History Literature / Cryptozoologicon

* NotSoExtinct: Some cryptids said to be surviving specimens of prehistoric animals are examined. However, in most cases they get decidedly non-prehistoric origins, like the Row and Mbielu-Mbielu-Mbielu being a tortoise and an amphibious fish rather than dinosaurs. The only true example is the Waitoreke, in this case speculated to be a descendant of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Bathans_mammal Saint Bathans mammal]].

* StockNessMonster: Nessie itself is conspicuously absent from volume 1, though many other sea monsters are covered. A surprising number turn out to be mammals.

* MythologyGag: One suspects they only included the Californian Giant Salamanders (a very obscure cryptid that is almost certainly just an escaped/feral imported Asian Giant Salamander) so they could make another reference to the infamous [[HumanoidAbomination "Homo diluvii" testis]].

** It's also a bit of FridgeBrilliance, as preying exclusively on scavengers would have allowed the creatures to indirectly take advantage of the worldwide carrion economy created by the K-Pg event, thus giving a justification of how they managed to outlast other plesiosaur lineages.
* SandWorm: Averted. The South American cryptid known as the Minhocao, while usually depicted as one, is instead speculated to simply be an extremely large snake.

* SpeculativeBiology: Tries to re-interpret cryptids as plausible animals.
* SpoofAesop: Quite frequently, it declares that the fact that cryptids are now vanishing is proof that we need to support conservation to save them.

* TheyCalledMeMad: The speculative sections are often written in this tone in an effort to stay true to the style of the "genuine" cryptozoological literature.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Again we say it: Giant. Vampire. Possums.

Volume 1 of a planned series is now available in both E-book and dead tree formats, with more volumes planned for the future, though Volume 2 is in DevelopmentHell.

* {{Megalodon}}: Alleged sightings of surviving megalodon are said to be the result of megalodon evolving to spend most of its time in deep water. Though they also suggest that it may have changed enough to warrant being classified as a different species, with the proposed scientific name ''Carcharocles modernicus''.

A 2013 book by the SpeculativeBiology DreamTeam of ''Blog/TetrapodZoology'''s Darren Naish, John Conway and C.M. Koseman, hot on the heels of their game-changing paleontology book ''Literature/AllYesterdays'', ''The Cryptozoologicon'' takes their earlier work's premise of challenging the public's preconceptions of various enigmatic creatures that have captured the imaginations of generations of people with new speculative visions crafted with a strong grounding in biology, and turns it from extinct dinosaurs to the weird and wonderful world of cryptids: those elusive mystery animals, the [[BigfootSasquatchAndYeti Bigfoots]][[note]]Big[[PerplexingPlurals feet]]?[[/note]], [[StockNessMonster Nessies]] and many others unknown to modern science, sought after by a handful of intrepid seekers.

* TurtlePower: A supposed "living dinosaur" is "revealed" to be a member of the tortoise family that has convergently evolved into a kind of reptilian giraffe.

* NotSoExtinct: Some cryptids said to be surviving specimens of prehistoric animals are examined. However, in most cases they get decidedly non-prehistoric origins, like the Row and Mbielu-Mbielu-Mbielu being a tortoise and a terrestrial fish rather than dinosaurs. The only true example is the Waitoreke, in this case speculated to be a continuation of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Bathans_mammal Saint Bathans mammal]].

* NotSoExtinct: Some cryptids said to be surviving specimens of prehistoric animals are examined.

* GreenAesop: A slightly tongue in cheek one, where the speculative sections often mention that maybe the reason nobody can find these animals is because people keep driving them to extinction.

* NonIndicativeName: Goatman is neither a goat, nor a man, he's a very big monkey. The RealLife ''Basilosaurus'', a fossil initially believed to be a sea snake which later turned out to be an early species of whale, also gets a mention.

* ValuesDissonance: The rather terrifying De Loys' Ape is believed to have been the product of a now-discredited racial theory about Native Americans. The fact that one of the people responsible for the hoax later became a Nazi collaborator lends some pretty decent weight to this theory. [[invoked]]

* BigCreepyCrawlies: Fookin' prawns the size of whales, mun! While living in the water would allow it to dodge the SquareCubeLaw, the book is oddly silent about how an arthropod's notoriously inefficient breathing system would cope with the increase in size (despite mentioning this very problem earlier in the chapter). Then again, considering their own diagram points out how big it is, it's very likely they were taking the piss at that point, as if to say that the entire concept is so absurd that a whale-sized prawn is no less absurd than the "official" suggestions.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: Fookin' prawns the size of whales, mun! While living in the water would allow it to dodge the SquareCubeLaw, the book is oddly silent about how an arthropod's notoriously inefficient breathing system would cope with the increase in size (despite mentioning this very problem earlier in the chapter). Then again, considering their own diagram points out how big it is, it's very likely they were taking the piss at that point, as if to say that the entire concept is so absurd that a whale-sized prawn seems to be on equal parity to the "official" suggestions.

* ScienceIsBad: Frequently mentioned in the sections from the perspective of cryptozoologists.

* OueKelpiesAreDifferent: Not carnivorous aquatic horses, but giant relatives of the water chevrotain. [[note]] a semi-aquatic hoofed mammal sometimes called the "mouse-deer", found in Africa [[/note]]

* SandWorm: Averted. The South American cryptid known as the Minhocao, while usually depicted as one, is instead speculated to be a really, really big snake.