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Last Sunday, Percy and Connie Emert of the lamentably named Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania discovered a purple squirrel in their backyard. More »
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Cameraman Hjörtur Kjerúlf captured this video of the Lagarfljótsormurinn (or Lagarfljóts Worm) wending its way through its home in Lake Lagarfljót. More »
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In the Malaysian town of Kampung Laksamana, reports of a supernatural creature known as the orang minyak (or "oily man") have caused residents to form neighborhood watches. More »
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The mouth of the pacu fish — gigantic, 60-pound cousin to the more well-known (but much smaller) piranha — demands respect. Its brawny jaws and nightmarish teeth, the bottom row of which resembles a full set of exceptionally pointy human canines, are designed for crushing and tearing at seeds and nuts, its primary food source in the freshwater rivers South America. More »
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Life is full of subtle pleasures: a bracing autumn breeze, the intoxicating aroma of braised parsnips, and, of course, the occasional Ogopogo sighting. This footage was shot on November 2 at Okanagan Lake in British Columbia. Explains Global BC: More »
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Ah, autumn in England — a time when the mercury drops and the reports of carnivorous cats trolling around regional rail rise meteorically. Oh wait, that's not right at all. More »
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We've seen Snakes on a Plane, snakes without a plane, and snakes in an MRI. Now, an ornery serpent in Llodio, Spain brings us Snakes In The Automatic Teller Machine. More »
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This is a video of several xenophyophores, four-inch-long single-celled organisms that have been discovered 6.6 miles under the sea in the Mariana Trench. More »
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In Australia, the local fauna is so casually badass that a day on the greens can quickly turn into the plot of Shark Night 3D. More »
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They can't be stopped with conventional pesticide. They can disable a huge industrial plant, and they short out electrical equipment. They eat animals as well as plants. Kill 100,000, and a million more ants will follow. More »
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It's not easy being born a Janus cat, but Frank and Louie outlived them all, earning him a spot in the Guinness World Records. Watch Frank and Louie go! More »
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Everyone, I'd like to introduce you to Snappy. Snappy is an 8-foot-2-inch long crocodile; he lives at Roaming Reptiles animal park in Victoria, Australia; and — in case you hadn't noticed — Snappy is very, very orange. More »
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Lurking in the wild borderlands between Alberta, Canada ski resort town Banff and neighboring Kootenay, a group of unusually large primates live peacefully among the trees. Or so says Todd Standing, a local who says he's found a "Bigfoot colony" and photographed it extensively. You can see Exhibit A, above. More »
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On November 30, 1959, Ernest Fisk of the American embassy in Kathmandu delineated the Nepalese government's regulations on any mountaineer's interactions with the yeti. Explains Archives.org of this peculiar document: More »
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Here's a barnyard beast to join the ranks of the two-headed Armenian cow. In the village of Santa Cruz El Chol, Guatemala, a mutant piglet was born after residents saw curious, hovering lights in the night sky. More »
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Strangely enough, Tropical Storm Irene brought out not one, but two examples of storm beasts. The latest being to drum up the internet's cryptozoological side is this marsupial-rat-dog-lizard. What is this being? My guess: the gangster rat from those crazy-ass Fletcher Hanks comics. More »
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When you've discovered a 20-kilogram frog with the legs the length of a seven-year-old child's, do you A.) keep it for posterity; B.) donate it to science; or C.) eat the sonofagun before it eats you? More »
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While filming whales off of the Canary Islands recently, a documentary crew discovered a rare marine find — the body of an Architheuthis squid bobbing in open water. Sadly, the creature was extremely dead, but the documentarians were able to capture footage of this deceased beast. More »
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The term "living fossil" gets bandied about a lot, but this eel found in an underwater cave in the Pacific Ocean is unlike any living relative, and has features that are only found in the fossilized remains of its ancient brethren. More »
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Cheese on crackers, has the chupacabra had a prolific summer. Now America's favorite prune-skinned mammalian cryptid is making a run for the White House. And I'm not talking about [FILL IN YOUR LEAST FAVORITE CONGRESSMAN HERE]! Political humor! Hey-yo! More »
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Another day, another weird dead creature discovered by the side of the road. Last Thursday, a Milton, New Hampshire man found a dead shark in the forest, miles from the ocean. Alas, the Land Shark remains the purview of Saturday Night Live sketches. More »
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Despite the absolutely Dullsville real-world explanations for chupacabras, it seems as if the dreaded goat-sucker has hopped continents. More »
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Some days the headlines just write themselves. CCTV in Newtownbreda, Northern Ireland recently capture a solemn, silvery visage hiding in the town's sewers. The fellows who work in the tunnels have dubbed this head (among many things) "the Silver Surfer." More »
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The people of a Chinese village thought they'd encountered E.T. — but it turned out to be a malnourished monkey with no hair. Mao Xiping spotted the creature eating cucumbers in her garden in Gezhai Village, and thought it was a rabbit at first. "At first I thought it was a rabbit, then I was shocked to see it had an alien face," she said. "My neighbors agreed it was like nothing we'd seen before. It stopped eating cucumbers when we gave it peaches and now it won't eat anything else." Scientists eventually decided the creature was of terrestrial origin after all. [UPI] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5824321&view=rss&microfeed=true A young man identifying himself as Carter Pope claims to have shot and killed what he believes was a chupacabra in Texas. How did he know it was the legendary monster? Apparently, it was hairless and had "shriveled up" back legs. Good going, Pope — you probably killed an old, injured dog. More »
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We've gotten more intriguing cryptid photos from people trying to win our Cryptid Summer bounty. Here are a few of the pictures people have sent us over the past two weeks, ranging from highly plausible to downright bizarre. More »
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This is one of the first-ever photos of the Bornean rainbow toad, which hasn't been seen since 1924. More »
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In 1988, Bishopville, South Carolina fell under the thrall of a dark and handsome Lizard Man. After being out of the limelight for 20+ years, the Lizard Man's returned to carve up random automobiles and shards of metal. Local news anchors were on hand to welcome his scaly excellence. Don't call it a comeback! More »
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According to the Pisces Fleet Sportsfishing blog, this one-eyed bull shark fetus was removed from a mother caught in Mexico's Sea of Cortez. Apparently shark researcher Felipe Galvan Magaña is now examining this monocular specimen. More »
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Last Sunday, fisherman 12 miles off the coast of Stuart, Flordia found themselves with a mollusk of a tale to tell some folks — they had hooked a specimen of Architeuthis Dux, or the Atlantic Giant Squid. More »
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Here's some more weirdness from Argentina, courtesy of the eminently entertaining Inexplicata blog. According to police of the town of Suncho Corral, an "imp" with a proclivity for boxing is making residents' lives extremely harrowing. More »
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Last year, people in the small Mexican town of Chiquimitío were startled by the arrival of this bizarre creature. They took a few pictures and a short cell video, but this remains one of the clearest images of its head. More »
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Last Tuesday, a lake cryptid exposed its gleaming white belly to 30 tourists at China's Kanas Lake. This isn't the first time this saucy monster's been seen in Kanas. Back in 2007, the beast made headlines too. Here's that footage. More »
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According to anecdotal reports, dog-like cryptids have been running rampant in Quang Ngai, Vietnam this month. Eyewitnesses claim that these strange and slender canines have been picking off pet dogs and roaring like the dickens. More »
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After 113 years in hiding, the red crested tree rat (Santamartamys rufodorsalis) has appeared once again and posed for its first ever photographs. More »
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What would insects and arachnids look like if you were the size of a pea? These videos by Ahmet Özkan offer a Lilliputian's eye view into the horribly brutal world of arthropod death matches. And this battle has a surprise ending! More »
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For decades, paleontologists have agonized over a strange Sumerian statue found in central Iraq. The figurine depicts a mammal that some researchers suspect could be a suriving specimen of the ancient giraffe, Sivatherium. More »
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There's an exquisite je ne sais quoi when local news correspondents plumb the depths of the paranormal. We've seen them investigate chemtrails, wandering mummies, and mysterious skulls, but this report about Roswell's astrocacti may just be the zenith of anti-news. More »
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The Chupacabra, a legendary blood-sucking cryptid, appeared on The X-Files, had its own series called Chupacabra: Dark Seas, and enjoys near-mascot status in Texas. Now it seems it may have its origins in the movie Species. More »
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