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Description
The Sasquatch, or Big Foot, is the only non-human member of the Higher Primates to possess natural psychic skills. It has long used its mental abilities to avoid humans, being of a peaceable nature. (Although the Sasquatch's mental ability to read is prey's mind make it an excellent hunter, the same ability makes it extremely unpleasant for the Sasquatch to kill anything brighter than a fairly dull rabbit). Given its high intelligence and tendency to bury its dead in well-concealed locations, it was a mostly mythical creature to the early Amerindian settlers, variously seen as helpful, a prankster, or even (most unfairly) outright evil. Rarely encountered Sasquatch bones were used for making powerful ritual medicine, and anyone who actually was afforded a glimpse of one was considered a Shaman in the making.

After Europeans arrived in America, the Sasquatch was forced to withdraw into ever more confined areas as the human population burgeoned, eventually forcing them to resort to the theft of foodstuffs: long thought a myth or extinct by many Europeans in spite of the occasional skull, the first undeniable Sasquatch was shot in 1857 when it underestimated the range of rifle fire while fleeing (it thought) comfortably ahead of its pursuers. After the stuffed animal had made a tour of the nation, various ingenious (and mindless) traps were developed to catch more of them: some Sasquatch ended up in zoos, and rather more were killed. Desperate Sasquatch began to fight back, killing isolated unarmed individuals, stampeding cattle, etc., which led to a national panic, the deliberate setting of forest fires in "suspicious" forests, and the shooting of the Dog-Faced Man at Dr. Lao's Circus of Wonders.

Finally, after a Sasquatch family in hiding in British Columbian woods was able to telepathically contact a Sensitive farm boy, lines of communication were opened. Although not using tools and more complicated than pointy sticks and crudely shaped rocks, Sasquatch intelligence, sharpened by their means of communication, is high enough for them to have succeeded in a form of diplomacy with the US and Canadian governments. Nowadays it is hard to see how the modern legal system could work without Sasquatch to finger culprits, or how much maintaining and protecting from poaching our national parks would cost without the participation of their most notable inhabitants. And then there are all the lost hikers which have been pointed in the right direction by Sasquatch.

The city-dweller will rarely sight a Sasquatch not on TV. In spite of their legal usefulness, Sasquatch will not stay in the city on business for any longer than the absolute possible minimum, and usually stay inside windowless trucks when traversing city streets: contact with so many minds, especially if they are concentrating on them, is painful. Their talents are widely in demand abroad, but few Sasquatch are willing to travel overseas, much less take positions as game wardens in the sweltering African brush.

Sasquatch have full legal protection, but are not full US or Candian citizens, since they do not serve in the army, attend schools (although a few bold Sasquatch had audited university classes) or register to vote, apparently finding human politics too insane to comprehend.

Anti-Sasquatch violence is rare: aside from their ability to detect and avoid hostile minds, few humans really want to anger something than averages some seven and a half feet tall and weighs over 400 pounds (males, that is: females average some 10 inches shorter, but are almost as bulky). In any event, a Sasquatch in their native grounds will usually avoid human sightseers, being of a shy and retiring nature, and not desiring to be gawked at. If one is lucky enough for a Sasquatch to allow him or herself to be seen, please remember to be polite in your thoughts and remember that unless one is a telepathic sensitive (less than 1/20,000 of the population) communication with Sasquatch must be by sign language. Be patient in talking with a Sasquatch: since their normal mode of communication is mental, they tend to overlook a lack of joint understanding and can be cryptic in their communications. If you find yourself thinking that the problem is not your lack of understanding but that the Sasquatch is as thick as a post, one can expect the Sasquatch to use a very well known form of sign language involving one finger and then depart.

The Florida subspecies of Sasquatch, the Skunk Ape, is even larger than the normal variety, and mostly inhabits swamps. It is known for its strong body odor, and habits even shyer and more retiring than the regular Sasquatch: it is theorized that being telepathic, it knows what other people think of its smell, and is terribly embarrassed about the whole thing. Some recent thefts of high-powered deodorants from various Florida pharmacies have led some credence to this theory, although some locals think it's just a practical joke.

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The Great Sea Serpent, as has been known since Linnaeus examined one beached in a storm on the Norwegian coast, is not actually a reptile, but the largest member of the eel family, reaching a maximum length of 120 feet. Although a ferocious carnivore that will eat anything smaller than a whale, it is a deepwater pelagic species rarely seen near shores, and in recorded history there are scarcely a dozen reliable records of swimmers taken by the Sea Serpent, and only rare cases of sailors being pulled off ships, although it is recorded that in the 15th and 16th centuries sailors were so scared of being attacked by sea serpents crossing the Atlantic that many ships actually roofed over their many decks or erected thick cord tenting to induce a sense of safety. (Nobody has ever been taken from a ship with a deck more than 20' feet above the water, but some of the ships of the era were quite small).

The Great Sea Serpent, not being amphibious, is not seen on the surface often enough to have made harpooning it at all profitable, and was not hunted commercially until the early 20th century, when the use of steel cable and massive hooks baited with meat and dangled at depths below those frequented by sharks, combined with explosive-headed harpoons made catching the Serpent, if still not _easy_, at least commercially practical. Most who have tasted it think Sea Serpent tastes terrible, but its body can be processed for a number of valuable oils, and of course it's terrible, fanged jaws are popular with collectors. (East Asians also think, like most large animals, that various of its body parts can restore sexual potency). The world population seems to have dropped considerably between 1910 and the 1970s, when most countries, except Japan and Norway, entered into a fishing moratorium.

It is noted that its body undulates up and down rather than the back-and forth motion of most fish due to its lateral fin construction: this leads to the "many small bumps" profile familiar to Sea Serpent watchers. Portions of its head are phosphorescent, perhaps to act as a lure in the deep seas. There are several species world-wide, the largest being the Atlantic Black, while the Japanese Horse-Headed Serpent of the North Pacific is perhaps the most distinctive in appearance. It's only known predators as an adult are the Orca or killer whale (which, however, will avoid the larger specimens) and, based upon the stomach contents of one washed ashore in Brazil in 1938, the Colossal Octopus of the greater deeps.

Some Polynesian tribes, living on small islands next to deep Ocean floors, were familiar enough with the Serpent to worship it as a God, and famous US missionary Larry "snakeoil" Soames was known to bring along a 3-foot head of an immature Serpent AKA "false God" preserved in alcohol when preaching to the Heathens of the Pacific. Often identified as the Leviathan of the Bible by Christians, the Great Serpent is popularly mythologized as merely the spawn of some vaster sea serpent, which will make an appearance when the End of Days comes, any day now, for sure, and a number of fundamentalists recently picketed the Los Angeles Aquarium for displaying a 50-foot specimen in a tank, which, they claimed, promoted serpent-worship.

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The Mongolian Death Worm is a rare member of the Annelid Phylum, found in Mongolia, some parts of eastern Siberia, and Manchuria. Possessed of a number of unique features, the Death Worm is generally classified in a separate sub-class within the Clitellata, of which it is the only member. Growing to a maximum of 6 feet when extended, the Death Worm is smaller than the giant earthworm of South Africa, but the thickness of its bulky, dark red body means that it does not weigh much less: some specimens have exceeded 2 and ½ ib. upon measurement. A deep-soil burrower, the Death Worm is rarely seen on the surface save in the aftermath of a truly ferocious rainstorm, and is carefully avoided when spotted: if disturbed the Worm may spit a corrosive chemical that can blind if it hits the eyes at a distance of 12-15 feet, and the skin itself exudes a highly irritating chemical that can raise blisters on human skin.

It is reported that one of the Great Khans (reports differ as to which one) kept a pit full of them to drop people who offended him into: it is more reliably reported that Ungern Von Sternberg kept one as a pet during his brief Mongolian rule.

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The Colossal Octopus, the largest of all invertebrates, is rarely seen by humans, even at night rarely rising above 20 meters of depth: its enormous eyes are extremely light-sensitive, and even starlight is bright by its standards. The exact size it unknown, but from those few specimens washed ashore or spotted by deep-sea robotic rovers, the tentacle length may exceed 100 feet and the body 20 feet. It is far tougher and leatherier than the soft-bodied giant squid, and therefore more likely to survive more or less in one piece when washed ashore: sea birds have a tough time eating them until they have had a week or so to decay. It may sometimes be killed by whales, but judging from the terrible scars carried by some Sperm Whales, it may well be that such a contest occasionally has a different winner.

Although there is one reliably witnessed case in the early Middle Ages of a ship pulled down by a Colossal Octopus, this would seem to be atypical behavior, given the photophobia of the Colossal Octopus and perhaps represents a sick or dying specimen. Of course, it may well be that there are other cases which were never reported because they occurred well out to sea and there were no survivors: there are three well-attested cases of small submarines in the modern era having unfortunate encounters with colossal octopi while cruising at depth. The Colossal Octopus is a true omnivore, and will devour anything organic that comes into reach of its tentacles, judging from the stomach contents of beached species: in areas where there is a sheer dropoff into the deep ocean, divers may be at some risk, although realistically sharks provide a more probably menace to the deep-sea diver.

Unlike the Sea Serpent and the Giant Squid, which appear to have world-wide distribution, the Colossal Octopus is a native of the Atlantic. There are no Colossal Octopi in the Mediterranean, but there is a roughly half-sized, shallower water subspecies in the Caribbean, locally known as the Lusca, which occasionally inhabits the island "blue holes" and forms a menace to divers: many of these creatures have been slaughtered by local fishermen in recent decades through the enthusiastic use of dynamite. In 2000-2010, the Shanghai Aquarium gained international fame when it successfully hatched and grew to already impressive size Lusca eggs found by Caribbean fishermen.

How old the Colossal Octopus may live remains uncertain, although studies of those specimens that have washed ashore indicate decades of growth. Also unknown is how intelligent the Octopus may be: its brain is as colossal as the rest of it, and the sheer complexity of phosphorescent color and light patterns on a specimen photographed by robot at 5500 feet has suggested to some a possible means of communication. The notion that the long and jagged-ended piece of whale rib found encircled in the tentacle of a specimen washed ashore in 1958 was a tool – much less a weapon – is of course pooh-poohed by all serious investigators.

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The Umber-backed, or Black Anaconda of the Amazon is the largest of all modern snakes. The longest specimens to be measured top out at about 61 feet, although reliable reports of lengths of up to 70 have been recorded. (Less reliable reports go up to 200 feet: the Brazilians do enjoy a tall story). Even sticking with the more mundane measurements, the Black Anaconda is the only snake in the world to be able to swallow whole a grown man: an aggressive and opportunistic predator, it has often been recorded as doing so.

The Black Anaconda is native to the lands of the Amazonian flood plain: due to its enormous mass, it cannot move quickly on land and is usually found in or around water, whether rivers or lakes or swamps. It is a quick and agile swimmer, and possesses a remarkable sensitivity to movement and vibration, allowing it to detect and seize prey in even the murkiest of waters.
It was feared and worshipped by the Amazonian tribes before the arrival of the Europeans, and settlement of large portions of the upper Amazon and Negro rivers was delayed by the fear generated by these giant serpents. This led to the almost legendary stature in Brazilian culture of o Cacadora da Serpente, the snake hunter. Celebrated in song, story, and cheap pulp magazine, with only his gun, dog, and a few valiant companions the hunter would penetrate the deepest jungle to beard the deadly beast in its lair, often perishing himself in the effort.

Although there are still swaggering, macho snake hunters, reality is much different from what it was: with modern semi-automatic weapons, high explosives, etc. the Black Anaconda is very much the underdog in the contest nowadays, and has been so thoroughly slaughtered as to be extinct outside of a very few, almost impenetrable regions of jungle and swamp. However, the sympathetic nature lover should recall that the Black Anaconda is still one of the world's deadliest predators, and is quite dangerous to the unwary. Back in the 1990s, an ill-equipped National Geographic documentary team lost three members killed by these giants: a largely fictionalized movie version of these events was later made starring Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube.

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The Fairy, or Elf, is in fact a degenerated branch of humanity. Descended from pre-Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles, the Tuatha De Dannan, certain groups of these peoples went into hiding in Ireland and western Britain within the extensive cave systems carved out by their ancestors as part of their worship of their Chthonic Gods: although most became extinct by the early modern era, small populations survived into the modern era by developing a lifestyle based on stealth and a mostly nocturnal lifestyle, poaching, night fishing, orchard raiding, theft of animals, and occasional cannibalism. Given the limited size of populations, inbreeding became a severe problem, leading to the customary habit of child theft to occasionally bring some "fresh blood" into the community. Isolated communities were often frightened into providing "protection money" in the form of dairy goods.

Their relations with the above-ground civilization were not entirely parasitic: if one wanted a murder done and a body disappeared, the Fair Folk were always willing to dicker with one who approached the old mounds at night and made the proper prayers. Also, the Tuatha De Dannan are more psychically sensitive than most humans, and often could uncover secrets and plots when above-grounders were baffled.

Although various British kings and lords attempted to exterminate the "fair folk", the lack of access to their underground communities save by the narrowest and most twisty of tunnels (quite impassable to someone wearing armor), their willingness to commit suicide rather than be captured, their multitude of backup tunnels and alternate residences, their psychic sensitivity, and often the protection of locals who feared their wrath meant that this always ended in failure, although the early Plantagenets apparently managed to reduce their population sharply. The Tuatha De Dannan's population was further reduced by the Black Death (the rat having long been a food animal), to the point where by the 15th century some British writers were expressing disbelief in their very existence, a mistake not made by the Irish. Their population appears to have recovered over the next two centuries, and there was a regular rash of kidnappings and theft of animals and other foodstuffs during the English Civil War, which was generally blamed by the Roundheads and Cavaliers on eachother: not until the 18th century, due to the vigorous propagandizing efforts of Swift, did the government again concentrate on the Fairy problem in Ireland, and later in Wales.

As a result of vigorous efforts to stamp out the Fairies during the Georgian era, including the digging up of mounds, the flooding of tunnels, the use of mantraps, etc., there was a considerable drop-off of activity, and some claimed by the reign of George III the Tuatha De Dannan had become extinct. However, they survived, rarer and warier than ever, and it would not be until the late 19th century that the application of bloodhounds, modern industrial machinery and the organizational abilities of a modern state to the location and digging out of their cave systems that the Fair Folk were finally winkled out of their last refuges.

In spite of the propaganda of such haters as Arthur Machen, resolutions to exile the remaining Tuatha De Dannan to Australia or exterminate them entirely failed to make it through Parliament. In the end, some small acreages of land were set aside for the Tuatha De Dannan and efforts were made to Christianize them and teach them how to farm and maintain a trade.
One occasionally sees them begging on the streets in England or Ireland, short, generally less than four and a half feet tall, with large, pendulous ears and long thin fingers, pale even by British standards, and always wearing dark glasses: a hundred generations of underground and nocturnal existence have evolved night sight far superior to that of non-Fey, but bright sunlight is painful (the Fair Folk also tend to suffer from rather high levels of skin cancer). They have not adopted well to modern conditions, and have not grown in numbers: there has been a bit of a cultural revival in recent decades, however, and the Old Religion, practiced in secret during the era of suppression, has been legal since the 1970s and even attracts some non-Fey followers (although the human sacrifice bit is now Right Out). Some of the old burrows have been reopened, and many have returned to traditional underground living (now with TV).

One thing that many speculate on is whether some "independent Fairies" still exist in the wild: some Fey just drop out of sight occasionally. It seems unlikely that they could hide in a country as densely populated as Britain, but some have moved abroad: and there have been some suspicious reports of sheep-disappearances in the US west and New Zealand…

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The Chupacabra, or Goatsucker, is the largest of the blood-sucking mammals such as the Vampire bat: there are several species, widely distributed from the American southwest to Chile. They are not often seen by people, being cautious and nocturnal, and are usually hunted by tracking to their burrows. (Chupacabra are energetic diggers). The Chupacabra family has historically been classed as part of the Mustelidae, but some recent studies indicate that it may the one remaining descendant of an extremely ancient order of reptile-like mammals.

All five species of Chupacabra are carnivores and bloodsuckers, and four of the species are also scavengers, which may explain the largely hairless nature of all species. They are distinguished by the triple-bite mark inflicted by two upper and one lower (actually a fused pair) enlarged stabbing teeth. All species have a notable spiny dorsal ridge, most prominent in the grey-backed Mexican species, and such "reptilian" features as thick, fleshy tails, low-slung bodies, small ears and formidable non-retractable claws. The brown-spotted Chupacabra most often seen in the US southwest is notable for its ability to leap considerable distances on its large hind legs when threatened, and is physically distinct enough from the other four species that some classify them in a separate family of its own.

Two of the three species seen north of Panama live on diets mostly of blood: the grey Mexican Chupacabra does not even eat carrion and rarely eats internal organs, and is the "purest" bloodsucker of the family: due to this, it must consume large amounts of blood, and is the most common and prolific killer among the species, and carries large bounties when caught. The largest of the Mexican species was occasionally used as a food animal by the Maya and the Aztecs, but due to the impracticality of raising a pure carnivore as a food animal, appears to have been a minor part of their diet. They were disliked on sight by the Spanish Conquistadors, who referred to them as El Perro del Diablo, the Devil's dog.

Chupacabra, like the Coyote, are smart and adaptable, and have so far resisted all efforts to exterminate them, going so far as to infiltrate cattle feedlots to drink the blood of the cattle at night. Like the vampire bat, the Chupacabra has a numbing agent in its saliva that allows it to feed off such large animals without them panicking. There are no reported cases of even the largest species (as large as a good-sized dog) attacking a healthy human, but weak and sick people, and those lost it the wilderness, have occasionally become victims. The smallest species of Chupacabra, the dwarf species of Peru and Chile, is about the size of a smallish cat, and has actually been domesticated by some people, feeding them on internal organs (the bloodier the better). In the US, such people usually wear a lot of black and are considered "creepy."

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The Mokele-mbeme, one of the last of the ancient sauropods, is today found in the wild only in a few regions of the central African jungle. As paleontology has revealed over the last 50 years, a few species of dinosaur survived the great extinction of 60 million years ago, but slowly died off as they were outcompeted by mammal species: currently there are only three known surviving species, the Freshwater Plesiosaur (Plesiosaurus Nessiensus), the dwarf Plesiosaur found in some US lakes, and the Mokele-mbeme (Brontosaurus [1] Africanus). Although currently confined to the densest swamps and jungles of Africa, the Mokele-mbeme appears to have had a wider range in relatively recent times, and appears to have been hunted by Cro-Magnon man along the Nile as recently as 35,000 BC.

Roughly the size of an African elephant, the Mokele-mbeme is a dwarfed version of its ancestors, adapted, like the small forest elephant, for a climax jungle environment. It is grey-brown in color, and relatively thickly built, with a shorter neck and tail, than its ancestors. It is a warm-blooded egg layer, which has survived the aeons by a survival pattern of maximal reproduction, laying roughly one egg a day every day of its 50-year adult lifespan. The great majority of its eggs (in spite of their tough, leathery hides) and chicken-sized newborns fall prey to predators, but with 16,000 chances, the odds are that some survive to adulthood.

The main problem for the last few tens of thousands of years has been human predators, which have led to it extinction over most of its former range, and has decimated the remaining population over the last century, after Lt. Paul Gratz was the first European to put a large-caliber bullet through a Mokele-mbeme's head. Fortunately, the Mokele-mbeme's profligate egg-laying habits have facilitated breeding programs, although the legnth of time to maturity, the voracious appetite, and the tendency to walk right through fences have so far confounded hopes of making the Mokele-mbeme into a valuable stock animal.

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The Yeti, or abominable snowman, is found in Tibet, Nepal and some small areas of Bhutan. Like the Sasquatch of North America, the Yeti is a cold-adapted anthropoid, although less intelligent and lacking the psychic skills of the American species. Generally shorter than the Sasquatch, the Yeti, with its thick-bodied, cold-adpated form rivals it in bulk. It has a long coat of dense fur, which is red-brown in summer and turns snow-white in winter. The feet have unusually thick, cartiligineous soles heavily lined with blood vessels, allowing it to travel across snow and ice without the danger of frostbite. The male Yeti is distinguishable at a distance from the female thanks to the bony sagittal crest which given him his characteristic "cone-headed" look.

Although once widely distributed in high mountain forests and pastures (the legend of the "wild man of the woods" extends from Europe to SE Asia), the Yeti is currently confined to the highest mountains of central Asia, and is considered an endangered species. It is most feared by the locals, since the Yeti is a far more carnivorous omnivore that the American Sasquatch, and eats antelope, bats, cats, camels, goats, leopards, marmots, sheep, pika, ponies, people, rats, sheep, yaks, and especially enjoys rabbits. Although it is too cautious to attack large parties or raid villages, it is a serious threat to solitary hunters and travelers, and small parties camping in the mountains may awake to find one of their members missing in the morning.

In spite of human hostility, up until modern times the Tibetans and Nepalese had been unable to rid themselves of the Yeti, which although not as intelligent as human beings or Sasquatch is quite cunning, able to bound along from rock to rock like a mountain goat or scale cliffs no human can surmount, with enough tool-making skill to use leafy branches or hides to wipe out its trail (giving rise to certain legends of flying abilities), and at times using avalanches to wipe out human pursuers. The Yeti dwells in hidden caves at great elevations, descending to hunt lower down the mountain, and changes residence over time as supplies of prey fluctuate. It's caves often are found littered with all sorts of oddments, the Yeti having a magpie-like taste for collecting things that catch its eye.

Although the first clear description of a Yeti was brought back to Europe by Marco Polo, who observed one in a cage at the court of Kublai Khan, it was not examined scientifically until one was killed during the Younghusband expedition, spotted with binoculars and shot at extreme range by an army sniper while climbing a sheer cliff. Although mangled by the fall, the body proved of considerable interest, and Yeti-hunting is sometimes accounted as one of the reasons for the British annexation of Tibet.

Although a number of Yeti have been captured alive, they do not do well in captivity: they do not breed, and are morose and intractable. Although there has been much study done to determine their intelligence, it is complicated by the fact that Yeti simply do not like human beings, and those who work with Yeti are usually noticeable in a crowd due to the frequency with which they are missing body parts. And Yeti in captivity work hard to make their captors unhappy: they work at escaping with persistence and dedication, and must be kept behind bulletproof glass or heavy wire due to their habit of pitching rocks [2] with great accuracy and strength at anyone coming by to see them.

Given the current Tibetan government's use of modern weapons to drive the Yeti out of areas where they might threaten the human population (which is to say, everywhere except the most barren and desolate areas of the NW) and similar events in Nepal, combined with the continued failure to breed Yeti in captivity, some fear that this proud and lonely giant of the mountains may not last out the 21st century…

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The Umdhelebi tree of Zululand is the only known carnivorous plant to use chemical weaponry against its prey. Growing to a maximum height of 30 feet, with a broad canopy and large, fragile-looking green leaves, the Umdhelebi is distinguished by the black outer bark, which slowly flakes off and is replaced by the greenish under-bark, which in turn blackens. In season it produces small red and black fruits. The tree provides itself with a supply of fertilizer by producing a toxic gas in root nodes with the aid of symbiotic bacteria, which then filters through the soil to the surface. Animals feeding on the fallen fruit, which acts as a lure, soon fall unconscious and then perish, their decay accelerated by a long-term corrosive effect of the gas.

The gas is heavy and low-lying, and the fruit grows on the higher branches: the seeds are spread by a few types of tropical birds, which fly in above the gas and feed on the fruit. Interestingly enough, long-term consumption of the fruit appears to confer some immunity to the gas, minimizing the danger to birds which commonly visit the tree: this appears to be a case of co-evolution. The Umdhelebi is often identified with the mythical Upas tree, but is not found outside of eastern South Africa. It has frequently made appearances in shows about the Perils and Mysteries of Africa, and in movies, often with the rather absurd addition of grasping tendrils and roots.

The Zulu and related tribes considered the tree to be the home of a powerful evil spirit and sacrificed goats to it to appease it: however, if the trees become numerous enough to become a nuisance (long-term unpleasant effects from the gas can occur to anyone who puts their hut as much as 100 yards downwind) a shaman would be hired to "bind" the spirit into the tree so it could not escape and the tree would then be set afire during the dry season with flaming arrows.

The fruit, mildly toxic to humans, has become a minor luxury item for those with a taste for "extreme" foods such as fugu. Largely wiped out by the quite non-reverent British and Boers, the Umdhelebi is now endangered, and a traveler in Zululand will occasionally note 100-meter circular fences with "KEEP OUT! POISON GAS!" signs caging seemingly nothing but grass, bushes – and a tree…

[1] Sometimes known by the obsolete synonym "Apatosaurus"

[2] And if rocks are not available, bits of wood, chunks of exercise equipment, their own feces, etc.

Description
The Sasquatch, or Big Foot, is the only non-human member of the Higher Primates to possess natural psychic skills. It has long used its mental abilities to avoid humans, being of a peaceable nature. (Although the Sasquatch's mental ability to read is prey's mind make it an excellent hunter, the same ability makes it extremely unpleasant for the Sasquatch to kill anything brighter than a fairly dull rabbit). Given its high intelligence and tendency to bury its dead in well-concealed locations, it was a mostly mythical creature to the early Amerindian settlers, variously seen as helpful, a prankster, or even (most unfairly) outright evil. Rarely encountered Sasquatch bones were used for making powerful ritual medicine, and anyone who actually was afforded a glimpse of one was considered a Shaman in the making.

After Europeans arrived in America, the Sasquatch was forced to withdraw into ever more confined areas as the human population burgeoned, eventually forcing them to resort to the theft of foodstuffs: long thought a myth or extinct by many Europeans in spite of the occasional skull, the first undeniable Sasquatch was shot in 1857 when it underestimated the range of rifle fire while fleeing (it thought) comfortably ahead of its pursuers. After the stuffed animal had made a tour of the nation, various ingenious (and mindless) traps were developed to catch more of them: some Sasquatch ended up in zoos, and rather more were killed. Desperate Sasquatch began to fight back, killing isolated unarmed individuals, stampeding cattle, etc., which led to a national panic, the deliberate setting of forest fires in "suspicious" forests, and the shooting of the Dog-Faced Man at Dr. Lao's Circus of Wonders.

Finally, after a Sasquatch family in hiding in British Columbian woods was able to telepathically contact a Sensitive farm boy, lines of communication were opened. Although not using tools and more complicated than pointy sticks and crudely shaped rocks, Sasquatch intelligence, sharpened by their means of communication, is high enough for them to have succeeded in a form of diplomacy with the US and Canadian governments. Nowadays it is hard to see how the modern legal system could work without Sasquatch to finger culprits, or how much maintaining and protecting from poaching our national parks would cost without the participation of their most notable inhabitants. And then there are all the lost hikers which have been pointed in the right direction by Sasquatch.

The city-dweller will rarely sight a Sasquatch not on TV. In spite of their legal usefulness, Sasquatch will not stay in the city on business for any longer than the absolute possible minimum, and usually stay inside windowless trucks when traversing city streets: contact with so many minds, especially if they are concentrating on them, is painful. Their talents are widely in demand abroad, but few Sasquatch are willing to travel overseas, much less take positions as game wardens in the sweltering African brush.

Sasquatch have full legal protection, but are not full US or Candian citizens, since they do not serve in the army, attend schools (although a few bold Sasquatch had audited university classes) or register to vote, apparently finding human politics too insane to comprehend.

Anti-Sasquatch violence is rare: aside from their ability to detect and avoid hostile minds, few humans really want to anger something than averages some seven and a half feet tall and weighs over 400 pounds (males, that is: females average some 10 inches shorter, but are almost as bulky). In any event, a Sasquatch in their native grounds will usually avoid human sightseers, being of a shy and retiring nature, and not desiring to be gawked at. If one is lucky enough for a Sasquatch to allow him or herself to be seen, please remember to be polite in your thoughts and remember that unless one is a telepathic sensitive (less than 1/20,000 of the population) communication with Sasquatch must be by sign language. Be patient in talking with a Sasquatch: since their normal mode of communication is mental, they tend to overlook a lack of joint understanding and can be cryptic in their communications. If you find yourself thinking that the problem is not your lack of understanding but that the Sasquatch is as thick as a post, one can expect the Sasquatch to use a very well known form of sign language involving one finger and then depart.

The Florida subspecies of Sasquatch, the Skunk Ape, is even larger than the normal variety, and mostly inhabits swamps. It is known for its strong body odor, and habits even shyer and more retiring than the regular Sasquatch: it is theorized that being telepathic, it knows what other people think of its smell, and is terribly embarrassed about the whole thing. Some recent thefts of high-powered deodorants from various Florida pharmacies have led some credence to this theory, although some locals think it's just a practical joke.

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The Great Sea Serpent, as has been known since Linnaeus examined one beached in a storm on the Norwegian coast, is not actually a reptile, but the largest member of the eel family, reaching a maximum length of 120 feet. Although a ferocious carnivore that will eat anything smaller than a whale, it is a deepwater pelagic species rarely seen near shores, and in recorded history there are scarcely a dozen reliable records of swimmers taken by the Sea Serpent, and only rare cases of sailors being pulled off ships, although it is recorded that in the 15th and 16th centuries sailors were so scared of being attacked by sea serpents crossing the Atlantic that many ships actually roofed over their many decks or erected thick cord tenting to induce a sense of safety. (Nobody has ever been taken from a ship with a deck more than 20' feet above the water, but some of the ships of the era were quite small).

The Great Sea Serpent, not being amphibious, is not seen on the surface often enough to have made harpooning it at all profitable, and was not hunted commercially until the early 20th century, when the use of steel cable and massive hooks baited with meat and dangled at depths below those frequented by sharks, combined with explosive-headed harpoons made catching the Serpent, if still not _easy_, at least commercially practical. Most who have tasted it think Sea Serpent tastes terrible, but its body can be processed for a number of valuable oils, and of course it's terrible, fanged jaws are popular with collectors. (East Asians also think, like most large animals, that various of its body parts can restore sexual potency). The world population seems to have dropped considerably between 1910 and the 1970s, when most countries, except Japan and Norway, entered into a fishing moratorium.

It is noted that its body undulates up and down rather than the back-and forth motion of most fish due to its lateral fin construction: this leads to the "many small bumps" profile familiar to Sea Serpent watchers. Portions of its head are phosphorescent, perhaps to act as a lure in the deep seas. There are several species world-wide, the largest being the Atlantic Black, while the Japanese Horse-Headed Serpent of the North Pacific is perhaps the most distinctive in appearance. It's only known predators as an adult are the Orca or killer whale (which, however, will avoid the larger specimens) and, based upon the stomach contents of one washed ashore in Brazil in 1938, the Colossal Octopus of the greater deeps.

Some Polynesian tribes, living on small islands next to deep Ocean floors, were familiar enough with the Serpent to worship it as a God, and famous US missionary Larry "snakeoil" Soames was known to bring along a 3-foot head of an immature Serpent AKA "false God" preserved in alcohol when preaching to the Heathens of the Pacific. Often identified as the Leviathan of the Bible by Christians, the Great Serpent is popularly mythologized as merely the spawn of some vaster sea serpent, which will make an appearance when the End of Days comes, any day now, for sure, and a number of fundamentalists recently picketed the Los Angeles Aquarium for displaying a 50-foot specimen in a tank, which, they claimed, promoted serpent-worship.

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The Mongolian Death Worm is a rare member of the Annelid Phylum, found in Mongolia, some parts of eastern Siberia, and Manchuria. Possessed of a number of unique features, the Death Worm is generally classified in a separate sub-class within the Clitellata, of which it is the only member. Growing to a maximum of 6 feet when extended, the Death Worm is smaller than the giant earthworm of South Africa, but the thickness of its bulky, dark red body means that it does not weigh much less: some specimens have exceeded 2 and ½ ib. upon measurement. A deep-soil burrower, the Death Worm is rarely seen on the surface save in the aftermath of a truly ferocious rainstorm, and is carefully avoided when spotted: if disturbed the Worm may spit a corrosive chemical that can blind if it hits the eyes at a distance of 12-15 feet, and the skin itself exudes a highly irritating chemical that can raise blisters on human skin.

It is reported that one of the Great Khans (reports differ as to which one) kept a pit full of them to drop people who offended him into: it is more reliably reported that Ungern Von Sternberg kept one as a pet during his brief Mongolian rule.

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The Colossal Octopus, the largest of all invertebrates, is rarely seen by humans, even at night rarely rising above 20 meters of depth: its enormous eyes are extremely light-sensitive, and even starlight is bright by its standards. The exact size it unknown, but from those few specimens washed ashore or spotted by deep-sea robotic rovers, the tentacle length may exceed 100 feet and the body 20 feet. It is far tougher and leatherier than the soft-bodied giant squid, and therefore more likely to survive more or less in one piece when washed ashore: sea birds have a tough time eating them until they have had a week or so to decay. It may sometimes be killed by whales, but judging from the terrible scars carried by some Sperm Whales, it may well be that such a contest occasionally has a different winner.

Although there is one reliably witnessed case in the early Middle Ages of a ship pulled down by a Colossal Octopus, this would seem to be atypical behavior, given the photophobia of the Colossal Octopus and perhaps represents a sick or dying specimen. Of course, it may well be that there are other cases which were never reported because they occurred well out to sea and there were no survivors: there are three well-attested cases of small submarines in the modern era having unfortunate encounters with colossal octopi while cruising at depth. The Colossal Octopus is a true omnivore, and will devour anything organic that comes into reach of its tentacles, judging from the stomach contents of beached species: in areas where there is a sheer dropoff into the deep ocean, divers may be at some risk, although realistically sharks provide a more probably menace to the deep-sea diver.

Unlike the Sea Serpent and the Giant Squid, which appear to have world-wide distribution, the Colossal Octopus is a native of the Atlantic. There are no Colossal Octopi in the Mediterranean, but there is a roughly half-sized, shallower water subspecies in the Caribbean, locally known as the Lusca, which occasionally inhabits the island "blue holes" and forms a menace to divers: many of these creatures have been slaughtered by local fishermen in recent decades through the enthusiastic use of dynamite. In 2000-2010, the Shanghai Aquarium gained international fame when it successfully hatched and grew to already impressive size Lusca eggs found by Caribbean fishermen.

How old the Colossal Octopus may live remains uncertain, although studies of those specimens that have washed ashore indicate decades of growth. Also unknown is how intelligent the Octopus may be: its brain is as colossal as the rest of it, and the sheer complexity of phosphorescent color and light patterns on a specimen photographed by robot at 5500 feet has suggested to some a possible means of communication. The notion that the long and jagged-ended piece of whale rib found encircled in the tentacle of a specimen washed ashore in 1958 was a tool – much less a weapon – is of course pooh-poohed by all serious investigators.

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The Umber-backed, or Black Anaconda of the Amazon is the largest of all modern snakes. The longest specimens to be measured top out at about 61 feet, although reliable reports of lengths of up to 70 have been recorded. (Less reliable reports go up to 200 feet: the Brazilians do enjoy a tall story). Even sticking with the more mundane measurements, the Black Anaconda is the only snake in the world to be able to swallow whole a grown man: an aggressive and opportunistic predator, it has often been recorded as doing so.

The Black Anaconda is native to the lands of the Amazonian flood plain: due to its enormous mass, it cannot move quickly on land and is usually found in or around water, whether rivers or lakes or swamps. It is a quick and agile swimmer, and possesses a remarkable sensitivity to movement and vibration, allowing it to detect and seize prey in even the murkiest of waters.
It was feared and worshipped by the Amazonian tribes before the arrival of the Europeans, and settlement of large portions of the upper Amazon and Negro rivers was delayed by the fear generated by these giant serpents. This led to the almost legendary stature in Brazilian culture of o Cacadora da Serpente, the snake hunter. Celebrated in song, story, and cheap pulp magazine, with only his gun, dog, and a few valiant companions the hunter would penetrate the deepest jungle to beard the deadly beast in its lair, often perishing himself in the effort.

Although there are still swaggering, macho snake hunters, reality is much different from what it was: with modern semi-automatic weapons, high explosives, etc. the Black Anaconda is very much the underdog in the contest nowadays, and has been so thoroughly slaughtered as to be extinct outside of a very few, almost impenetrable regions of jungle and swamp. However, the sympathetic nature lover should recall that the Black Anaconda is still one of the world's deadliest predators, and is quite dangerous to the unwary. Back in the 1990s, an ill-equipped National Geographic documentary team lost three members killed by these giants: a largely fictionalized movie version of these events was later made starring Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube.

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The Fairy, or Elf, is in fact a degenerated branch of humanity. Descended from pre-Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles, the Tuatha De Dannan, certain groups of these peoples went into hiding in Ireland and western Britain within the extensive cave systems carved out by their ancestors as part of their worship of their Chthonic Gods: although most became extinct by the early modern era, small populations survived into the modern era by developing a lifestyle based on stealth and a mostly nocturnal lifestyle, poaching, night fishing, orchard raiding, theft of animals, and occasional cannibalism. Given the limited size of populations, inbreeding became a severe problem, leading to the customary habit of child theft to occasionally bring some "fresh blood" into the community. Isolated communities were often frightened into providing "protection money" in the form of dairy goods.

Their relations with the above-ground civilization were not entirely parasitic: if one wanted a murder done and a body disappeared, the Fair Folk were always willing to dicker with one who approached the old mounds at night and made the proper prayers. Also, the Tuatha De Dannan are more psychically sensitive than most humans, and often could uncover secrets and plots when above-grounders were baffled.

Although various British kings and lords attempted to exterminate the "fair folk", the lack of access to their underground communities save by the narrowest and most twisty of tunnels (quite impassable to someone wearing armor), their willingness to commit suicide rather than be captured, their multitude of backup tunnels and alternate residences, their psychic sensitivity, and often the protection of locals who feared their wrath meant that this always ended in failure, although the early Plantagenets apparently managed to reduce their population sharply. The Tuatha De Dannan's population was further reduced by the Black Death (the rat having long been a food animal), to the point where by the 15th century some British writers were expressing disbelief in their very existence, a mistake not made by the Irish. Their population appears to have recovered over the next two centuries, and there was a regular rash of kidnappings and theft of animals and other foodstuffs during the English Civil War, which was generally blamed by the Roundheads and Cavaliers on eachother: not until the 18th century, due to the vigorous propagandizing efforts of Swift, did the government again concentrate on the Fairy problem in Ireland, and later in Wales.

As a result of vigorous efforts to stamp out the Fairies during the Georgian era, including the digging up of mounds, the flooding of tunnels, the use of mantraps, etc., there was a considerable drop-off of activity, and some claimed by the reign of George III the Tuatha De Dannan had become extinct. However, they survived, rarer and warier than ever, and it would not be until the late 19th century that the application of bloodhounds, modern industrial machinery and the organizational abilities of a modern state to the location and digging out of their cave systems that the Fair Folk were finally winkled out of their last refuges.

In spite of the propaganda of such haters as Arthur Machen, resolutions to exile the remaining Tuatha De Dannan to Australia or exterminate them entirely failed to make it through Parliament. In the end, some small acreages of land were set aside for the Tuatha De Dannan and efforts were made to Christianize them and teach them how to farm and maintain a trade.
One occasionally sees them begging on the streets in England or Ireland, short, generally less than four and a half feet tall, with large, pendulous ears and long thin fingers, pale even by British standards, and always wearing dark glasses: a hundred generations of underground and nocturnal existence have evolved night sight far superior to that of non-Fey, but bright sunlight is painful (the Fair Folk also tend to suffer from rather high levels of skin cancer). They have not adopted well to modern conditions, and have not grown in numbers: there has been a bit of a cultural revival in recent decades, however, and the Old Religion, practiced in secret during the era of suppression, has been legal since the 1970s and even attracts some non-Fey followers (although the human sacrifice bit is now Right Out). Some of the old burrows have been reopened, and many have returned to traditional underground living (now with TV).

One thing that many speculate on is whether some "independent Fairies" still exist in the wild: some Fey just drop out of sight occasionally. It seems unlikely that they could hide in a country as densely populated as Britain, but some have moved abroad: and there have been some suspicious reports of sheep-disappearances in the US west and New Zealand…

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The Chupacabra, or Goatsucker, is the largest of the blood-sucking mammals such as the Vampire bat: there are several species, widely distributed from the American southwest to Chile. They are not often seen by people, being cautious and nocturnal, and are usually hunted by tracking to their burrows. (Chupacabra are energetic diggers). The Chupacabra family has historically been classed as part of the Mustelidae, but some recent studies indicate that it may the one remaining descendant of an extremely ancient order of reptile-like mammals.

All five species of Chupacabra are carnivores and bloodsuckers, and four of the species are also scavengers, which may explain the largely hairless nature of all species. They are distinguished by the triple-bite mark inflicted by two upper and one lower (actually a fused pair) enlarged stabbing teeth. All species have a notable spiny dorsal ridge, most prominent in the grey-backed Mexican species, and such "reptilian" features as thick, fleshy tails, low-slung bodies, small ears and formidable non-retractable claws. The brown-spotted Chupacabra most often seen in the US southwest is notable for its ability to leap considerable distances on its large hind legs when threatened, and is physically distinct enough from the other four species that some classify them in a separate family of its own.

Two of the three species seen north of Panama live on diets mostly of blood: the grey Mexican Chupacabra does not even eat carrion and rarely eats internal organs, and is the "purest" bloodsucker of the family: due to this, it must consume large amounts of blood, and is the most common and prolific killer among the species, and carries large bounties when caught. The largest of the Mexican species was occasionally used as a food animal by the Maya and the Aztecs, but due to the impracticality of raising a pure carnivore as a food animal, appears to have been a minor part of their diet. They were disliked on sight by the Spanish Conquistadors, who referred to them as El Perro del Diablo, the Devil's dog.

Chupacabra, like the Coyote, are smart and adaptable, and have so far resisted all efforts to exterminate them, going so far as to infiltrate cattle feedlots to drink the blood of the cattle at night. Like the vampire bat, the Chupacabra has a numbing agent in its saliva that allows it to feed off such large animals without them panicking. There are no reported cases of even the largest species (as large as a good-sized dog) attacking a healthy human, but weak and sick people, and those lost it the wilderness, have occasionally become victims. The smallest species of Chupacabra, the dwarf species of Peru and Chile, is about the size of a smallish cat, and has actually been domesticated by some people, feeding them on internal organs (the bloodier the better). In the US, such people usually wear a lot of black and are considered "creepy."

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The Mokele-mbeme, one of the last of the ancient sauropods, is today found in the wild only in a few regions of the central African jungle. As paleontology has revealed over the last 50 years, a few species of dinosaur survived the great extinction of 60 million years ago, but slowly died off as they were outcompeted by mammal species: currently there are only three known surviving species, the Freshwater Plesiosaur (Plesiosaurus Nessiensus), the dwarf Plesiosaur found in some US lakes, and the Mokele-mbeme (Brontosaurus [1] Africanus). Although currently confined to the densest swamps and jungles of Africa, the Mokele-mbeme appears to have had a wider range in relatively recent times, and appears to have been hunted by Cro-Magnon man along the Nile as recently as 35,000 BC.

Roughly the size of an African elephant, the Mokele-mbeme is a dwarfed version of its ancestors, adapted, like the small forest elephant, for a climax jungle environment. It is grey-brown in color, and relatively thickly built, with a shorter neck and tail, than its ancestors. It is a warm-blooded egg layer, which has survived the aeons by a survival pattern of maximal reproduction, laying roughly one egg a day every day of its 50-year adult lifespan. The great majority of its eggs (in spite of their tough, leathery hides) and chicken-sized newborns fall prey to predators, but with 16,000 chances, the odds are that some survive to adulthood.

The main problem for the last few tens of thousands of years has been human predators, which have led to it extinction over most of its former range, and has decimated the remaining population over the last century, after Lt. Paul Gratz was the first European to put a large-caliber bullet through a Mokele-mbeme's head. Fortunately, the Mokele-mbeme's profligate egg-laying habits have facilitated breeding programs, although the legnth of time to maturity, the voracious appetite, and the tendency to walk right through fences have so far confounded hopes of making the Mokele-mbeme into a valuable stock animal.

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The Yeti, or abominable snowman, is found in Tibet, Nepal and some small areas of Bhutan. Like the Sasquatch of North America, the Yeti is a cold-adapted anthropoid, although less intelligent and lacking the psychic skills of the American species. Generally shorter than the Sasquatch, the Yeti, with its thick-bodied, cold-adpated form rivals it in bulk. It has a long coat of dense fur, which is red-brown in summer and turns snow-white in winter. The feet have unusually thick, cartiligineous soles heavily lined with blood vessels, allowing it to travel across snow and ice without the danger of frostbite. The male Yeti is distinguishable at a distance from the female thanks to the bony sagittal crest which given him his characteristic "cone-headed" look.

Although once widely distributed in high mountain forests and pastures (the legend of the "wild man of the woods" extends from Europe to SE Asia), the Yeti is currently confined to the highest mountains of central Asia, and is considered an endangered species. It is most feared by the locals, since the Yeti is a far more carnivorous omnivore that the American Sasquatch, and eats antelope, bats, cats, camels, goats, leopards, marmots, sheep, pika, ponies, people, rats, sheep, yaks, and especially enjoys rabbits. Although it is too cautious to attack large parties or raid villages, it is a serious threat to solitary hunters and travelers, and small parties camping in the mountains may awake to find one of their members missing in the morning.

In spite of human hostility, up until modern times the Tibetans and Nepalese had been unable to rid themselves of the Yeti, which although not as intelligent as human beings or Sasquatch is quite cunning, able to bound along from rock to rock like a mountain goat or scale cliffs no human can surmount, with enough tool-making skill to use leafy branches or hides to wipe out its trail (giving rise to certain legends of flying abilities), and at times using avalanches to wipe out human pursuers. The Yeti dwells in hidden caves at great elevations, descending to hunt lower down the mountain, and changes residence over time as supplies of prey fluctuate. It's caves often are found littered with all sorts of oddments, the Yeti having a magpie-like taste for collecting things that catch its eye.

Although the first clear description of a Yeti was brought back to Europe by Marco Polo, who observed one in a cage at the court of Kublai Khan, it was not examined scientifically until one was killed during the Younghusband expedition, spotted with binoculars and shot at extreme range by an army sniper while climbing a sheer cliff. Although mangled by the fall, the body proved of considerable interest, and Yeti-hunting is sometimes accounted as one of the reasons for the British annexation of Tibet.

Although a number of Yeti have been captured alive, they do not do well in captivity: they do not breed, and are morose and intractable. Although there has been much study done to determine their intelligence, it is complicated by the fact that Yeti simply do not like human beings, and those who work with Yeti are usually noticeable in a crowd due to the frequency with which they are missing body parts. And Yeti in captivity work hard to make their captors unhappy: they work at escaping with persistence and dedication, and must be kept behind bulletproof glass or heavy wire due to their habit of pitching rocks [2] with great accuracy and strength at anyone coming by to see them.

Given the current Tibetan government's use of modern weapons to drive the Yeti out of areas where they might threaten the human population (which is to say, everywhere except the most barren and desolate areas of the NW) and similar events in Nepal, combined with the continued failure to breed Yeti in captivity, some fear that this proud and lonely giant of the mountains may not last out the 21st century…

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The Umdhelebi tree of Zululand is the only known carnivorous plant to use chemical weaponry against its prey. Growing to a maximum height of 30 feet, with a broad canopy and large, fragile-looking green leaves, the Umdhelebi is distinguished by the black outer bark, which slowly flakes off and is replaced by the greenish under-bark, which in turn blackens. In season it produces small red and black fruits. The tree provides itself with a supply of fertilizer by producing a toxic gas in root nodes with the aid of symbiotic bacteria, which then filters through the soil to the surface. Animals feeding on the fallen fruit, which acts as a lure, soon fall unconscious and then perish, their decay accelerated by a long-term corrosive effect of the gas.

The gas is heavy and low-lying, and the fruit grows on the higher branches: the seeds are spread by a few types of tropical birds, which fly in above the gas and feed on the fruit. Interestingly enough, long-term consumption of the fruit appears to confer some immunity to the gas, minimizing the danger to birds which commonly visit the tree: this appears to be a case of co-evolution. The Umdhelebi is often identified with the mythical Upas tree, but is not found outside of eastern South Africa. It has frequently made appearances in shows about the Perils and Mysteries of Africa, and in movies, often with the rather absurd addition of grasping tendrils and roots.

The Zulu and related tribes considered the tree to be the home of a powerful evil spirit and sacrificed goats to it to appease it: however, if the trees become numerous enough to become a nuisance (long-term unpleasant effects from the gas can occur to anyone who puts their hut as much as 100 yards downwind) a shaman would be hired to "bind" the spirit into the tree so it could not escape and the tree would then be set afire during the dry season with flaming arrows.

The fruit, mildly toxic to humans, has become a minor luxury item for those with a taste for "extreme" foods such as fugu. Largely wiped out by the quite non-reverent British and Boers, the Umdhelebi is now endangered, and a traveler in Zululand will occasionally note 100-meter circular fences with "KEEP OUT! POISON GAS!" signs caging seemingly nothing but grass, bushes – and a tree…

[1] Sometimes known by the obsolete synonym "Apatosaurus"

[2] And if rocks are not available, bits of wood, chunks of exercise equipment, their own feces, etc.