Map Shows All The Mythical Monsters That Haunt The US

Via http://www.businessinsider.com.au

We’ve all heard of Bigfoot — also known as Sasquatch — the humanoid bipedal creature that’s said to wander the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

And depending in your interest in local legends and cryptozoology (the study of hidden animals), you may have heard of some of the other mythical creatures that are occasionally said to haunt certain regions of the country, like the carnivorous Jersey Devil that lives in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, or the chupacabra, a beast that’s mentioned in the lore of the Southwest.

But have you ever heard of the Pukwudgie, a “small bipedal humanoid” that comes from Native American folklore and can reportedly transform into a walking porcupine, or the car-mauling Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp in South Carolina?

The United States is full of tales of cryptids, or hidden creatures — and the Philadelphia-based print shop Hog Island Press created a map compiling these local legends, which they have allowed us to republish here.

Pretty cool, right?

There are a few common types of these creatures, especially bipedal humanoids and lake monsters that seem to be inspired by Loch Ness’s Nessie, like Maryland’s Chessie or Lake Tahoe’s Tessie.

As Frank Jacobs of Big Think points out, cryptozoological creatures have actually been found to be real in the past, like Central Africa’s giraffe-like okapi and Indonesia’s Komodo dragon (that link also has a great run down of stories behind the creatures on this map).

So will that happen with any of these creatures, like Kentucky’s Pope Lick Monster or the Beast of Busco?

One can only hope.

Source