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.

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

Heuvelmans Era Cryptozoology
(see also - https://hitchhikingfrog.blogspot.com/2025/10/cryptozoology-according-to-bernard.html)

Heuvelmans, 1995 - On The Track Of Unknown Animals
Heuvelmans, 1965 - In The Wake Of Sea Serpents
Heuvelmans, 1982 - What Is Cryptozoology? (Cryptozoology Vol 1)
Heuvelmans, 1983 - How Many Animal Species Remain To Be Discovered? (Cryptozoology Vol 2)
Greenwell, 1984 - Interview With Bernard Heuvelmans (ISC Newsletter Vol 3 No 3)
Heuvelmans, 1984 - The Birth and Early History of Cryptozoology (Cryptozoology Vol 3)
Greenwell 1985 - A Classificatory System for Cryptozoology (Cryptozoology Vol 4)
Heuvelmans, 1986 - Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals (Cryptozoology Vol 5)
Bayanov, 1987 - Why Cryptozoology? (Cryptozoology Vol 6)
Heuvelmans, 1988 - The Sources and Method of Cryptozoology Research (Cryptozoology Vol 7)
Heuvelmans, 1990 - The Metamorphosis of Unknown Animals into Fabulous Beasts (Cryptozoology Vol 9)
Heuvelmans, 2007 - A Natural History Of Hidden Animals
Arment, 2004 - Cryptozoology: Science And Speculation
Barloy, 2007 - Un rebelle de la science

Critiques Of Heuvelmans Era Cryptozoology

Magin & Thomans, 1996 - St. George Without A Dragon
Naish, 2001 - Sea serpents, seals and coelacanths
John Conway, C.M. Kosemen, & Darren Naish, 2013 - Cryptozoologicon Volume I
Milligan, 1990 - The "Truth" about the Bigfoot Legend
Michel Meurger & Claude Gagnon, 1998 - Lake Monster Traditions
Benjamin Radford & Joe Nickell, 2006 - Lake Monster Mysteries
Bauer & Russell, 1996 - A Critical Assessment of the Description of Cadborosaurus willsi
Greenfield, 2023 - Of Megalodons and Men
Witton & Hing, 2024 - Did the horned dinosaur Protoceratops inspire the griffin?

Post-Heuvelmans Cryptozoology
(see also - https://sharonahill.com/)

Schembri, 2011 - Beasts in Transition
Forth, 2012 - Are legendary hominoids worth looking for?
Rossi, 2016 - A Review of Cryptozoology
Hurn et al. 2016 - Anthropology & Cryptozoology
Foxon, 2024 - Heuvelmans the Heretic and Hidden Animals
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
Regal, 2011 - Searching For Sasquatch
Hill, 2017 - Scientifical Americans
Lewis & Bartlett, 2024 - Transmuting Absences into Credible Knowledge Claims
Ellen, 2025 - Visualizing Spirit Entities
Forth, 2007 - Images of the Wildman Inside and Outside Europe
Forth, 2008 - Images Of The Wildman In Southeast Asia
Forth, 2021 - Rare Animals as Cryptids and Supernaturals
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?
Shine, 2024 - A Natural History Of Sea Serpents
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

Supplementary Books By Cryptozoologists

Shuker, 2012 - The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals
Bille, 1995 - Rumors Of Existence
Bille, 2006 - Shadows Of Existence
Bille, 2021 - Of Books and Beasts - A Cryptozoologist's Library
Newton, 2005 - Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology

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, was approached as a "debunking project" according to Loxton, and Prothero 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, for example, but that'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.