is so often the case with purported mystery animals, the possibility that northern California might be home to an undiscovered native amphibian approaching or exceeding a metre or two or three in length must rank as pretty low on the believability scale, though it does have to be said that the former presence in North America of giant salamanders does make these cases particularly intriguing. Indeed, several qualified herpetologists have been interested enough to investigate the reports. All, so far, have ended up empty handed. Rodgers suggested that, if the stories were true, they might be based on sightings of large Dicamptodon (Pacific giant salamanders), though - if this is true - an exceptional amount of exaggeration must have occurred given that Dicamptodon individuals larger than just 30cm would be exceptional.
The entire giant salamander lore seems most likely based on a set of tall-tales, inspired or embellished by the discovery of escaped or pet giant salamanders from China or Japan. The possible genuine existence of a real species of large, rare, native salamander in California is remotely plausible but difficult to consider seriously given extensive herpetological studies in the region.
North America's vanishing giants
Supposing that we were to write some extensive speculative text and produce a speculative illustration featuring Californian giant salamanders, there is little we could do that would be original. But what the hell.
Here, we proposed that those sightings, accounts and captured specimens all demonstrate the genuine persistence of Andrias - the so-called Asian giant salamanders - in modern-day North America. The prominent yellow dorsal spots and giant size of this species are diagnostic. While it is tempting to interpret the Californian Andrias as a novel species, we conclude instead that it represents a persisting population of the fossil species A. matthewi, originally described from Nebraska but later reported from Saskatchewan and elsewhere in North America. Fossils show that A. matthewi was not only widespread but - in contrast to living Asian giant salamanders - able to inhabit lakes and ponds, not just rivers and streams.
The idea than an Andrias species was widespread in prehistoric times, only to become restricted to a few regions in the modern world, already has a precedent. Most people interested in salamanders are aware of the German fossil species A. scheuchzeri, famously misidentified during the 1700s as a person killed during the Biblical deluge. Little known is that Estes (1981) regarded A. scheuchzeri as conspecific with the living Chinese giant salamander. If this is true, this species once occurred from western Europe all the way to Japan (where the Chinese giant salamander is also known as a fossil). Similarly, the North American species once occurred across much of western North America.
Coleman, L. 1997. Promises of giants. Fortean Times 103, 43.
Coleman, L. & Huyghe, P. 2003. The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep. Tarcher/Penguin, New York.
Estes, R. 1981. Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie. Teil 2. Gymnophiona, Caudata. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart.
Rodgers, T. L. 1962. Report of giant salamanders in California. Copeia 1962, 646-647.
Goatman
Half goat, half man, half-serious
Location: various places in the southern and south-eastern USA
Time: 1957 to present
When Goatman comes
The term Goatman has been used for several bizarre, alleged mystery creatures seen in the southern and eastern parts of the USA, most notably in Maryland, Kentucky and Texas. As suggested by the jokey nature of the name and improbable form of the supposed creature, there is little indication that Goatman is anything more than a semi-comedic invention or urban myth. Indeed, the story behind one of the Goatmen - the one associated with Maryland - is that it was originally a scientist who experimented on goats while based at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Somehow, an experiment went horribly wrong, and he was forever destined to roam the wilds and woods of Beltsville, axe in hand, attacking cars and unsuspecting walkers.
Goatman lore seemingly began in 1957 when people supposedly reported a 2m-tall, dark-furred creature, dubbed Goatman not for its horns (it was apparently interpreted as a Bigfoot-type creature) but for the fact that it had goat-like legs, with its ankle joints well up off the ground. These sightings were made in Prince George's County, Maryland, and accounts implied to be of the same creature were reported from the same region during the late 1960s and early 70s. Remember: these accounts described a Bigfoot-like animal with weird legs, not a 'Goatman' at all. However, by 1998, sightings were being claimed of a 'real' Goatman - that is, a horned, hairy, bipedal monster - in McLennan County, Texas (Newton 2005). Whether this Goatman represents extension of the Maryland legend to Texas, or whether it's a wholly separate invention, remains unknown.
Is there really a Goatman? No
The concept of Goatman is still alive, as demonstrated by a case from July 2012 when a humanoid, white-furred creature photographed on the side of a mountain in Utah was widely reported as 'Goatman' by the media. Unsurprisingly, it proved to be a man in a suit, apparently learning how to disguise himself as a Mountain goat Oreamnos americanus in preparation for hunting season.
The idea of the goat-human hybrid is of course a familiar one thanks to satyrs, the horned, half-man, half-goats of Greek mythology. However, satyrs originally lacked the goat-like lower parts that we now associate with them, only being imagined this way after the Romans confused them with Faunas, a horned, forest god. Faunas was perhaps depicted as half-beast because he was associated with the fertility of cattle and other animals and (so far as we know) there are no special reasons for linking either satyrs or Faunas to the concept of human-goat 'hybrids'… though, incidentally, people have occasionally suggested that satyrs might be based on accounts of surviving Neanderthals or other hominids (Loofs-Wissowa 1994, Diehl 2001).
The real Goatman stands up
If we once more play the speculative game and pretend that Goatman really exists, what could it be? If we remember the idea mentioned above that Goatman is so-named because it has long, digitigrade hindlimbs, and combine this with prior speculation in the cryptozoological literature, we have an answer. Namely: Goatman is a large, human-sized, endemic North American cursorial monkey, uniquely adapted for rapid bipedal running and (unlike virtually all other monkeys) routinely walking and running on its toes, its ankles being held well up away from the ground. After all, Coleman & Huyghe (1999) seriously proposed the existence of a 'giant monkey' category in their mystery primate classification.
According to these authors, 'giant monkeys' occur across the Americas and in Africa and Asia. Juvenile specimens are often mistakenly identified as kangaroos. We agree with Coleman and Huyghe, and with their brilliant intellectual partner Mark A. Hall, that giant monkeys are an evident and obvious truth, but we think that these authors have been too conservative. Whereas they made nods to the possibility that giant monkeys might be related in some way to the giant geladas and baboons known from the African fossil record, we think that an ancestrally African lineage of guenons - essentally, giant, semi-bipedal cousins of the cursorial Patas monkey Erythrocebus patas - moved into Asia and thence into the Americas during the Pleistocene. These large, superficially human-like giant monkeys are highly cryptic, able to rapidly sprint away from danger, but also capable of ferocious aggression when the need arises. Yup, sirree, giant monkeys.
Coleman & Huyghe 1999. The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide. Avon Books, New York.
Diehl, T. 2001. The satyr - a cryptid like yo
u and me? In Heinselman, C. (ed) Hominology Special Number 1. Craig Heinselman (Francestown, New Hampshire), unpaginated.
Loofs-Wissowa, H. 1994. The penic rectus as a marker in human palaeontology? Human Evolution 9, 343-356.
Newton, M. 2005. Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology: a Global Guide. McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina, and London.
Mngwa
Great grey African man-eating monster cat
Time: 1922 and 1937, though with local lore apparently dating back to antiquity
Location: the Lindi region of Tanzania
Lore of the great grey killer cat
The Mngwa - the name means 'strange one' and we presume it's pronounced something like 'm-nug-wa' - is the name given to a gigantic grey cat, apparently the size of a donkey but superficially similar to a grey tabby cat. An alternative name is Nunda, apparently meaning 'fierce animal' (though the translations 'cruel man' and 'something heavy' have also been suggested). As with so many mystery animals, very little has ever been written about this creature and every discussion ever published on it (this one included) is based on the same handful of dubious accounts. The most useful account is that provided by Karl Shuker in his Mystery Cats of the World (Shuker 1989).
What's said by some to be an early reference to the Mngwa comes from a Swahili folk song dating to 1150. The best known accounts of this crypto-cat, however, come from the 1920s and 30s when a series of attacks occurred in the coastal Lindi region of Tanzania. Serving magistrate Captain William Hichens described how a man who slept overnight in a marketplace was attacked and killed by a giant cat during the night. When the man's body was found, he was clutching a mass of greyish hair "such as would come out of a lion's mane were it grasped and torn in a violent fight". The assailant was apparently no lion, for two eyewitnesses reported that they had seen the attack in progress: the cat concerned was indeed the "great mysterious Nunda", a great grey brindled cat that leapt from the shadows to attack the poor man. Several other killings that occurred in the same region over following months were also attributed to the Mngwa. Attempts to poison or shoot the beast were in vain but more grey hair was discovered.