Lana's Cryptozoological Essential Reading List

Cryptozoology is a discipline that suffers heavily from a lack of accessibility - there are no textbooks, there are few reliable compilations of literature, much less concise definitions. This throws the field into disarray quite frequently. Many papers and books are published in non-English languages and never translated, and many remain out of print. I really, really don't want to pay 200 dollars for Roy Mackal's "A Living Dinosaur?" or have to learn German to read "Von Neuen und Unentdeckten Tierarten".

What I've done to combat this, partially, is pool what I deem necessary reading all in one spot. I deem these pieces "necessary" because they explain key parts of the cryptozoological methodology from the people who pioneered them. This list will likely be updated on occasion with new relevant publications and when I read more literature. The majority of these books and papers can be found in PDF form online through the usual channels.

The entries are organized by type - books, papers, websites, etc. followed by subject. Many papers and books are on a specific subject, usually wildmen or lake monsters, but they contain significant commentary relevant to all of cryptozoology. In the future I intend to share a dedicated bibliography solely for wildmen as literature for that subject is exceptionally difficult to track down.



One of the goals of my writing, both here and eventually in an academic sense, is to make this kind of content more accessible, as I personally have had a hell of a time compiling all of it. Academia of any sort should have no barrier to entry.

ESSENTIALS

Books

General Cryptozoology

Bernard Heuvelmans - On The Track Of Unknown Animals (1995 Routledge Edition)
Bernard Heuvelmans - A Natural History Of Hidden Animals (posthumously published, 2007)
Chad Arment - Cryptozoology: Science And Speculation (2004)
Jean-Jacques Barloy - Un rebelle de la science (2007)
John Conway, C.M. Kosemen, & Darren Naish - Cryptozoologicon Volume I (2013)
Karl Shuker - The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals (2012)
Matt Bille - Rumors Of Existence (1995)
Matt Bille - Shadows Of Existence (2006)
Matt Bille - Of Books and Beasts - A Cryptozoologist's Library (2021)
Michael Newton - Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology (2005)
Samantha Hurn (editor) - Anthropology & Cryptozoology (2016)
Sharon Hill - Scientifical Americans (2017)

Wildmen

Brian Regal - Searching For Sasquatch (2011)
Gregory Forth - Images Of The Wildman In Southeast Asia (2008)
Gregory Forth - Between Ape And Human (2022)
Marjorie Halpin & Michael Ames (editors) - Manlike Monsters On Trial (1980)

Aquatic Cryptids

Adrian Shine - A Natural History Of Sea Serpents (2024)
Benjamin Radford & Joe Nickell - Lake Monster Mysteries (2006)
Bernard Heuvelmans - In The Wake Of Sea Serpents (1968)
Michel Meurger & Claude Gagnon - Lake Monster Traditions (1998)

Papers

General Cryptozoology

Bayanov, 1987 - Why Cryptozoology?
Forth, 2021 - Rare Animals as Cryptids and Supernaturals
Foxon, 2024 - Heuvelmans the Heretic and Hidden Animals
Greenwell 1985 - A Classificatory System for Cryptozoology
Heuvelmans, 1982 - What Is Cryptozoology?
Heuvelmans, 1983 - How Many Animal Species Remain To Be Discovered?
Heuvelmans, 1984 - The Birth and Early History of Cryptozoology
Heuvelmans, 1986 - Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals
Heuvelmans, 1988 - The Sources and Method of Cryptozoology Research
Heuvelmans, 1990 - The Metamorphosis of Unknown Animals into Fabulous Beasts 
Rossi, 2016 - A Review of Cryptozoology
Schembri, 2011 - Beasts in Transition
Westrum, 1977 - Social Intelligence about Anomalies: The Case of UFOs
Westrum, 1978 - Science and Social Intelligence about Anomalies: The Case of Meteorites
Westrum, 1979 - Knowledge about Sea-Serpents

Wildmen

Bubandt, 2019 - Of wildmen and white men
Forth, 2006 - Flores after floresiensis
Forth, 2007 - Images of the Wildman Inside and Outside Europe
Forth, 2012 - Are legendary hominoids worth looking for?
Kirtley, 1964 - Unknown Hominids and New World Legends
Lewis & Bartlett, 2024 - Transmuting Absences into Credible Knowledge Claims
Milligan, 1990 - The "Truth" about the Bigfoot Legend
Radford et al., 2006 - The Nonsense and Non-science of Sasquatch
Svanberg & Ståhlberg, 2017 - Wildmen in Central Asia

Aquatic Cryptids

Bauer & Russell, 1996 - A Critical Assessment of the Description of Cadborosaurus willsi
Greenfield, 2023 - Of Megalodons and Men
Magin & Thomans, 1996 - St. George Without A Dragon
Naish, 2001 - Sea serpents, seals and coelacanths
Parsons, 2015 - Sea monsters and mermaids in Scottish folklore
Paxton, 2009 - The plural of ‘anecdote’ can be ‘data’
Paxton & Naish, 2019 - Did 19th Century Marine Vertebrate Fossils Influence Sea Serpent Reports?
Paxton & Shine, 2016 - Consistency in Eyewitness Reports of Aquatic “Monsters”
Paxton & Shine, 2025a - Identifying Biases and the Relevant Statistical Population
Paxton & Shine, 2025b - Hoops, loops and eyewitness reliability
Woodley et al., 2008 - How many extant pinniped species remain to be described?

Misc Cryptozoology

Magin, 2016 - Claimed ‘crypto-creatures’ regarded as genii locii
Rauch, 2020 - The Sukotyro: On the Extinction of a Nonexistent Animal
Witton & Hing, 2024 - Did the horned dinosaur Protoceratops inspire the griffin?

Ethnobiology & Conservation

Ellen, 2025 - Visualizing Spirit Entities
Forth, 2022 - Mountain Turtles and Giant Crabs
Fisher, 2011 - Cost, effort and outcome of mammal rediscovery: Neglect of small species
Giam et al., 2011 - Reservoirs of richness
Holmes et al., 2017 - Fantastic beasts and why to conserve them
Kéry, 2002 - Inferring the Absence of a Species: A Case Study of Snakes
Liu et al., 2022 - Undescribed species have higher extinction risk than known species
Wilson et al., 2022 - Species discovery and dental ecometrics

Websites

https://cryptidarchives.fandom.com/wiki/Encyclopedia_of_Cryptozoology
https://cryptozoologicalreferencelibrary.wordpress.com/
https://sharonahill.com/
https://darrennaish.blogspot.com/
https://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology
https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/tetrapod-zoology/
tetzoo.com/
https://darrennaish.wordpress.com/
https://cgp288.wixsite.com/monsterpax

Additional Media

Charles Paxton - A Defence Of Cryptozoology (2002)
Michael Weinzierl - Applied Cryptozoology: Using Leeches to Locate the Thylacine (2014)
Folk Zoology Conference 2024

 You'll notice a lack of documentaries, Shuker, Coleman, and such - many of these sources are exaggerated, inadequate, and unscientific. They're the exact kind of thing cryptozoology ought to avoid.

I've neglected to include Darren Naish's Hunting Monsters primarily because Naish has stated he is working on a second, completely revamped edition. Although the fundamental points of the first edition are solid there are factual inaccuracies, and, at least with wildmen, neglects some relevant context on the folkloric origins of the figure. No shade to Naish in any way, it's most likely worth reading Hunting Monsters regardless, I just personally wouldn't put it in the same league as the rest.

Abominable Science! leaves out information to create a biased narrative against cryptozoologists in its Mokele-mbembe chapter and at one point likens cryptozoologists to Holocaust deniers. No thanks.

Mackal's Searching For Hidden Animals is essentially On The Track Of Unknown Animals lite, worth your time if you are an enthusiast but again, not on the same tier as the ones above. 

Overall you'll notice a bias towards wildmen and lake/sea serpents. Unfortunately these are often the only cryptids published on in peer-reviewed literature and the only ones with dedicated academic bases around them, meaning relevant commentary is often found solely within the context of these topics. I personally don't find aquatic cryptids very interesting but it's just something you'll have to deal with. 

Academic papers can be accessed through sci-hub and its various mirrors, and books through anna's archive. Please absolutely try to buy physical copies of books mentioned where possible, cryptozoology is often a hobby and people need funding to publish such materials. I personally keep both a pdf copy and a physical copy of most books, annotating the physical editions.