Serpentine Cryptids

The legendary lake serpent of Scotland, photographed, sonar-scanned, and never found.

A fat, stumpy snake that supposedly jumps, speaks, and has a taste for alcohol.

America's own lake monster, surfacing in the waters between Vermont and New York.

Iceland's answer to the Loch Ness Monster lives in a glacial river-lake and may have been sighted on camera in 2012.

A blood-red worm said to kill with electric shocks and acid venom from beneath the Gobi sands.

Canada's answer to Nessie, coiling through the depths of Okanagan Lake.

Something enormous has been surfacing in an Argentine lake for over a century.

Hundreds of witnesses watched a giant serpent patrol Gloucester Harbor for weeks in 1817.

A legless or two-legged dragon slithers through Scandinavian and Germanic legends as a creature of both terror and strange wisdom.

Sweden's most famous lake monster has been reported for centuries and was officially designated a protected species in 1986.

A serpentine creature reported in the Chesapeake Bay for half a century, caught on video in 1982.

Scotland's other lake monster lurks in the deepest freshwater loch in the British Isles, far from the tourist cameras of Loch Ness.

A humped sea serpent has been spotted off the coast of Cornwall since the 1900s, sometimes close enough to shore that beachgoers scatter.

A serpentine lake dweller hiding in the frigid depths of Lake Tahoe since Washoe legend.

A horse-headed sea serpent weaving through the waters of the Pacific Northwest.

A serpent with a woman's head that haunts riverbanks, cradling a phantom baby to paralyze its prey.

Norway's lake monster has been sighted over 500 times in a small mountain lake, making it one of the most reported freshwater cryptids in Europe.

Georgia's river serpent, a long-necked mystery lurking in the murky Altamaha.

South African legend says the gods made a creature so powerful they had to split it into elephants and snakes.

The largest Great Lake may harbor the largest Great Lake monster, a creature linked to Ojibwe legends of the underwater panther.

Deep in the Amazon, locals say a snake longer than a river is wide guards the waterways.

A serpentine terror of Bear Lake, first reported by Mormon settlers and Shoshone alike.

Russia's lake monster reportedly swallowed a Mongol war party's horses whole and has been spotted by modern fishermen with sonar equipment.

Japan's answer to Nessie lives in a volcanic crater lake on the southern tip of Kyushu.

Lake Manitoba's serpentine lake monster has been reported by Indigenous communities for centuries and photographed at least twice.

An enormous gray creature that churned the White River and earned state legal protection.

Nine bodies pulled from a South African river in 1997 were all missing their faces and brains.

A lake monster lurks in the cross-border waters of Lake Memphremagog, spotted from both the Quebec and Vermont shores.

A plesiosaur-shaped creature in the murky tidal waters north of Sydney, reported by fishermen for over a century.

West African elders say that anyone who sees this swamp dragon dies shortly after.

A segmented, armored sea creature with dozens of lateral fins, washed ashore in Vietnam in 1883.

When devastating storms hit KwaZulu-Natal, the Zulu say a giant winged serpent is rising from the falls.

Entire sections of Brazilian forest have collapsed into tunnels dug by something impossibly large.

A shapeshifting flying serpent from Chilean forests that drains the blood of livestock from the air.

A Finnish forest spirit that spreads disease and madness to anyone who catches a glimpse of her moving through the trees.

A 40-foot beast in a shallow Nebraska lake, where something that size should have nowhere to hide.

A giant serpent of the Australian interior, thick as a tree trunk, still reported near remote waterholes.