Giant Snakes of the Mediterranean and North Africa

Mediterranean Giant Snake
Large Snake of Southern Europe. Variant name: Colovia.
Physical description: Length, 6–33 feet. Green. Distribution: Southern Spain; southern France; northern and central Italy; Greece; Serbia. Significant sightings: On July 22, 1969, a 7- foot, green snake caused a traffic accident when it crossed a road near Chinchilla de Monte Aragón, Albicete Province, Spain. A 6-foot snake with a huge head was seen several times on a farm in Orihuela, Alicante Province, Spain, in June 1970. A monstrous serpent with a mane and a head like a baby’s was seen in July 1973 near Aceuche, Cáceres Province, Spain. Snakes up to 33 feet long have been seen on Ovcˇar Mountain near Cacˇak, Serbia. Near Ivanjica in the summer of 2000, a bus had to stop because a 33-foot snake was crossing the road. Possible explanation: Stray specimens of the poisonous Montpellier snake (Malpolon monspessulanus), a gray, brownish, or olive-colored colubrid snake that can attain a length of 9 feet. It lives along the coasts of Spain, southern France, and Liguria in Italy; in North Africa from Morocco to Tunisia; and in Cyprus, Greece, and the Balkans. However, it may be expanding its range. Sources: Ulrich Magin, “European Dragons: The Tatzelwurm,” Pursuit, no. 73 (1986): 16–22; Bernard Heuvelmans, “Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals with Which Cryptozoology Is Concerned,” Cryptozoology 5 (1986): 1–26; Paolo Cortesi, “The Big Serpent,” INFO Journal, no. 71 (Autumn 1994): 49–50; Marcus Scibanicus, “Strange Creatures from Slavic Folklore,” North American BioFortean Review 3, no. 2 (October 2001): 56–63, http://www.strangeark.com/nabr/NABR7.pdf.
(Entry from George Eberhart, Mysterious Creatures, 2002)

Colovia Unknown Snake of Southern Europe.
Physical description: Serpentine. Length, 11 feet. Scaly. Distribution: Sicily, Italy. Significant sighting: A snakelike animal was tracked down and killed in a marsh near Siracusa, Sicily, in December 1933. It was destroyed because local superstition held that its appearance presaged disaster. Possible explanation: Escaped python or boa (Family Boidae). Source: Times (London), December 27 and 29, 1933.
(Entry from George Eberhart, Mysterious Creatures, 2002)


"In 193[3] there were reports of farmers near Syracuse, in Sicily, being menaced by a huge and unusual snake that supposedly had a head like a dinosaur. Hunting parties were organised, and it was killed."—Dragons, a Natural History by Dr Karl Shuker, 1995, Aurum Press Ltd, London.
http://www.fairservicenz.com/dinosaur/dinosaur-6.html
[The artwork is obviously not showing an 11 foot long creature and one more nearly 30 feet long is more likely. It is shown undulating in "Sea Serpent" style although the head seems to indicate the body is lying on its side and the undulations are therefore horizontal ones -DD]

http://www.jerryboucher.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ftl/ftl02.htm
1933 –  water monster seen in marshy area linked to sea (nr. Perugia, Italy); 11-foot reptile seen and killed, carcass later burnt (nr. Syracuse, Sicily); water monster seen at river mouth (River Ticino, Italy); 90-foot creature seen in water – later, a similar creature seen ashore (St. Lucia Lake, Natal, South Africa)

St Lucia Lake SS 1933 based on account given by Charles Higgs and family

One of Heuvelmans' more definite "SuperEels" of the large category,

 and I maintain that classification as one of the defining "Titanocongers"  

Saharan Crested Snake
Giant SNAKE of North Africa. Variant name: Taguerga.
Physical description: Length, 30–120 feet. Dark brown with black diamonds on back. Whitish below with dark-gray stripes. Pointed snout. Black crest about 4 inches long on head. Large, chestnut eyes. Thicker body segment about 13 feet long behind a thin neck. Rest of tail tapers to a point. Behavior: Drinks motor oil. Distribution: Algeria; Tunisia. Significant sightings: In 255 B.C. during the First Punic War, after a lengthy struggle in which catapults and siege engines were put to use, the legions of Roman consul Marius Atilius Regulus killed an enormous snake, 120 feet long, along the Wadi Majardah in Tunisia. Its skin and jaws were taken to Rome and publicly displayed in a temple until 133 B.C. Africanus Leo wrote in the sixteenth century that large, venomous dragons lived in caves in the Atlas Mountains in North Africa. Charles Tissot wrote in 1884 about a venomous snake in the Tunisian Sahara called the Taguerga, which grows 12–15 feet long. In 1958, Belkhouriss Abd el-Khader, an Algerian who served in the French army at Beni Ounif, Algeria, was bitten by a giant snake about 43 feet long. The snake was killed and its skin preserved, though it has since been lost. In 1959, a 120-foot snake with a crest 3 feet long was killed at a garrison near Aïn Sefra, Algeria, by a French battalion, the Twenty-Sixth Dragoons, commanded by Captains Grassin and Laveau. It had been trapped in a trench filled with branches by nomads and had just eaten a camel. The soldiers’ carbines were not sufficient to kill it, so they dispatched it with machine guns. On January 6 or 7, 1967, a crested serpent about 30 feet long was seen at the construction site of the Djorf-Torba dam east of Béchar, Algeria, by worker Hamza Rahmani, who wedged it against some rocks with his bulldozer. Its teeth were hooked and nearly 2.5 inches long. At Djorf-Torba in late 1967, Hamza Rahmani came across the track of a snake leading to barrels of oil that it had been in the habit of drinking. A few days later, he saw the snake coiled in the shadow of a pile of crushed rock. He estimated its length as 18–23 feet. Possible explanations: (1) The African rock python (Python sebae), though it only reaches a length of 30–33 feet. It lives in forests south of the Sahara, not in the desert, but it is possible some may subsist in remote pockets of tropical vegetation in North Africa. A Dr. Bougon thought that the Punic War snakeskin may actually have been a python’s intestine, which would be 120 feet long in a 33-foot snake. Charles Tissot thought the skin may have been artificially stretched. (2) The venomous Puff adder (Bitis arietans), which lives in southern Morocco and grows to only 4 feet 6 inches but can appear much larger. (3) The Horned viper (Cerastes cerastes), though it is only about 2 feet long. (4) An exaggerated Levantine viper (Vipera lebetina), known in Arabic as taguerjah. (5) An unknown species of viper 7 feet long, based on the size of the teeth recovered from the Djorf-Torba snake, if it was venomous. The small Many-horned viper (Bitis cornuta) of South Africa has a small crest. (6) An unknown species of python 33–48 feet long, also based on the size of the Djorf-Torba teeth, if they came from a nonvenomous snake. (7) A surviving Gigantophis garstini, a North African python that reached 30 feet and lived 55 million years ago. Sources: Valerius Maximus, Dictorum et factorum memorabilium libri novem, I. 8.19; Aulus Gellius, The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, trans. John C. Rolfe (London: William Heinemann, 1927–1928), vol. 2, p. 101 (VII. 3); Dio Cassius, Roman History, X; Julius Obsequens, Prodigiorum liber, 29; Africanus Leo, A Geographical Historie of Africa (London: G. Bishop, 1600); Charles Tissot, Exploration scientifique de la Tunisie (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1884–1888), vol. 1, pp. 329–335; Bougon, “Les serpents de cent vingt pieds,” Le Naturaliste 23 (1901): 56–57; Bernard Heuvelmans, Les derniers dragons d’Afrique (Paris: Plon, 1978), pp. 19–43; Helfried Weyer and Henri Lhote, Sahara (Bern, Switzerland: Kümmerly and Frey, 1980).
(Entry from George Eberhart, Mysterious Creatures, 2002)

[There are evidently some real and mundane snakes represented here plus two sets of larger reports which have unusual features. It may be that some of the European reports of giant snakes are Montpelier snakes as Heuvelmans suggests on his checklist, but that is only the reports in the realm of 6-9 feet long. It might also be that there are some large unknown vipers of North Africa in the same size range: these would be Bitis vipers and might have some sort of a spiny back crest. And there probably are pythons in North Africa surviving on the fringes of the desert. However there are also a couple of very unusual "Snakes" which include the "Dinosaur" headed ones in Sicily, the 33 foot long "Snakes" in Sicily and Serbia are more likely the medium-sized giant eels or "Megacongers" that have wandered overland in going from one body of water to another, as lesser eels are known to do. These are big and dull greyish or olive brown, more or less an even colouring all over. Some of the Saharan snakes belong to this category and they have a "Mane or fin" on the back (The same type is also reported in South Africa) More unusual and more arresting is the really huge giant eel, the Titanoconger, reported as 80-120 feet long, some specimens of which evidently get lost and are dying when looking for larger bodies of water in the Sahara. And I do not know what kind of creature was drinking out of the oil drums, or even if that had actually happened rather than being an excuse somebody had made up to account for stolen fuel supplies.--DD]

Doing the Scales Again

This time around I thought I would do some Cryptozoology recaps from this site because we have been reviewing several Cryptids that are not on such things as the Checklists done by Heuvelmans and Shuker. These are Cryptids that for the most part are not adequately covered b the other sources. The one above is a revised version of the comparative chart from the article Whale Scale and it includes, top, the Emu carcass creature, possibly a type of beaked whale built along the lines of a zueglodon: Charcharodon megalodon in the midle and then the Tusked Whale below. The Southern Narwhal and Southern Walrus might or might not be identical to this last species: my feeling currently is that they are each distinct. Below is my set of true Sea-serpents derived from Heuvelmans' book and deleting the forms which I thought were invalid: it is still also possible that the Yellow-belly is a peculiar shark, but it remains poorly defined and poorly supported by reports. This version replaces Gambo with a shortnecked Plesiosaur after Tyler Stone's interpretation.

Since we just ran the Longnecked reconstructions chart here last time, I thought it was appropriate to include it along with the last chart. I also do support the Longnecked big sealion of Heuvelmans under his name of "Megalotaria", but some question persist as to exactly how long-necked it might be. There is only very fragmentary evidence for it, and some of the reports could refer only to a fairly standard type of sealion nor fur seal. There is also evidence for a North Atlantic elephant seal, but more definite evidence is needed before we can say it would be an unidentified species. The credit for identifying the type as a distinct Cryptid category probably goes to Roy Mackal.

Another largely ignored Cryptid category is a kind of giant grouper, here illustrated by Tim Morris

The very large and spidery Giant Spiders of Africa are more likely to be giant spidery land-crabs if there is any substance to the story at all. Along with this are several reports of coconut crabs turning up in various tropical locations "Where they are not supposed to be"

 On the article about Tatzelwurms, it became evident that multiple creatures were also being included under that heading in the various sightings. Some of the reports sounded like Ulrich Magin's candidate, a kind of giant salamander, which is known from the Orient but is rumored as a "Water Monster" from all over the Northern hemisphere including also North America. The more unusual Tatzelwurm seems to be a large two-legged burrowing Amphisbaena lizard suspected of being venomous (the Mongolian Death Worm could be something similar but is more likely a kind of conventional venomous snake) and some of the reports are "Chupacabras"-in this case meaning foxes that had lost most of their hair. The lizards are perhaps a yard long and the salamanders at one or two yards long for the most part (yards being about 90 cm each)

A distinctive type of "Marine Saurian" turns out to be the same as the Medcroc (probably including Tarasque) and the "Great Horned alligator" of the Mississippi delta and associated areas. It is like a larger version of Crocodylus porosis at double the dimensions and better adapted to swimming at the high seas, although it still must go into freshwaters to breed. As a parallel to this, there seems to be another kind of "Crocodile monitor" at double the usual dimensions, that shares the range of the more standard C. porosis. It is illustrated in the table below. Since there are claims for specimens much larger than the accepted maxima in both the accepted crocodile and monitor lizard categories, there is a slight chance we have mislabelled specimens from both species in our collections already.

Below is a more elaborate mockup chart for unknown species of monitor lizards, mostly using komodo dragons staged to the correct relative sizes. The really big one at top is the Australian Varanus priscus, more commonly (but erroneously) called"Megalania." The "Congo Dragon"  (monitor) might be as long but more thinly built throughout. There are also other (?Komodo-dragon-sized) monitors rumoured in both Madagascar and New Zealand, but the information is not good enough to determine if they are distinct species. The "Buru" (shown on the chart) might also be a separate, cold-adapted, highlands Asiatic species. Heuvelmans counts it as the same species as the "Sea Crocodile monitor" (shown at the bottom of this chart) but there is some room for doubt.

As far as the New World unknown lizards go, for the most part we might be dealing with one wide-ranging species of really big iguanas which tends to have different appearance and different habits at each growth-stage, also becoming very much larger through the various growth stages, and possibly with some variation betyween different geographic populations. The small ones are hardly any larger than a common iguana and greatly resembles that species (they could be cogeneric) but is more prone to running on its hind limbs like some other species of Iguanids (and not Iguana) The best evidence  is that large ones are albout the same length as large Komodo dragons, but not as heavily built: however there is also a set of reports of "Water Monsters" and "Dinosaurs" especially in Latin America but also including the Southwest of the USA, which are said to grow up to 20 feet long or more. All of these creatures have a row of spines down the back and red eyes in the males.

The giant snakes of South America are commonly acknowledged as Cryptids, hoever a distinction must be made between the very large Sucuriju Gigante (here represented by a forced-perspective photograph) and the standard-Anaconda-length but very much thicker Black Boa

"Flying Serpent" reports seem to fall into three major subsections by geographic area. Alarge creatures: there is a sort of large Draco type lizard in Africa and South Asia, possibly Australia as well, and something more like a flying gecko that is called a Flying Serpent centered in Mexico and Central America but also occasionally in the US SW and in Northern South America. Both of these are reported in a size range of three feet long minimum, six feet long maximum, and the minimum is more likely than the maximum. The Draco lizard type has a probable "Wingspan" at the ribs of two feet when the total length is three feet: it has once also been reported in Japan.

The European Flying Serpent, Wyvern or Cockatrice appears to be a very large pheasant with some small still-persisting populations. A typical size given for this is nine feet long: it is a true bird with feathered wings, two scaled and clawed feet, and a beak. I recently posted some more artwork which seems to pertain to it. Superstitions  about the Evil Eye were evidently attached to it in ancient times

The Boobrie seems to have been at one time a much larger form of swimming bird much resembling the Great auk at twice its size. It is still being reported as a "Penguin" at various places around the Arctic Ocean and particularly noting Alaska, but not often. The large form is supposed to reach about human height.

In mentioning the matter of living moas, it is not usually emphasized how many species must be involved due to the reported variance in suzes. The actually seem to come in three sizes: small, medium and large, with the medium sized one resembling an emu (but heavier and living in a different habitat) mentioned mostly by Roy Mackal, the smaller size spoken of more often by Cryptozoologuists, but also some reports of a much larger bird, presumably Dinornis.

Thunderbirds seem pretty definitely sorts of Teratorns and their average reported wingspan is about twenty feet. At one point they inhabited the entire range of mountains in the West, from Alaska to Terra del Fuego, and could fly over any points Eastward. In more recent times their rabnge seems to have fallen off and they are seen much less often. I imagine their distribution still centers in the mountains out West.
A type of large dark-coloured Eagle with a feathered head is the origin of some reports but it is a "Known" species. John James Audubon recorded it as Washington's eagle. It is not unknown, but its existance as a separate species is disputed.




Similarly the Ivory-billed woodpecker is not an unknown animal, but its continued existance has been disputed. When such a thing is merely disputed, it falls outside of my definition for Cryptozoology (Although they are still on the "Frontiers of Zoology")

Some reports of "Thunderbirds" that seem to spend their lives over water and especially including the Arctic Ocean near Alaska and Siberia might well be a kind of black-backed Albatross. The wings of this creature are reported as extremely wide-spanning but very thin.

Partially tied in to "Ropen" reports, but also definitely established as a separate category of Cryptid, is the Kusa Kap or Giant hornbill.on its head but the shape of the crest is unclear from witness' testimony: the tail feathers are also rather long. There is a similar giant hornbill also reported in Japan as the Dragon Bird.

Another bird which may be involved in "Pterodactyl" reports and which seems to have a worldwide distribution but flying primarily over tropical waters (including New Guinea and Australia, and the South Pacific, but also the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean) is a kind of a "Toothed" bird with a spiky beak. Its wingspan might also top twenty feet broad and its head is also quite large in an actual sense. This would be a survival of such "Toothed" birds common throughout the Age of Mammals and they are prehistoric-looking enough that witnesses could be forgiven for describing them as actually being Pterosaurs.

The Giant Bats as reported in the New World are staged out by sizes and the equivalent in size and behaviour to the Old World Ahools. The unknown bats of the Old World and the New World presumably be unrelated members developing in parallel out of different original families.An "Old World vampire bat" mentioned by Karl Shuker could be another Old World bat developed in parallel to the New World kinds.

Above is a pasteup comparing  possibly persisting Ground Sloths: there are three kinds specified in reports and these correspond to animals known to have been living as recently as the Colonial age in the West Indies. The smallest one is compared to a "Monkey" or a small chimpanzee with claws, the nmedium sized one to a "Bear" with a dragging tail and the largest sized one is said to be the size of a cow but clothed in the thichk coarse coat like a wolf's hide. Ivan Sanderson heard of this last kind in Belize in the 1930s, where they were called "Cave Cows" and more recent reports come from the deeper forests of South America. These are NOT "Mapinguaris", there are separate names for them.

Below is a comparison for the "Water-Rhino" or Emela-Ntouka with an African elephant: when all of the more exaggerated folklore is dealt with (including the notion that the horn is made of ivory), this seems to be simply a large rhinoceros much like the INDIAN variety that somehow found its way into Central Africa. Older sources called this the African Unicorn.

Below are representations for the Siberian (and Alaskan) wooly Mammoth and two kinds of "Unicorns" of Central and South Asia. The "Unicorn" rumours persisted up into the late 1800s but were never confirmed. Surprlsingly Wooly Mammoth reports continued in Siberia up into the WWII period and legends still persist, but there is no good recent evidence of tracks, feces or the like.

Continuing the list of large unknown animals that might have survived down to the present day  are several more animals usuall associated with living in the water or wallowing around in water-holes: the Toxodons or Water-Bulls of South America; The  Giraffid Sivatheres still reported in Western and North-Central Africa but apparently once widespread also in the Middle-East; The tralia, thought to be the basis of some "Bunip" stories; and large hyracoids once evidently common in parts of China and called "Water-horses" there (Historically). To the right are represented the Gazeka of New Guinea, possibly  a local equivalent of the Australian Bunyips, and the Pygmy hippopotamus of Madagascar, possibly persisting under the name of Water-cow-not-cow or Tsy-Aomby-Aomby
(Latest reports in 1976: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malagasy_Hippopotamus )
 

Two different sorts of large aquatic fur-bearing mammals are lumped into one category by Loren Coleman: Giant Beavers and Giant Otters. The giant beavers are well known from Ice-age fossils in North America but the Giant Otter is only known from one incomplete specimen. Nevertheless, the Giant otter is also well-attested in Europe and in the Orient as well as in North America: the European sort is also known as the Master-Otter. The North American kind is known traditionally as the Water-Panther since it is about the same size and shape as a puma. There also seems to be an unrelated giant otter in tropica Africa of much the same size and shape. The giant otter of South America is a "Known" animal.

Recent photo of  an oddly-coloured leopard. This is my reminder that oddly-coloured or out-of-place big cats of known species are NOT UNKNOWN ANIMALS!

Sabertoothed cats, suspected by Bernard Heuvelmans as surviving in parts of Africa and South America, and living on mainly as an ambush predator that lurks at water holes.

Arctodus the Shortfaced bear, possibl surviving in different forms from Eastern Siberia and Alaska all the way down to Patagonia, including forms also called "Bigfoot" and "Ucu"

Above is my recently-published chart illustration showing continuit between Orang Pendek and Yeatis of Central asia, which are in turn also like erens and Hibagons of China and Japan, and the North American Apes/"Skunk Apes" of the New World.

Above is my comparison illustrating why the Brazilian Mapinguari  is an Orangutan-like ape, and below, a photo of siamangs and an orangutan on Sumatra, my parallels for the Mono Grande and Mono Rey of South America. (in English, Big Monkey and King Monkey)

Keeping things in order we are also incorporating Tyler Stone's and my composite catalogue of the various types of Cryptid hominids. Above are my Australopithecines from Central Africa, out of Heuvelmans' information (much of it still not published in English)

Here once again is the comparison of normal Homo sapiens and H. heidelbergensis skeletons, and at the right, Western Vs. Eastern Bigfoot witness' drawings. And below once again we have "the Lineup" of the various mystery primates Ivan Sanderson called "ABSMs" including Tyler Stone's Freshwater Monkey type [The well-known "Merfolk" type is left off this chart, but reports continue to come in from various places where "Manatees are not supposed to be"]

And just for comparison, here is the "Frogman" figurine by Santani that corresponds to the reports of the Freshwater Monkey: a little too wall-eyed, but otherwise a good effect.

Best Wishes, Dale D.


PS, If anybody sees a Cryptid missing from this page they would like to have represented in a future discussion, please leave a message below.

Giant Snakes In New Mexico

Giant Snakes In New Mexico
[From JC Johnson's wall on Facebook, reprinted with permission]

by Jc Johnson on Monday, March 12, 2012 at 12:09pm ·

In the summer of 1990, as a Relief Route was being built west of Roswell, a stunning discovery was made: a Jornada Mogollon pit village.
Among the ruins was a vibrant 15-foot long, green, clay painting of a feathered serpent. The find was rather astounding because wall paintings, especially those of discernible figures, are actually fairly rare in the Southwest.
The painting was of Avanyu, a serpent deity believed in by many Amerindians of New Mexico, but more specifically those at Pecos Pueblo in Northern New Mexico. There, in the mountains, was said to be a rattlesnake of giant proportions, so large it could easily swallow a man. According to legend it was kept in the cave by a fire that burned at all times. Eventually the snake got away, and was said to have slithered off into the Pecos River. Stories of a giant rattlesnake living in a mountain cave (which also included a tribe of Indians called the Snake People) were also very prominent in the Guadalupe Mountains, in lower southeastern New Mexico in Eddy County. There the Mescalero Apaches told of sheep mysteriously disappearing, while other sheep found dead had so much rattlesnake venom in their system that their insides were nearly dissolved.
Another account goes that two anthropologist investigating tales of the Snake People back in the 1940s went exploring in the cave where the mysterious tribe supposedly still practiced. The two men were lowered into the cave via ropes operated by several ranchers and cowhands. The men above heard a great deal of screaming coming from below, as well as loud buzzing rattles, and tried to pull the men back up. Only one of the men was pulled back out that day, he was dead and had an extremely high amount of rattlesnake venom in his system. The story ends weeks later when the government sealed up the entrance to the cave with several tons of rock. Two weeks later a new entrance was clearly visible, with the appearance that something pushed its way out from the cave.
In Roswell there are no tales of snakes as large as that talked about at Pecos Pueblo or the Guadalupe Mountains, but area farmers such as the Berry Farm near Dexter claim to have killed rattlesnakes easily as big as a large man’s thigh. A snake sighting at Bottomless Lakes also described a snake so large that it stretched a full 12 feet or more across the road.
In 2002 a Roswell man was driving north of town on the truck bypass and crossing the Berrendo Bridge when he saw what he believed to be a large tree limb in the road. Swerving to avoid it he saw that it was actually a very large snake. He said as he drove by it reared up six feet off the ground, and he estimated its overall length to be that of 12 feet. He also described it as being a yellowish brown color to the best of his recollection. When asked whether he thought it could be a python or escaped circus animal he laughed and said it looked more like a, “really big Whip Snake,” a common local variety.
In yet other, “friend of a friend,” secondhand accounts popular in the area, there was said to have been a gigantic snake killed by some ranchers in the southern outskirts of Roswell. According to the story the ranchers found a mysterious hole that had opened up from the ground. Out of it came a gigantic snake, also said to have hair on some parts of its body like a Chinese dragon. The ranchers managed to kill it after repeated gunshots.
Believe it or not, bearded snakes like the one rumored above appear in other modern urban legends across the world. The concept of a hole mysteriously opening in the ground, followed by a reptilian monster emerging from it, has also been popular through the ages.
On July 12, 1960, the Roswell Daily Record proclaimed , “A 300-Pound Rattler,” complete with a picture on the front page of two men, Juan Baca and Mike Gonzales, holding up the massive 18-foot long skin of the snake. According to the two Lincoln County men, they had comes across the huge diamondback rattlesnake in the Valley of Fires lava beds west of Carrizozo while looking for their burros. Gonzales spied the telephone pole-sized snake resting on a dry lakebed.
“The ground seemed to be going up and down. It was the snake breathing,” said Gonzales in the Ruidoso News. The two men began taking shots at the snake, which reared its head up “five feet off of the ground” while none of the bullets seemed to penetrate the skin. According to Baca and Gonzales, eventually some of the bullets pierced the snake’s scales and it finally began to enter its death throes.
After it was determined to be dead, Baca and Gonzales skinned it, reasoning it would have taken several horses to tow the carcass. For several days, talk of the giant snake was rampant in Lincoln and Chaves Counties and a curator in El Paso offered $100 for any snake killed in New Mexico over eight feet long.
Not surprisingly, the story was eventually revealed as a hoax. In reality a rattler more than 8 feet is quite a rarity, let alone 18 feet. The two men had actually found the skin, shed by a python or boa constrictor, through a trash man who himself had found it in a dumpster in Ruidoso. They traded the trash man 10 chickens for it, hoping to sell it for considerably more. Gonzales and Baca eventually apologized to the Ruidoso News editor, Vic Lamb, who was instrumental in ferreting out the hoax, and the story was over.
It’s worthwhile to note that the, “bearded snake,” of monstrous proportions mentioned earlier was inspired by the story of the two Lincoln County men, only greatly exaggerated over the years.
One account of an adventurer battling oversized rattlesnakes that is true is found in the papers of Roswell optometrist Dr. L. B.Boellner. Dr. Boellner was a recognized horticulturist known for his Kwik-Krop Black Walnut and scented dahlia and lived and practiced in Roswell from 1904 until 1951.
In May of 1931, Dr. Boellner went on a hunting trip with a female friend, Annie Lou Moore. Both took .22 rifles to go and hunt rabbits. Had Dr. Boellner known what he was to come face-to-face with he would’ve taken a shotgun. Their hunting excursion was on Six Mile Hill, a vast wasteland west of Roswell full of jagged rocks and dry sinkholes. Upon entering the area the two bagged several rabbits, but both felt the young rabbits where not anywhere near as plentiful as they should have been in the spring. The two began to wander amongst the land in the area and split up. Dr. Boellner wished to give one of the larger sinkholes personal explorations as not many people ever went down in one. He would soon find out why.
This particular sinkhole he described as being 50 feet across. He climbed down inside it and wrote that it was 50 feet at its deepest and eight at its most shallow. It was also outlined with various cracks and crevices, not to mention the bones of many, many rabbits. It didn’t take long before Dr. Boellner saw the first rattler coming at him. The tale is more interesting in his own words:

“I had only one thing to do, and that was to shoot him without delay. My first shot struck him about three inches back of the head and stunned him. Just at this time, out came another of equal size with open mouth and tongue out. He too, was coming straight for me and only about two feet behind the first one. I shot the second one about a foot back from the head. Both of these snakes were only crippled. I knew I had to do what I was going to do quickly, so I gave both snakes bullets as fast as I could to stop their approach.”

Boellner continues with the appearance of a third snake which he shot and apparently blinded, as it struck out with its fangs aimlessly before eventually falling into a cavity in the ground out of sight. With the third snake out of the way, Boellner focused his attention on the other two, which he spent his entire chamber of ammunition on.
At this point the dead snakes were stopped no less than three feet away from him. By this time his female friend came to his aid and he climbed up out of the chamber. Dr. Boellner gives no precise length for the snakes but writes, “All of these rattlers were of huge size; one had 22 rattles and the other 20. The snakes were the size of a man’s arm at the shoulder.”
Perhaps then it is no wonder that Indian paintings of Avanyu were found near Roswell. Unfortunately, the NM Highway Department that found the Jornada Mogollon village did not feel it was significant enough to preserve and paved the road over it. Lynn Michelson, author of “Roswell: Your Travel Guide to the ET Capital of the World,” remembers going to one of the tours with her children.
“I remember the serpent being a subdued green, not bright, but definitely green. The serpent was the Avanyu, a fairly benign spirit of springs and streams that Pueblo potters, especially from Santa Clara and San Ildefonso, put on their pottery. It supposedly evolved as the religion spread north from Quetzalcoatl or Kukulcan, who was a rather scary and demanding figure,” said Michelson. “Building the kiva and painting the serpent must have been a substantial undertaking. I imagine it was an important place for the people who lived there, and maybe for those all around,” she concludes.

Mike Smith

Jc Johnson and 9 others like this.

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  Jc Johnson Author-http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001254585188 .
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  Boo Berry That's enough to keep me away from NM even after seeing all of DaveO's beautiful pictures (of the NM scenery, too lol)
  

  2 hours ago
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  Dale Drinnon Hey I'd like to repost this if I may
  

  2 hours ago · 
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• Todd Michael know someone here in taos that told me about these from their childhood on the farm. they're as fat as a man's thigh and longer than a truck. they told me they're in west texas too.

The stories are largely inconclusive but they seem to refer to a really huge rattlesnake. I have a possible solution tied into the "Quetzalcoatl Snake Cult from South of the Border" but it is also admittedly speculative. I'm afraid it does rather call to mind a plot straight out of Conan the Barbarian stories.

The in the area is the Western diamondback. Officially it only grows up to about eight feet long but "Unofficially" there are statements which run up to fourteen feet long! At one time in the past I repeated this figure thinking it was "Official" only to have my sources questioned (in regards to a forced-perspective photo posted on the CFZ blog last year). Fourteen feet long is admittedly much too long for a Western Diamondback, but it is about the accepted maximum length for another snake that lives further South: the Bushmaster, Lachesis muta

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lachesis_muta
There is also a related but distinct species that lives in Central America, the Mayan lands. It is not a rattlesnake and does not have rattles, but it does have a horny spike at the end of the tail which it vibrates in the manner of a rattlesnake, and it makes a noise with the rustling of dry leaves on the forest floor. Doubtless this horny end to the tail was what Dr Boellner was describing as the "Rattles" of enormous rattlesnakes, with some exaggeration; any truth to the story at all. So hypothetically we have snake cultists from the Mayan countries bringing their sacred snakes up to  West Texas, probably as fertile snake eggs since the Bushmasters lay eggs and the eggs can lie dormant for a long time. fertility figure are asociated with laying lots of eggs, BTW, and the Bushmaster is the only pit viper that lays eggs. The Bushmaster also produces excessively large amounts of venom, and the stories are that the venom is nearly always fatal in the field (Stressed captive snakes do not live up to expectations about the venom, but then the problem is that they are stressed captive snakes milked regularly for their venom. Commentators have noted  that this is not a natural situation that you can judge by)

Since we have the cultists of The Snake God bringing up their sacred snakes in secret places of the North, and maintaining them by feeding them sacrifices on ritual occasions, it sounds exactly like the Conan the  stories. In this case, it might actually have happened, and some of the last remaining descendants of those sacred snakes are being seen by modern witnesses. Perhaps.

The Bushmaster is also a diamondback, after a fashion

Range of the Bushmaster-another Bushmaster species
 inhabits Central America further to the North of this range