Bunyip: One Of The Best-Known Cryptids From Australian History
Wikimedia CommonsAn 1890 illustration of the bunyip by J. Macfarlane.
Described by the Aboriginal people of Australia as an “evil spirit,” the bunyip is said to be an amphibious animal, resembling either a manatee, hippo, or ox. Some stories also claim that the bunyip has human-like features.
According to the American Museum of Natural History, the bunyip was described in legends as a man-eating monster, dwelling in the rivers, lakes, and swamps of Australia. Its howl was said to travel through the air each night, when it searched the land for women and children to devour.
Australian Aboriginal people told many terrifying stories about the bunyip, which have continued to evolve over time. When European settlers arrived in Australia, fears of the bunyip spread further, with the Australian Museum in Sydney even exhibiting a purported bunyip skull in 1846.
Wikimedia CommonsAn illustration of a skull said to belong to the bunyip, one of the most fascinating cryptids on this list.
At the time, the Sydney Morning Herald even wrote that “almost everyone became immediately aware that he had heard ‘strange sounds’ from the lagoons at night, or had seen ‘something black’ in the water.”
A year later, the Herald reported an eyewitness account of a run-in with a bunyip. A herdsman described the creature as roughly the size of a calf, with “large ears which it pricked up when it perceived him; had a thick mane of hair from the head down the neck, and two large tusks.” According to the report, the herdsman attempted to flee, and as he did so, the creature also seemed to startle and took off in the opposite direction.
Over the years, stories of bunyips have become far less terrifying, and they eventually came to be seen as harmless, grazing animals, not man-eaters.
In 1934, an Australian artist named Gerald Lewers created a sculpture depicting a bunyip as a creature that looked similar to the Diprotodon, a marsupial that lived in Australia until about 10,000 years ago — the fossils of which were often misidentified as the remains of bunyips.
After looking through this list of cryptids, learn about the seven scariest creatures from Native American folklore. Or, check out the nine most terrifying Christmas traditions from around the world.
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