“What’s that? A new animal I can kill? I’m IN!”
~Teddy Roosevelt
Compared to other, older nations, America doesn’t really have a lot in the way of monsters in our folklore. Sure, we’ve got Bigfoot, and we guess there’s the jackalope, but compared to the sheer volume of mythical creatures in stories around the world, America’s got relatively few entries in that particular genre.
This isn’t too surprising—outside of Native Americans, most Americans haven’t been on this continent long enough to really nurture any good folklore. Hell, the first reported sighting of the Loch Ness Monster was 1500 years ago—considering that, it makes sense that we’ve only got a handful of random monster sightings in our history.
While the relative scarcity of American “strange monsters” doesn’t really shock us, the relative obscurity of the Snallygaster does. Because with so few things going bump in the night in America, how is everyone focusing their attention on finding some big hairy forest ape when there’s supposedly a dragon-like beast hanging around Maryland and Washington D.C.? Well Teddy Roosevelt apparently asked that very question.
Let’s talk about America’s least-talked about mythical monster then, shall we?
America Fun Fact of the Day 