Home Topics Wildlife Australia’s mythical creatures

Australia’s mythical creatures

An artist's reconstruction of the bunyip. Image credit: J. Macfarlane

The yowie

An Australian hominid that stands up to 3.6m tall, this dark, hairy monster is occasionally described as having feet that point backwards, making it extremely difficult to track. It’s sometimes said to be timid, and other times has been described as aggressive.

A yowie was spotted in 1886 by the wife of the caretaker of Sir Henry parke’s property in the Blue Mountains, NSW. Shortly after that a local hotelier, Mr Cummins, offered a fiftly pound reward for the capture of the animal.

See more: Australia’s top 10 ghost towns

A statue of the yowie in Kilcoy, Queensland.

The bunyip

Bunyips live in Australian billabongs and swamps, and stories of their appearance are highly varied. The most commonly described features include a dog-like face and clawed flippers. The bunyip is occasionally compared to a manatee or hippopotamus. In some of the older legends, they are described as attacking and devouring humans.

Carl Lumholtz, a Norwegian explorer who travelled extensively in Australia, described the bunyip as “a mammal of considerable size…a monster with countless eyes and ears…He has sharp claws, and can run so fast that it is difficult to escape him.

A reconstruction of the bunyip.

The dropbear

The dropbear isn’t exactly a mythical creature, as much as it’s a giant hoax to fool naïve tourists, but they’re a scary concept either way. Dropbears are a ravenous species of koala —a typically docile animal — that are attracted to foreign accents.

See more: Tasmania’s top 10 ghost towns

According to the Australian Museum, dropbears are known to drop as much as eight metres to pounce on top of the tourist victims. “The initial impact often stuns the prey, allowing it to be bitten on the neck and quickly subdued.”

Blue Mountains Panther

It’s said that these large feline predators resemble the black panthers native to parts of Asia and Africa. The Blue Mountains panther has been spotted throughout New South Wales many times over the past three decades. In 2013 a report was commissioned to look into the matter but dismissed the validity of the sightings.

READ MORE:

• GALLERY: Bizarre marine creatures
• Australia’s most bizarre creatures

Read Next

Moonstruck: how lunar light influences animal behaviour

Lunar animal research is receiving the technological and methodological breakthroughs necessary for the next wave of intriguing findings.

10 million animals die on our roads each year. Here’s what works (and what doesn’t) to cut the toll

There’s almost no warning. A dark shape appears on the side of the road, then you feel a jolt as something goes under the car. Or worse, the shape rears up, hits the front of your vehicle, then slams into the windscreen. You have just experienced a wildlife-vehicle collision.

Rare footage shows 'unseen world’ of South Australia's little penguins

On Granite Island off South Australia, a colony of little penguins is fighting to survive. About two decades ago, the penguins numbered 1,600 adults – now there are just 30.