Amended Cryptozoological Checklist

The Amended Cryptozoological Checklist, created by Dale A. Drinnon, is a supplement and amendment to Bernard Heuvelmans' "Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals With Which Cryptozoology Is Concerned" (1986). It uses a slightly different categorisation system to Heuvelmans' checklist and Karl Shuker's "A Supplement to Dr Bernard Heuvelmans' Checklist of Cryptozoological Animals" (1998): the marine and freshwater cryptids are categorised by type, due to their apparent cosmopolitan distribution.

Marine and freshwater forms[]

Sharks[]

Sawfish the size of whales were reported in the Red Sea from Roman times, and there are folkloric depictions and rock art of sperm whale-sized sawfish in South Africa and Papua New Guinea
Drinnon suggests that pre-Columbian artwork in South America indicates the existence of a large form of angel shark off the coast of Colombia and Peru.
An eel-shaped shark, noted by Heuvelmans: Drinnon adds that a specimen was seen cut up by the captain of the Beaver.
Drinnon speculates that Heuvelmans' yellow-belly could be a form of large whale shark-like fish with a tail like that of a thresher shark. Loren Coleman also reproduced accounts of giant sharks which Drinnon places in this category.
Heuvelmans suggested the Stronsa beast could be an undescribed species of elongated basking shark.
Drinnon suggests that Captain Hanna's fish could have been an aberrant six-gilled shark.
The Tigris river shark, an undescribed shark. A similar animal is reported from the Indus, and there are reports of South America. Drinnon speculates the reports refer to animals like bull sharks.
Freshwater sawfish, including reports from the British Isles.

Skates and rays[]

Gunter Sehm speculates that the type specimen of the manta ray is in fact an undescribed species different to the manta.
A number of unidentified rays, including one with a supposed wingspan of 50' or more.
The Alpha serpent, which may be a giant eagle ray.
Ivan T. Sanderson saw a giant stingray in the Cross River.
Sanderson made note of a large number of undescribed freshwater rays, especially in the tropics.
A form of freshwater ray with horns over its eyes - the kushkarikku or goat-skate - was said to have existed in the Tigris and Euphrates systems.
Undescribed rays from Malaysia, the Philippines, and Fly River in Papua New Guinea.
An undescribed ray of the Rio Negro in South america, which Drinnon suggests is connected to the hide.
Drinnon suggests the water leaper of Wales, which has a toad-like face, wings, and no legs, is a ray.
Drinnon theorises that several "flying reptiles" of West and Central Africa, including the famous kongamato, could be freshwater rays which leap out of the water to upset canoes.

Sturgeons[]

An undescribed Huso sturgeon, reported from across the arctic region and down into the northern United States. Drinnon suggests that this fish could account for several lake monsters, including longnecks and waterhorses.

Giant eels[]

Drinnon regards the super-eel Heuvelmans type as a dustbin category, but notes that it does contain reports of actual outsized eels. These include a giant 20' conger; a camouflage eel" of the Mediterranean; and a very large eel with fins on the sides of its head. Drinnon seperates these eels into titanocongers and megacongers, leaving the "camouflage eel" in its own category. He also regards the Pauline sighting, of a giant eel attacking a sperm whale, as dubious.
According to Drinnon, the identification of Dana leptocephalus as a notacanth fish was erroneous.
Maurice Burton mentioned reports of giant eels in Britian, France, and Germany. These animals sometimes had dog-like heads. Similar reports have emerged from Scotland, Ireland, and possibly Scandinavia.
10' to 20' eels have been reported from Eastern Canada, including Lake Memphremagog.
James Sweeny was told by a Loch Ness monster investigator about a "giant eel skeleton" 40' long being found in a lake in Uruguay. Drinnon feels that this was more likely a giant anaconda skeleton.

Miscellaneous fish[]

The Auckland monster, a fish with legs and wings caught off New Zealand, categorised as an ultra-mysterious beast by Karl Shuker. Drinnon suggests this was a kind of sea-robin.
Sweeney reported very large groupers in the Gulf of Mexico and around Australia, which Drinnon says may be undescribed species.
Giant pikes of up to 15' to 20' have been reported in Europe, and Drinnon speculates that lake monsters such as lindworms are giant pikes.
Giant pikes and giant garfish have been reported in the United States, especially in the Great Lakes region.
Giant catfish are reported from almost the whole world, including Europe and the United States.
Giant salmon the size of dolphins are reported from the Kenai River in Alaska.

Salamanders[]

Giant salamanders are reported from across the northern hemisphere, including the British Isles, Northern Germany, Central Europe, and Siberia, as well as Canada and the United States. In Siberia they are called paymurs, and in the U.S. they are often referred to as "giant water lizards" or "alligators".
A giant pink salamander has been reported from the Eastern United States: one is said to have lived in a pond on Ivan T. Sanderson's property.

Crocodilians[]

Sea-crocodiles are reported from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the Americas and East Africa, as well as out in the Central Pacific. Some of these animals are said to be up to 50' to 60' long, with flattened or shortened faces and horns on the back of the head. These are reported from the Mediterranean, China, Southeast Asia, and Madagascar: specific cryptids include the silwaane manza and the taniwha. According to Drinnon, "it is probable that there is a species of sea-crocodile that is cosmopolitan in warmer waters, analogous to Crocodylus porosis but even larger at maximum (60 feet is no doubt an exaggeration, but it is consistently alleged), and more fully adapted to life at sea. Reports also specify that it goes inland to breed and can dig burrows, but the big ones prefer to keep to deeper waters."
Alligators have been reported from Korea (a-ke) and Japan (wani).
A very large alligator was supposedly once native to China.
An Amazonian crocodile has been accepted in "certain circles". It is different to the black caiman - larger and more aggressive.
A gavial-like crocodile, which Drinnon suggests could be Charactosuchus, is represented in pieces of Central American artwork.
There are reports of a number of misplaced or undescribed caimans.
Possibly dozens of undescribed freshwater crocodilians are reported from Melanesia, the Celebes, and New Britain.

Marine saurians[]

Drinnon splits the marine saurian Heuvelmans type into at least two different species. The first is 40' to 60' long and "seems likely to be a mosasaur"; the second is even larger, 75' to 100' with a head length of 10', and is a deep-diving animal, tolerant to the cold and adapted to prey on whales. Sightings of the second marine saurian include the Monongahela incident, and, as Drinnon believes, the Egede sighting.
There are reports of similar animals off East Africa. Drinnon speculates that, in these cases, the animal could be a highly-modified crocodilian with flippers instead of limbs and no dermal armour, or simply a "normal" marine saurian.

Monitor lizards[]

Animals like the buru have been reported throughout South Asia, including South China and possibly Taiwan. Drinnon believes these are true monitor lizards, as they have long necks and forked tongues. Unnamed "fossil candidates" for these animals exist in India.
The kiao-lung, a Chinese snake-like animal with legs, which Drinnon notes sounds similar to the buru.
Drinnon believes that the giant Ethiopian lizard was St. George's dragon (the tale was originally Libyan).
According to Loren Coleman, various undescribed monitor lizards have entered the pet trade from unknown locations.
20' to 30' Komodo dragons have been reported from Indonesia, including on Komodo itself, as well as in Papua New Guinea.

Waterhorses[]

Drinnon suggests a new category, "Marine Dimetrodons," using the Valhalla sighting as the exemplar.
Like Shuker, Drinnon proposes that the long-necked sea serpent more closely corresponds to a living plesiosaur than a putative long-necked seal. According to Drinnon: "Longnecks do not merely LOOK like they have a plesiosaur's neck, it ACTUALLY IS a plesiosaur's neck, and in fact its flexibilty must be much the same as Plesiosaurus; nothing else is comparable. From the reports, it also has a plesiosaurian tooth pattern and bite, a euryapsid skull and a plesiosaurian bones in its flippers. The head is ridiculously small for any mammal and especially so for a "brainy" mammal like a pinneped; the head is less that a tenth the size a pinneped's would be from the reports. It has a "reptillian" proportion of brain-to-body." Drinnon notes several examples of supposed post-Cretaceous plesiosaur fossils.

Chelonians[]

According to Drinnon, very large turtles are likely to be misidentified humpbacked whales.
An Archelon-sized leatherback turtle in the North Atlantic.
3' long plesiosaurs were reported in Venezuela's "lost world". They were described as sunning themselves like turtles, and Drinnon suggests that they were, in fact, turtles, perhaps softshelled ones with limbs turned to flippers.
Giant softshelled turtles are reported from East India to Indonesia.

Pinnipeds[]

The marakai-hau, a walrus-like legendary animal of Maori myth. Walruses are not native to New Zealand or its seas.
One long-necked sea serpent sighting, the Conder sighting of 1913, actually referred to a thick-necked creature, which Drinnon suggests was an undescribed pinniped.
A number of sea monster reports seem to refer to Atlantic sea lions similar to California sea lions.
Drinnon suggests there is a population of elephant seals in the North Atlantic, based on several sea monster sightings and Sanderson's three-toes.
Drinnon writes off the moha-moha, nuihi, and several merhorse sightings as misidentified elephant seals.
An undescribed Indian Ocean monk seal centred around the Maldives.
Dwarf freshwater seals are reported from a lake on Victoria Island, Canada.

Sirenians[]

According to Loren Coleman, the range of Steller's sea cow may have extended further east, into the Arctic Archipelago and Hudson's Bay. Drinnon writes that living Steller's sea cows in this region could explain several local sea monsters described as resembling upturned boats, which are liable to run into kayaks.
Freshwater dugongs have been reported from Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as "certain lakes of the Great Rift Valley".

Cetaceans[]

An undescribed Caribbean porpoise.
Drinnon suggests that a number of sea serpent reports support the existence of a supergiant rorqual whale 250' to 500' long.
According to Drinnon, the Emu carcass "gives cause to postulate a form of beaked whale of the dimensions and proportions of Basilosaurus."
A shovelheaded whale with "racing stripes," described by Coleman.
A freshwater African dolphin.

Amphibious pachyderms[]

Drinnon theorises that tracks of living dinosaurs in South America are actually the tracks of living toxodonts, which were three-toed. According to Drinnon, "these animals must still cover a large territory, [...] and they appear to go into fairly high altitudes in Bolivia and Peru; they are also reported all over Brazil and Columbia".
Similarly, Drinnon theorises that three-toed footprints attributed to living dinosaurs in Africa are actually the tracks of an undescribed amphibious rhinoceros.

Great snakes[]

Rupert Gould speculated that some sea serpent reports could be due to Atlantic populations of sea snakes.
Drinnon's name for the sucuriju gigante is Eunectes giganteus.
Large amphibious snakes in New Zealand and New Caledonia, possibly only as a folk-memory.

Great sea centipedes[]

Drinnon regards all the reports in the many-finned sea serpent Heuvelmans type as possible mistakes.

Other invertebrates[]

Drinnon suggests that the animal behind the Table Bay sea serpent sighting of 1857, which Heuvelmans did not know how to classify, could have been a colonial coelenterate similar to a Portuguese-man-o'-war.
A giant sea scorpion the size of an upturned boat in a lake in Greenland. Drinnon regards the sea scorpion identity as unlikely, but notes it as a possible Steller's sea cow on account of the "upturned boat" description.

Terrestrial forms[]

North America[]

A number of accounts, many of them categorised as Bigfoot sightings or even "mystery cat" sightings, are believed by Drinnon to refer to large, cat-faced bears, which may well be living short-faced bears. A nonspecific name for these cryptids is booger bear.
Ivan T. Sanderson believed that lizard-shaped cave cows reported from Central America were medium-sized ground sloths.
Several smaller ground sloths are confirmed to have made it into early modern times in the Antilles, and Drinnon suggests that modern-day forms could account for sightings of "apes" or "manapes," include the yeho, in the Caribbean.
A large eastern condor, similar to the California condor and differentiated from the thunderbird.
The giant blacksnake, a 30' long snake reported from the American Midwest and the Ohio River Valley, which may be a relative of the indigo snake.
A narrow-headed spitting rattlesnake, which Drinnon speculates could have been a feral spitting cobra.
A small, golden rattlesnake with extremely toxic venom.
Two forms of rattleless rattlesnake, one small and the other one larger, differentiated by colouration and habitat, which Drinnon speculates are some kind of copperhead.
Hoop snakes, which John Keel theorised are medium sized boas.
A small "dinosaur," compared to Charles R. Knight's Ornitholestes reconstruction. Drinnon speculates that this is an iguanid which runs on its hind legs, like a South American basilisk lizard, but larger.

Eurasia[]

Snow lions, mythical Tibetan creatures which Drinnon speculates are surviving cave lions.
Several authorities believed that some legends of unicorns, especially in Asia, were based on reports of surviving Elasmotherium.
For the kirin or Asian unicorn, Drinnon favours Tsaidamotherium, a fossil bovid, which had two unequal horns which resembled a single, forked horn.
A number of pieces of Central Asian artwork have been interpreted as showing living chalicotheres, and Drinnon also suggests that griffins may have been inspired by chalicotheres, which might have had overhanging upper lips like some other ungulates. According to Drinnon, the griffin's distinguishing features are its claws, not its wings.
Thunderbirds have been reported from Siberia in Russia, possibly the same animals as American thunderbirds.

South America[]

Sanderson wrote that he saw several monkeys in South America, including captive specimens, which he was not even able to place familialy.
A "hairy dwarf" similar to a siamang, 3' tall and covered in black hair.
Drinnon theorises that there are large, medium, and smaller apes in South America: according to him, the larger ape is often compared to a tailless howler monkey, and all types have expandible throat sacks.
Various ground sloths of differing sizes, reported from the Amazon since colonial times.
The supposedly-extinct Falkland Islands wolf was reported during the Falkland War. Drinnon suggests it was an insular population of Andean wolf.
The tatu-aruiap, a giant armadillo of Brazil, which may be a glyptodont.
Drinnon regards Shuker's argument that the minhocão cannot be a glyptodont because of the latter animal's shell as incorrect, since burrowing gopher tortoises also have domed shells.
South American thunderbirds, including animals with wingspans of up to 20', according to old natural history books.
Artwork in Mexico and Brazil shows a giant iguanid, which Drinnon calls the greater dragon iguana, up to 12' in length and capable of sitting up to look a man in the eye. Animals compared to Komodo dragons have also been reported from Venezuela.
A mountain-dwelling "mountain lizard" covered in hard shells like oysters. Drinnon speculates that it may be an undescribed species of tegu, but notes that the scales are unusual.
Horned boas.
Giant tarantulas.

Africa[]

X1, an unknown hominid reported from across Africa. Similar to the marked hominid of America, it may be a relative of the Kabwe or Rhodesian man.
Christine Janis suggests that several apparently-extinct mammals are represented in African artwork, including Mesimbrooportax and Bramatherium.
Chimpanzee-sized black-and-white lemur, and a guenon-sized reddish-brown lemur, both flatfaced and from Madagascar.
Animals like Congo dragons in Madagascar, possibly unknown monitor lizards.
A Madagascar "long-eared lizard," perhaps a confused description of a fossil aardvark or bibymalagasy.
Various flying animals of Madagascar and East Africa, which may be colugoes or flying squirrels.
Various legendary snakes of Madagascar, possibly unknown boas.
Based on personal correspondence, Roy P. Mackal suggested that "the smaller kind" of elephant bird could still survive on Madagascar, referred to as a "sort of cassowary" in old natural history books. Drinnon notes that this smaller elephant bird was in fact a different genus, Mullerornis.

Oriental Asia[]

A "langur ape," the size of a man but with a tail, sometimes called an "Abominable Snowman".
The kra-dhan, which Drinnon and Heuvelmans speculate is an orangutan-like ape, instead of a giant macaque as suggested by Sanderson. This "orangutan" would be a ground-living, gorilla-like animal.
Sanderson suggested that a giant siamang was behind several orang-pendek reports, but Drinnon feels that the orang-pendek most strongly resembles Homo florensis.
Giant orangutans, similar to the one discussed above, possibly explaining the beruang rambai.
"Second-class dragons," apparently large Draco lizards, which Drinnon feels could explain reports of flying snakes across the eastern hemisphere.

Oceania[]

A tailless pterosaur, the ambirak, seen in artwork from New Guinea.
Four giant monitor lizards of New Guinea: a small tree-lizard; the perentie-sized kumi; the Komodo dragon-sized ngarana; and the crocodile-sized taniwha.
Various living moas.
Zoologist David Alderton suggested that the land-dwelling crocodile Mekosuchus, or a near relative, could survive on small, unexplored islands near New Caledonia.
Menehune, "little hairy black men," which Drinnon believes were Celebes apes transported by Polynesians for cultic purposes.