The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories (10 page)

Baird's tapir is the largest land mammal in Central America, with a range from southern Mexico to northwestern Colombia. Tapirs are elusive and agile animals who move expertly through vast and varied terrain—from steep slopes to rivers. Uniquely, they have four front toes but only three back ones, for a total of fourteen toes.

PUTS NESSIE TO SHAME

Everyone knows about the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, the huge, snakelike creature that supposedly terrorizes a lake in Scotland. Fewer have heard about Caddy of Puget Sound, Washington. Caddy sports a long neck and a shrunken, horselike head, and is estimated to be at least forty feet long.

Lake Memphremagog, on the international border between Vermont and Quebec, boasts its own sea monster, nicknamed Memphré. Sightings of the huge, serpentlike creature date back to the early nineteenth century and have continued into the twenty-first century.

FORTEAN FROGS

Though typically a biblical phenomenon, raining animals have been reported around the world. The two most common of these animals are fish and frogs; however, there have even been accounts of falling jellyfish, worms, and ducks. Charles Fort, a nineteenthcentury writer and researcher of strange phenomena, included “true” stories about falling frogs in his
Book of the Damned
.

CURIOUS CATS

MAGICAL CAT

King Charles I of England (1600–1649) got the idea that if he lost his beloved black cat, it would mean a disaster for him, so he had the animal guarded constantly. Unfortunately, the cat got sick and died. Strangely enough, Charles was right—the day after the cat died, he was arrested for treason and, not long afterward, beheaded.

FELINE FEARS

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft suffers from aelurophobia (or ailurophobia)—a deathly fear of cats. He is afraid of calicos in particular.

CATS LOVE HEART