Of Moas and Monsters

By Samantha Henig and Matthew Philips
A photographic tour of our obsession with mysterious, hard-to-find or mythical animals.

Rabid dog? Fanged turtle? Resurrected dinosaur? The creature that allegedly washed ashore in eastern Long Island, N.Y., in late July 2008 caused a flurry of speculation as to where it came from and what the heck it was. Photographs of the "Montauk Monster" (left) made the rounds in the blogosphere, and even got attention on CNN and Fox News. Not to be outdone, Bigfoot jumped back into the headlines two weeks later, when a pair of hunters claimed to discover this corpse (far right) in northern Georgia; it turned out to be a frozen gorilla suit. The human obsession with Bigfoot, the Montauk Monster, and other mysterious or unidentified animals, also known as "cryptids," as well as with those long extinct, is nothing new. We've been on their trail for centuries. Click through a tour of our all-time favorites: