Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 146 - Cryptids of New Zealand

Episode Date: April 1, 2022

oi mate WE HAVE A PLUSHIE OF MOTHMAN COMING. GO TO THEYETEE LINK IN THE DECRIPTION Patreon - http://www.patreon.com/chilluminatipod BUY OUR MERCH - http://www.theyetee.com/collections/chilluminati Special thanks to our sponsors this episode Talkspace - http://www.talkspace.com/chill Canva - http://www.canva.me/chill Audible - http://www.audible.com/summerinargyle Jesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecox Alex Faciane - http://www.youtube.com/user/superbeardbros Art Commissioned by - http://www.mollyheadycarroll.com Theme - Matt Proft End song - POWER FAILURE - https://soundcloud.com/powerfailure Video - http://www.twitter.com/digitalmuppet

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or someone you love with Papier. Visit papier.com for 10% off your first order. That's 10% off at papier.com. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Chiluminati podcast episode 146. As always, I am your host, Mike Martin, joined by the Hannibal Lecter and Clarisse Starling of LA, Jesse and Alex.

I thought you were about to say Clarissa explains it all and I was like, I don't know where he's going with this. The Clarissa and Ferguson of LA, there you go. The Ferguson, no. The Blossom in Six of LA, right? Yeah, yeah. What's that guy's name? And entire family matters in LA.

No, it's the Urkel and Stefan of LA. Oh, my God. Obvious sitcom and saxophone of LA. You know what, you know what sucks is that I know for a fact Alex is Stefan and I'm Urkel. Like, I don't even, there's not even like, like, I just know and that sucks. That sucks.

I don't think I'm Stefan, dude. I mean, out of the two, out of the two of us, you're definitely, you're not Urkel. You're not an Urkel type. I'm sorry. You're definitely Stefan. Out of the two of us, that sucks that I know that no matter what a YouTube channel that brought together the joys of

video games and science. Okay. Just so you know, like science, mythology, science. He also is just like cooler than Urkel. All the saying is, have you ever like fond over a girl to the point of being hilariously memed online? Cause I have. No, no.

You know what? I don't play a lot like that. I don't like that comparison. I think Alex, maybe Alex is the dad. The dad from what? Family matters. You're the cop. You're a cop.

How do we get on family matters? Well, I thought I was, I thought I was a Clarice. Are we the, can next time can we be the dad from family matters and the cop? Well, actually the cop from family matters and the cop from die hard and let the audience try to figure out that conundrum. Which one's which?

Yeah. Which one of us is Clarice and which one of us is Hannibal? Okay. I guess I'll find out. Okay. The audience off to figure that out. Every time I look at Jesse and he's cooking, I'm like, is that a human me?

What is it? Do you want to taste? You want to take a little bite? It's not bad. Everybody, this is going to be a bit of a loose episode. It has been, I'll put the front. I have puppies now and puppies are fucking exhausting. They are so tiring.

I wake up at 6 a.m. and they like, you know, through the night they stay up and also we were supposed to do a guest episode today, but he ended up not being able to make it. So the next episode that you see will have synvicta on it. Everybody will be covering the Bermuda Triangle next episode. But this episode, this episode, we're going to do one of my favorite things. We can do a grab bag of cryptids.

I try to chill. I like these. I like these two. I didn't, I want to pick another part of the world that, you know, people wouldn't necessarily think of when you think cryptids, you know, maybe a smaller, maybe forgotten part of the world. So I chose New Zealand for today.

The New Zealand cryptids that I could find get a little info on interesting to. I also have some backup Australian cryptids on the off chance that, you know, we just fly through the New Zealand cryptids. So what, so what like what criteria are we going to be judging them on today? That's a good question.

What fickle terms shall we? Shall we go to the two of you? As always. How do you want to rank these cryptids? You can think New Zealand. You can maybe rank it in terms of hobbits. How many hobbits? How many hobbits would it take to take down this particular

if I do that? I'm going to literally get a gun, like a bullet. Somebody's going to send me a bullet in the mail from New Zealand with my name on it. Does it is going to take 10 hobbits or one Gandalf to take down this cryptid? Don't do this. Gandalf, not like this or or fellowship.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, fellowship or Gandalf. Who's going to have to take this? OK, point five gladrials though, no matter what. How about this? How about this? Impossible. Let's let's grade them on how likely they are out of 10 to or likelihood out of a hundred percent that they will take

over as the cultural touchstone that everybody senselessly goes to for New Zealand, even though it's just a movie made by Warner Brothers Pictures. You know what you want? If New Zealand is listening, you want them to make this their new tourist attraction, whatever I'm trying to say, we're going to replace Lord of the Rings as the easy go to in the minds of people all over the world for New Zealand, something

that's actually from and created in New Zealand might be better, I think, than Peter Jackson's adaptation of a book. They're fantastic movies and I've seen them. So I like them a lot. He's there. That's true. You know, Mathis is still in that stage of life like a baby where if he if he's seen it, he likes it because he's seen

so few things. He's seen so few movies that he just it's just. Yeah, it's just a treat. He doesn't understand the concept of life. Just a treat. It's like all good. Matthew like and baby. Remember the first time you went in VR?

Remember how crazy that shit was? Remember that VR has been ruined for me because that experience Alex that we want to that was like VR or Star Wars. Oh, yes, I've done that one. Oh my God, that's so good compared to any other VR. That's the best. Yeah, yeah, because because it's interactive. Man, there's like shit.

You know, it's like through rooms and you touch stuff and like nothing is you can't just be in your bedroom anymore. I can't do it anymore. No, it's not apparently by the same company at Ghostbusters one. Yeah, there is a Ghostbusters thing in Chicago. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, if you want to contribute to Mathis's education

as a movie watcher, please head to patreon.com slash shillimanati pod where now we have chill tracks, a legally distinct sort of movie commentary service that we offer where we watch movies that are adjacent to the interests of shillimanati podcast listeners. It's in the Venn diagram. Loosely adjacent. Last time we did the original Ghost Adventures documentary

which was terrible. And then before that, we did Maze's and Monsters, right? Which was which was terrible. I can't remember if we did Mothman first or Maze's and Monsters. Mothman was the first one. Which was terrible. All the theme.

Clearly. Mothman was all right. Mothman was like a six out of ten. Mothman wasn't a total drag. They did Grace from Will and Grace Dirty in that movie. That is so true. That could not be more true. Anyway, there's a lot of movies there now.

It's ever expanding. We're doing another one this month. We haven't decided what it is yet. But you can listen to them all as well as all the other great stuff we have there. The mini so it's 15 minutes of extra show every single week plus all like however many it is 30 extra ones that you haven't heard yet in public something like that like that.

Yeah, it's crazy. I don't know how many there's a lot of mini so that you haven't heard of you. I just did a recent mini so compilation and it included the one with Mike Raparez from a video game apocalypse. That's how far like they are stone episode. Yes, they're green. They're way back in the Greenstone from the from the

the the last in the trilogy of Greenstone episodes. Yeah, exactly. So there's a lot there still. There's a ton of religion to. But yeah, please go to patreon.com. That's a sports show. That's how you keep it going. I love you guys.

Please keep doing that. It rules it keeps some day. This will be my only job. I love it. Please. Yes. Oh, also one more big announcement before we dive in everybody.

It's officially confirmed if you are free on May 26. Oh, yes. Yes. So Austin, Texas or live in Austin, Texas. Chiluminati live is coming back. We are going to be at the parish this time around. Go to our Twitter. Go to chiluminatipod.com.

Click on the big old poster and go buy yourselves a ticket. We sold out last time we want to sell out again. So we will have a VIP experience that will be limited to a small number of people VIP experience. Well, I mean, I'm going to strip tease for them, but they won't get to see what I'm going to say. We don't do that. And I'm going to I'm going to moan into the microphone.

Hello, my little children. I'm going to workshop that bit. We're going to get back to you with the real experience. We're not sure what's going to be. It's going to be better than that for sure. I cannot wait. I cannot wait to go to Austin, Texas. I love Austin, Texas.

This is the type of city where I'm going to go like show up at mysterious restaurants and I was going to say, are we going to do like in a few Austin days? Boys have to we have to figure it out. We're going to do a night in Houston because you're going to spend the first night with me in my house. And then I'm going to drive to Austin nasty. Yeah.

And then we're going to drive up to Austin and we can do a couple of days in Austin. If you want, Texas hates Austin because it's like California apparently. Yeah, but there's so much stuff to see and do there. So like whatevs. I'm gay. I'm the Clarice Starling of California.

So I got to get out to Austin and kill the rest of sex murderer. And I'm the Hannibal Lecter of California. I'm going to help but also eat a person. You're going to eat Raleona's brains. I have never seen Silence of the Land. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Madness is right. Madness is Raleona. I know a lot about it because it's just so pervasive in pop culture. I know you're going to love it. I know you're going to love it. It's almost like it's a part of you, dude.

You're going to love it. I don't. I don't doubt that for how much I love true crime. Yeah, I know. I got you. That's actually that's actually not a bad one. Let's just lock it in. Let's do fucking Silence of the Lambs next movie.

Bam, bam, bam. Yeah. All right. I mean, I'm down to do Silence of the Lambs. You want to do Silence of the Lambs of the next chill tracks? They are done. All right.

We're going to do a good movie. I was going to recommend a Nicholas Cage movie, but like this is a better choice. You know, I want to do a Nicholas Cage movie so bad. I got a good one. And it is bad, y'all. It's bad. I'm so excited.

What? What is the name of it? It's called Pay the Ghost. Oh my God. I just it is a horror movie. I don't even know anything else. Yeah. I just got to know.

I just got to watch it. The set alone is so stupid. Yeah. Yeah. What about our next two movies? What about them cryptids? Yeah. Yeah.

Let's talk about New Zealand. No, Zeal and the cryptids. Oh, that's the worst. We're the worst gentlemen. Send us to jail. Whoa. What was that accent? No Zeal and the cryptids.

No, he sounds like Borat. I'm taking. I don't want to join. I don't want to join with him. I don't want to be on that on that. I don't want to be associated with that oppression. Maya, my hobbit's wife. Milly and the Pippin.

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Okay, all right, cryptids, cryptids, we've got to focus. All right, on the ranking system, here we go. New Zealand, if you're listening, we're going to discover your new mascot. The first of our cryptids is the Moa. The Moa were giant flightless birds native to New Zealand, and they actually did exist. I've heard of these, yes. Yeah, they were comprised of a total of nine species ranging from the size of turkeys to nearly double the height of humans.

What a large world. Yeah, they were if you there's actually a picture of a couple of pictures of them. You can Google all in black and white or like what it's purported to be. And like it looks almost like. What was the long next? Like a Brachiosaurus. Yeah, yeah, I just want to make sure I got that right. This is a real thing, though, right?

Yes, but it doesn't exist anymore or does it? It's starting out a little tame here, a little tame. The largest of was the South Island giant Moa, which could grow to a height of about 11 feet and weighed nearly 800 pounds. That is fucking JP, the lost world situation right there. That is like Steven Spielberg dinosaur blockbuster. You know what they are? They're the oh my god, they're the dinosaurs.

You know the scene where they're in Jurassic Park? I can't remember. Oh, like Gallimimus. Yes, they run in the herds. That's exactly what these things are. Oh my god. I didn't know how I didn't think of that. I was in elementary school in 90s, so I know everything about fucking dinosaurs.

So that's not what that is at all. So you're totally right. Yeah, I did watch Jurassic Park in school. I think a couple of times. I think my teacher is like throwing it on. If you haven't seen Jurassic Park, you literally grew up at you were born at the age 25. You were never on an iPhone in your hand.

Yeah, yeah. So these guys were belong to a group of birds known as Rattites, which also included ostriches, emus and kiwis. Genetic studies suggest that the closest living relative of the Moa are the flight tinnimus of South America, once considered to be a sister to the Rattites. They were the largest land animals in New Zealand being found in forests shrublands, sub subalpine habitats.

The Moa's main predator was the Haas Eagle, the biggest eagle to have ever existed. Both became extinct alongside the Moa soon after humans arrived around 700 years ago. Surprise, surprise, we killed all of them when we arrived in the area. Fam human human represent humans. What's up? They do. Yeah, we came ruined everything. Their main cause of extinction was by the Maori who exploited the abundance

of Moa, along with the mammalian predators that they brought with them, causing them to go extinct within 100 years of their arrival. So humans showed up and in 100 years, they were all gone. What a crazy 100 years that must have been. Just pure bloodshed. The slaughter of the dino birds. Honey, wake up. It's time to go slaughter some Moa. That is just like anyone like you have to consider that I don't think anyone,

especially if you're like a Southeastern Island tribal people. I don't think you were thinking like we're destroying like it seems. No, no, we're just doing what humans do. Yeah, like that's over an area. Yeah, I don't think it was like, you know, the modern capitalist version of like, no, we take it like I think it was just like, no, I just happened. Yeah, like humanity does. They just they showed up where they were where they were at and they found a good,

probably food source, probably supply source. Yeah, but but you know, that's what it all starts as anyway. The only reason it's different now is because we like got iPhones. You know what I mean? We got like, yeah, yeah, yeah. After that hundred years, generations went by and eventually the Moa was totally forgotten about until the Europeans arrived when the remains of the Moa were once again found. It's believed that early ancestors of these birds actually could fly

reaching New Zealand around 60 million years ago when they fly the birds. That's horrifying, but also 60 million years ago. Is that like Tarsaurus? Is that like what they think? Like 60 million years ago? Is that dinosaur time off time? I had 65 million years ago. So 60 and 64 is dinosaurs.

So I mean, yeah, I mean, these would be a close ancestor of like, I don't know what comes after the Cretaceous period, whatever that period is. Probably he says that like dinosaurs didn't like, I don't know. I don't know the current wisdom. It's been like science obviously is always in flux on stuff like this. But like, yeah, I don't know. If they if they did evolve into birds, like what the hell? It was a flighted Moa that's twice the height of a man.

That's horrible. Yeah, it's horrifying. That's like a fucking that's a monster hunter. That's dead ass like nonsense. It's like a first couple of missions in monster. Yeah, you're right. So yeah, once they arrived at the at the island, though, they became totally isolated from then on until humans showed up and made them extinct.

However, there have been a few sightings of the bird ever since their extinction dating back to the 1800s. In fact, in 1820s somewhere around there, George Pauley, a man by the name of George Pauley, claimed to have seen a bird 20 feet high by an unnamed lake in Otago region of the Southern Island. Had he just landed there in his house with balloons on the top? Yeah, yep, exactly. He said as soon as he saw the thing, he completely ran away.

Walter Buller wrote that the Maori's claimed a large Kiwi lived in the Chatham Islands until about the 1830s. I aren't Kiwis like super tiny birds. They're like little super small. They're like little. They look like a character from Earth Bound. They don't look like they could be real. Yeah, but they're tiny though, aren't they?

I don't know how tiny. I mean, like what's tiny crazy? I thought they were like maybe a foot high at most. Oh, I think you're right. I think I think they're like the size of like a kitten and maybe a little smaller. Oh, well, it's not the only sight of a giant Kiwi. In the 1840s, Australian bird painter John Gould reported

seeing what he described as giant Kiwis on the South Island as well. Actually, it looks like some of them get pretty big. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, this one was around a meter tall and Gould's bird feet description had matched those of fossilized Moa footprints found on the North Island. And in the mid 1840s, the crew of the Whaler Magnolia reported trapping a big emu that weighed like 500 pounds. The captain who was taxidermist was said to have preserved the bird

to send it to the London Museum. However, no known specimen was ever sent to the museum. Emus, though, those Australia lost a war to emus. So just they lost a war. That is like the best story. Yeah, look it up. They had like gaddling guns or something versus the emus and they couldn't win. Like it.

Whoa, wait. What? I don't think I made that up. Can we do an episode on the war against emus? It's like sad and gross and decent and awful than it is mysterious in any way. Can I tell you guys something amazing? I love I love the science part of the Internet. So I looked up what the period I was like, all right.

What what is takes place after 65 million years? Like in the geological timeline, what's that called? It's called the paleo gene period of time. And that's sort of like immediately after the dinosaurs, the rise of the mammals is all that stuff. But the best part of this entire thing I'm going to link it to you right now is on that page. It talks about the rise of giant birds.

And there is an image of what appears to be a dodo battling one of the birds we're talking about, and it is incredible. And I just want you to know. Oh my God, that's wild. That's cool. Just put it out there. We should definitely include that on the subreddit because it is like dinosaurs fighting.

This is like literally like a Pokemon battle. It's dinosaurs. Yeah. Like so good. So that is I get what you're talking about. It's 100 percent just giant birds during this time period. So it makes sense that they would if you are in New Zealand and that is it's cut off and they have all these other crazy animals there, that is the rest of the

world changes and all these different things are in flux. They're in New Zealand. You still have the giant birds checks out. It's pretty cool. I've got a couple more sightings and an actual possible picture of one and a news article of one. So in 1867, four gold miners claimed to have seen a Moa quote on Saturday, July 27th, about four o'clock in the afternoon, whilst enjoying a pipe by the side of a

small fire in our hut with the door open. My attention was suddenly directed to a large animal on the opposite range. I was not long in doubt as to what the stranger was. My mates cried out, it's a Moa in the Moa shirt was the bird must have been more than a mile in a straight line from us. But as the horizon was clear, every movement could be detected. The bird was evidently going at a great pace and I can only compare it to the movements of an emu or an ostrich.

We had a full view of the bird for more than two minutes when he suddenly disappeared on the other side of the range. So another nice little 1860s diary entry of one that saw the saw it. And I can imagine if I saw a giant bird off in the horizon, knowing that a war of emus was coming, I'd be scared. I'd be horrified. I big birds. It's it's not.

Have you ever been in the presence of like one of these types of birds? Like an ostrich or a zoo or something? Yeah, I is. It is crazy. I know that I had to have brought this up because it feels very much like something we talk about in this show. But another great show, Radio Lab, I'm going to say, like, even better than our show, even like a distant second compared to the show.

But anyway, as good as I, but one of the episodes they did featured this weird skull that they had found of like an ancient man and they couldn't figure out what killed this guy. They're doing all these studies on it. And they were like, oh, it could have been a saber tooth. Like clearly he was attacked by something, right? And there were these weird marks on his face. And yeah, I remember this.

And one of the things that happens is they discover that there are actually claw marks inside his eyes and like his eye sockets. And when they do the research, they're like, oh, the only thing that has claws up and do like on the forehead and up in the eyes are birds, like talons. And so the whole episode they do devolves into this thing. It's kind of like, you know, when you're out at night or like out and you see a shadow above you, your initial reaction is to immediately

be like scared and look up. That is very similar to probably what these people are feeling. And it's like ingrained in our DNA because at one point in time, human beings were terrified of giant birds snatching them up. Ah, dude, I can't imagine like getting my eyes poked through my skull with giant emu basically stomping me to death. I'd be pretty rad. Like in terms of ways to go, like, I mean, I was pretty mental.

Like I'm pretty into it. Yeah, I don't want to get picked up by a bird and like by my eyes and like Karen away. That sucks. If I can agree some sort of way that like a dude in a monster movie would die. I don't care. That would be rad.

I would be fine with that. I make a show of it. I'd be like. All right. Two more sightings in one with the photograph. Here we go. In 1993, three hikers claim to have seen a moa in the Craig Craigie Byrne range in Arthur's Pass.

That's got to be not how you say that, right? It's probably not how you say it. I do. Here's how here's how it's spelled. You tell me how you would say this. All right. There you go. You know, God damn, that's not how I thought it was going to be spelled.

I'll tell you that much. I would you say that I would Craigie Byrne. That's that's all I got. That's all I had to one of these people who was hiking was actually a former SAS soldier and Mountaineer Patty Freeney who had managed to chase the bird and take a photograph of what appeared to be a fleeing moa. Later analysis by specialists at Canterbury University concluded that the pictures seem to show a genuine bird.

A year later in the same vicinity, a physician found unusual browsing damage on plants that could only have been made by a moa. He at least he proclaimed. So here's the picture that was taken and can't wait to see this. So what your thoughts can't wait to see this thing. I bet it better be a very clear picture of a giant on, bro. Get the fuck out of here, dude. This is like a joke from a Muppets where they like cut to the culprit could be

and they're trying to pretend like it's not a chicken. Canterbury University said it is clearly a bird. I mean, what am I even looking at? A blurry bird is what it is. This is a photo from 1993. This isn't even like a sixties photograph. There's no any context for height. Nothing.

It looks like a chicken. It's also the photo. It looks cropped like any right. Any context for height or anything like that is ruined because it's such a close up of a blurred photo. It's crazy. It looks like it. Deadass looks like a chicken from like the far side.

Like it looks like a fucking drawing of a chicken. It's true. It does not say terrible picture in the fact that I can't the Canterbury University and they use like that as evidence. So the Canterbury University concluded that it was a bird. Take that offline. Canterbury. That's embarrassing.

Don't have that on another one of their crazy tales. That's just failed that English college. I had to read that horrible book. I hated it. It's barely a book. It's like before books. I think that's you can't get better than that. That's the photo.

We'll end on that. You guys want to argue. You could probably get a little better. That's like the best sighting that we could get of a Moa. That's like it. I might as well. I just imagined it with my eyes closed. It probably looks a lot better that way.

Uh-huh. Yeah. So that's the Moa. All right. Give me a rating. Do you think the Moa is better than Lord of the Rings as New Zealand's number one attraction? Nothing like a no.

I'm gonna give like a 70%. I think it's pretty good. Like if somebody found one of these, for example, that would be they, they would have to do some sit. Like this could be like the bald eagle of New Zealand. Nothing about this is better than anything in Lord of the Rings. Even that one, that one, uh, orc who was like, like even that guy's cooler than this.

What about, what about the fact that it made the country of New Zealand under the thumb of Warner Brothers pictures? I mean, that's look. That's sad. But like all this is, is all this birds trying to do is to grab somebody's eyes up once or twice every once in a while. Every couple hundred thousand years, they're just trying to grab somebody's eyeballs out of their head.

That's it. All right. Let's actually a car alarm. I'm so sorry. I don't know if you guys can hear that cannot three or five, six. So there are six cryptids total. Why don't you rank them in order? Where would you put it on a list?

Number one at the moment. Okay. Same place in this list at the moment. Just got it. Last I got it first, but there's only one thing on the list. It's fun. Yeah. Fair enough.

All right. Let's move on to the next one. The cabagon. The cabagon is a cryptid that was very first spotted off the coasts of New Zealand by a Japanese fishing boat, the 28th Kanpur Maru in Nihongo in 1974. The cabagon literally means hippo monster in Japanese. It sounds like a like a Godzilla. And I'm going to send you a picture or a drawing because there was no photo of

this thing and they believe that the and they named the monster basically on impulse. They just saw the thing and they immediately named it and it just has been named that every day. Here is a little artistic interpretation of what they believed they saw. Okay. Yo, that thing is from outer space. That like actually deadass looks like a monster that could be a rubber suit.

Like, yes, it does. It really does. One of those monsters from like Power Rangers or literally like Godzilla. Godzilla versus cabagon. Look at that thing. The most notable physical features of this creature are very large eyes and a huge nostrils, a large head measuring about one and a half meters in height from under the nostrils to the top of the head.

So those big holes. Yeah. The coloration they saw, they said was grayish in general. The head of the creature resembles what is known as an imbozu, an imbozu. And I'm just going to link. I'm just going to, it's a, it's a sea monk. It's a whole other cryptid. It's a whole other thing, but it's like this monk in Japanese mythology, a sea

spirit, it dwells in the ocean, usually emerges during storms, sinks ships. So that was like the thought that they had when they saw the cabagon. He looks kind of friendly to me. I got to be honest. Like he'd look, I do. You know what? I look kind of shy. I feel like it's kind of like he's like, oh, I don't want to say hello.

No, it looks like one of those rubber suit guys. You're absolutely right, Alex, except he just has no expression and still kills you. You know what I mean? Like from the fifties backwards like this and I get like explosion happens like next to him. Yeah. I know what you mean.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got one other. It's like a piece of wood and he like bends a little bit. You're like, oh, actually, let me. Oh, man, can really defeat you guys.

You guys are so dead on in the way this thing looks. Hey, I will show you this picture in a minute. We're going to really quickly go over what they believed they saw. So in the afternoon of April 28th, 1974 on February 13th, 1958, about 7 p.m. All members or of 20. I'm sorry. In the afternoon of April 28th, 1974, all the people of the ship, including the captain Kimura of Japanese fishing, then sold 28th come Pinaru.

As I said prior me, they witnessed a large creature off Littleton Peninsula. This is when they saw the large head and nostrils measuring to they what they believe to be about a meter and a half and Captain Kimura sketched the animal, which is the sketch you saw. That is actually the captain's drawing of what he thought he saw. Local magazine in New Zealand, the New Zealand weekly magazine later picked the sighting and mysterious footprints were reported on a beach nearby the sighting location.

However, no physical sightings have been reported since then. And I'm going to show you this magazine from Japan depicting. Yes, man. OK, yes. Yes. No, that guy is a Pokemon. That's a cute. It looks like a cartoon tarantula that is giant and lives in the ocean.

Alex. Oh my God. Have you seen that YouTube video series with the like cute tarantula? It's like, hello. Yes. And he's like, it's like, yes, it's exactly what that is. Exactly like that. He said, huge. Just as cute though.

Yeah. And that interpretation, he looks furry. Yeah. He looks like he's got like, yeah, like that thick, thick, hard fur. What's kind of fun is that the bottom two sets of eyes look a little bit more shocked than the tops. They kind of look like Mario through his fucking little hat. And took him over.

True. The cat was initially speculated as a misidentified misidentification of pinnipeds, which were like water versus and such. However, the latter was denied as the species only inhabits the arctic waters of the northern hemisphere. Some indicate that the creature is remnant, is a remnant descendant of the Desmos Tillidae. Oh my God.

The scientific name of that particular species. I'll copy paste it so you can see. It this is a type of like walrus or something like classification of like walrus or some honestly, especially looking at that first picture and like thinking about how seal looks. I could totally see them seeing that picking out of the water and kind of getting a different idea of how it's shaped and what it does. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what they are. They're an extinct family of herbivorous marine mammals belonging to the order of Desmos Tillidae. They lived in the coastal waters of the northern Pacific Ocean from early Oligocene through the late Miocene existing for about twenty six point seven million years.

Now you've had it. It's a lot of years. Cabogon. So yeah, it's long. It's a long time. However, the descriptions of the creature actually fit to several species of pinnipeds, such as the leopard seal and southern elephant seal, especially southern elephant seal, the largest of living pinnipeds reaching

five to six and a half meters in length can be possible candidate for this record. That's all we really have on the cabagon. He's not nearly as well documented and documented as the male, the male moa. Sorry. So but he looks really cool. And I like that he's like an oceanic cryptid. What would you rank him on your list of potential new New Zealand attractions? What are you know how we always we have like a baseline of what we're trying to

because here's my thing. I'd rank him on like very high. Obviously he's the five and the other guy was a six. Like there's no doubt this guy's better this guy. But seriously. Oh, yeah. This moa birds, really? Yeah, this guy's awesome.

But more importantly, but here's the problem. This is this is my conundrum. This dude. He is a water based creature, but furry. Hence, I don't know how cool that is because I feel like that would suck to be like a little like wet water thing like that would suck. So like if we're basing it on like his his ability to be a good creature, I feel like he might be lower than the giant birds because

the giant birds at least like had their shit together. I don't know. Well, but yo stuffed animal factor. Well, that's what I'm saying. So if we're talking about the cuteness factor, we're trying to not we're not if we're trying to knock L.O.T.R. off the top rung. You know, you got to bring it sometimes. And the moa is awesome.

The moa like if it was like Teenage Moa Ninja Turtles or whatever. Sucks. Imagine these guys as Ninja Turtles though. Too big. Teenage Mutant Ninja 4. I'd furry beast like these guys. Tire sewer system of New York City would be like destroyed. Yeah, I love this.

This is my five. These guys are five. Yeah, you know what? I'm going to put it for this for this purpose. I'm going to put it above the moa, but I still like them all more. Okay. All right. Next up is the Zuyo Maru creature.

This is another cryptid that was actually discovered off the coast of New Zealand by Japanese fishing boat. The it was actually a carcass that was pulled from the sea and decay. I have to look at strange. Nice. I'll give you. I'll get you the picture. It's strange appearance led many to believe it was the remains of Plesiosaur,

which is an aquatic prehistoric reptile that some believe could be messy. A later testing of the tissue showed that it was most likely a decomposed basking shark or perhaps an undiscovered animal altogether. Let me get you guys. The photo years is from so you can the seventies again. I believe I just said. Yep. Seventy seven nineteen.

So more easily even than the previous. Yeah. It's just like about three years more waiting for this thing to look exactly like a shark. I can't wait to see this. I'm having issues with the photo loading for some reason. Here you go, boys. Oh, Jesus.

It looks like a fucking blood-borne boss. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to make of that. Yo, that thing is awful looking. It looks like it looks like a conch from like the current Moon night series. Oh, speaking of love, loved episode one. Enjoyed it. Yes, but I knew you.

I knew of all the people you would be the one to like be like, I like it. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I absolutely loved it. Okay. So the discovery of this thing happened on April 25th, nineteen seventy seven by Japanese trawler, Zuyo Maru sailing 30 miles east of Christchurch, New Zealand caught an enormous rod and carp carcass in his trawl. The crew were convinced it was an unidentified animal, but despite the

potential biological significance of the curiosity, the curious discovery rather, the captain Akira Tanaka decided to dump the carcass into the ocean again, so not to risk spoiling the caught fish that they just had. However, before that, photos were taken. Some people made some sketches of the creature and they nicknamed it Nessie by the crew. Measurement measurements were taken in some samples of skeleton skin and fins were collected for further analysis by experts in Japan.

The discovery resulted in immense commotion and a plesiosaur craze in Japan as the shipping company ordered all its boats to try to relocate the dumped corpse again. And they could obviously never find it because it's the fucking ocean. Right. It's gone. I could go on. I don't look.

Oh, shit. We should not say that looks to me like a plesiosaur for sure. Not saying that, but it definitely looks fucked up enough that I can see why people were taken with it. I I is that supposed to be the head there off to the side? Yeah. Yep. That's supposed to be the head limped off to the right hand side.

So that's interesting. It does look like it's on the end of a long aquatic neck. But I mean, if you could be chunks missing, you know what I mean? I don't know. Yeah, I get here's the thing is if you go off what a plesiosaur looks like and you say that that's the head, assuming that's actually the head, then yeah, you can see where like the side fins would be. You can see kind of where like the but it also could be one of those things

where once again, the human mind always tries to make order from chaos. And we're looking at a thing here that we just don't know what we're looking at. Right. Yeah. So the one thing that they said it could be is a basking shark, right? So I think. Yeah. Here's a little comparison of a basking shark held in a similar position

to the corpse. OK. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, that's I if you because here's the thing. The neck basking sharks are huge too. By the way, the neck of this thing, the thing is supposed to be its neck. That could just be a spine in the flesh.

It's just got like eaten. All everything eating and the bottom jaw eaten. Yeah, I could see it also. Damn, that's a good pick, though. That should this is this is a better picture even than the other one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that bird picture.

Oh, yeah. Oh, you mean that bird picture? That's not a picture. That's not that's I can't conclude that that's a photograph for sure. It's definitely a photo of whatever. Sure. That could be watercolor. If you ask me.

Once again, though, this is the only encounter that we've had of this creature. It was named after the fisherman who found it. So where would you rank this thing on the cryptid list? Because we have no idea what its abilities are. The closest thing we can compare it to in terms of the cryptid is Nessie. And I feel like Scotland already has Nessie as theirs. Yeah. Yeah, this one's not as big of a.

It's not ground break. It doesn't scream New Zealand to me. Plus, this was found in the ocean. Yes. Yes, sir. Off the Japanese fisherman. Yep. So I don't think even that's true.

The claimant is there though. Yeah. The Cobbagon was also Japanese fishermen off the New Zealand coast. Yeah, but they really sold me on it. So this is this is this is the new this is the new six fair enough. OK. Yeah. All right.

I agree. I agree with the six. I think I'd put this six as well. I've got six energy now that I've seen that shark. I kind of feel like it might be a six. OK. Dear carbon footprint, who's got America's largest electrified lineup Toyota 15 hybrid plug-in fuel cell electric and battery electric vehicles from the new

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Let's go places. Next up is the mohow. The mohow also known as Maro Matao to hold to Hoerangi, Hayangina or Rapa why, described by Maori people. I'm so sorry. I did my very best. That's like my like sixth grade through 12th grade internet screen name collection. The Maori people of New Zealand described it as being terrible creatures,

half man, half animal with a very aggressive temperament. They were only too happy to massacre and eat anyone that strayed into their New Zealand skin walkers. No closer to Bigfoot. Actually, you will see I'll show you a really awful drawing. Oh, good. Early encounters often talk of these creatures exhibiting aggression and throwing rocks to frighten people off.

It was these creatures largely found in the Coro Mandel ranges that were thought to be responsible for the for the find of a headless, partially devoured body of a prospector in the Martha Mine region in 1882. Later, later further up in the foothills, the corpse of a woman was found. It was discovered that she had been dragged from the shack in which she lived while the remainder of her family were away and her neck had been snapped. Yeah, it's kind of weird. Kind of weird to find like just like a neck snap and nobody in the other

one was a torn up. Uh. Taion. Taion genus were greatly feared by the population of the lower Wagon Wagon Roy River as they were said to viciously attack any fishermen who straight into their territory. This vicious behavior, however, seems to have abated in more modern encounters as the beasts in most instances flee on the site of humans.

They're believed from legend to be able to crush any strong Maori warrior with ease, employing their large, powerful hands. They're said to be tool producing beasts using wooden stone. The article crafted are said to resemble those produced by Homo erectus hominids. They are mostly believed to be an evolved orangutan that fled to these and uninhabited islands of Polynesia. That's me. Yeah.

Meanwhile, the Mohaw are depicted as being as tall as a man, completely hair covered with marginally ape like facial features. And with that description, I will give you the photo. It's not a photo. I will give you the drawing of this creature that I have here. Dude, what are we going to have like a thing included online for everyone to go look at? I'll do a Reddit post where all the photos I'm using are.

This looks like somebody took a picture of the forest and threw a fru roll upon the camera, man. Like what? What the photo? It's a drawing. It's an artistic interpretation. No, it's not. That's like M.S. paint.

That's like a that's like an A.I. drawing of Homer Simpson. I love that they were like, yeah. And so this is where the hand would be. There is no distinction of that's where the drawing of the Patterson Gimlin film just like on a low res image of the forest, dude. I love that low res image of the forest. But you see what I mean? Like closer to like a big foot than than like any other creature.

Yeah, no, I mean, it looks exactly like Bigfoot. Like, I mean, except it's done with like a brush tool from 1991. But other than that, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The primary difference from human appearance being the extremely long finger fingers tipped with sharp talons capable of tearing apart top. This is Sabertooth from X-Men X-Men one.

I love that scene where he does that swirl around the top of the Statue of Liberty's like crown. Oh, yeah, Wolverine was that was that Wolverine? Who did that? Why did I thought that was Sabertooth? No, Sabertooth was played by like, I forget who it was. Some wrestler. Hey, hey, Mathis.

Yeah. Do you know what happens to a frog when it's struck by lightning? What is he saying? Does he say the same thing that happens to anything else? Yeah, that is one of the worst lines I've ever heard in a movie ever. It sucks so bad X-Men one. X-Men one was before there was superhero movies, guys. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure I loved that line as a kid.

I was like, oh, hell yeah. I love that she had an accent in that film. Go back and watch the trilogy. Aurora Monroe has an accent for some reason in that film, even though I guess she's supposed to, but like, she's supposed to be like, yeah, from Africa. No, they got rid of that real quick. The primary difference, obviously, like they have sharp

talons, etc. They're often described as animals. It is possible that if these man beasts existed prehistorically, they would have been more than capable of bringing down a large mowa, for instance. The large talons spoken of seem to designate this creature's predatory nature. However, large talons are also found elsewhere in the animal kingdom

and animals that rip open, rotten logs to acquire nourishment, considering the indigenous Maori used to eat the large nutritious hoo-hoo grubs. It is not impossible that this beast may also be insectivorous. Matao giants are described as being ape-like around three meters tall, slow, clumsy creatures that have a strong muscular stature. These creatures can be categorized as follows. Those that are the stature of an ordinary human.

Those that are the stature of the Matao. So there's like versions that are smaller and versions that are bigger. They come in varying shapes and sizes. Yeah, I guess so. Like a caste system. Workers and hunters and stuff, foragers. Members of the Covenant. Is that what this is like?

That's what this is. You got it. Exactly. Grumps and elites. It's possible. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, these are the New Zealand elites.

It's possible that some of these man beasts may still exist in the more remote isolated areas of bush throughout both islands. With habitat destruction and human encroachment, the species, if it survives, must unquestionably be unquestionably be on the brink of extinction or maybe already extinct. It appears the last bastion of the mohaw is in the Koromandel ranges where accounts seem to indicate they resided in their greatest population density.

Footprints are in most instances, the main evidence of these creatures, very similar to Bigfoot. In 1903, footprints larger than a man's were found in the Karaga hake Gorge in Coral Mandel. In 1971, a trail of footprints similar to a man's though extended in appearance was located on snow covered ground and led into a zone of bush on a hillside by a park ranger. In 1983, there was was when a deer hunter chanced upon man-like

footprints that could have been no more than an hour old along a river bank in the Hefe River area in finding that. Can you just just no one will ever believe you like? You know, like you find them, you're like, these are Bigfoot footprints. I'm going to go back and say I found them. Nobody's going to say that I saw Bigfoot. Yep. And if you take pictures, nobody's going to believe.

Well, you got to take them. You can't just draw them after the fact. Right. Yeah, you got to take those pictures first and foremost. And in 1991, campers in the Cameron Mountains of the South Island elected to abandon their camp after finding unusually large man-beast prints near where they were camping. Man-beast. Yeah, they just mean like long, long, I know what they mean.

It's just like it's a weird description. Sounds like a he-man villain. Sounds like what they call humans in like some kind of like made up, like, you know, like what they call them in like the whatever those things are in small soldiers, the like. Yeah, my God. I loved that movie when I was a kid. I saw that movie so many times.

I loved. Oh, yes. Oh, wow. That's like when they planted the H with them when they talk about humans like man-beast comes. One of my favorite encounters happened in 1970 when a party of campers also abandoned their camp because a large what they called man-like creature assaulted them

screaming loudly and hurling rocks at their camp. Oh, shit. Just like this creature comes out of the woods with a handfuls of rocks, even if that was just like a crazy hermit, that's fucked up. That'd be terrible. That's so that's that's scarier in my opinion. I would prefer the cryptid because at least then, you know, you get to learn a new creature.

Yeah, yeah. This is like a crazy wild man. Well, that's awful. But that about wraps up the sightings of this creature and what it's all about. Where would you boys rank the mohaw? The mohaw is like, I got to put it low, like with Nessie mohaw funk.

I got to give it number five just because here's the thing like it's better. It's better than the like shark carcass that's Nessie. It's got its own little bit going on. But like low key, these are just like the same thing as Bigfoot. Like I feel like whatever people see in America that they're saying is Bigfoot, whatever that phenomenon is, whatever the real explanation is, I think it's the same thing in New Zealand.

I don't know what that thing is. I don't know if there's a real ape man out there of varying sizes, the elites, the brutes, the grunts. I don't know what's going on out there, but but the wild world. That's why I give it five instead of six, but I don't think it's I don't think it's dethrone in L. O. T. R. We got to leave that for the hippo poose. Yeah, this is five moa is still your number one for me.

Number one moa. But if we're if it's a double list, I got to give it to the cobble gun because it's more marketable. Let's be honest. Okay. Yes. And where'd you put him in number five? Yeah.

Right now my my four, five, six lot is filled. I'm waiting for something better to come along. And so far, nothing, nothing beats Lord of the Rings. Let me try and sell this one to you then, boys. The next up is the Taniwa, the Taniwa. I like the name a lot. They the Taniwa from Maori mythology are large supernatural beings that live in deep pools and rivers, dark caves or in the sea,

especially in places with dangerous currents or deceptive breakers like giant waves. They may be considered highly respected Kaitiaki, which means protective guardians of people in places or in some traditions as dangerous predatory beings. For example, they would kidnap women to have as their wives. These things. What do they have?

Institutions of marriage? Yeah, that's they have their own marriage system and they have to kidnap their wives to have them. Okay. A linguist have reconstructed the word Taniwa, which is from proto-oceanic, I guess, of Taniwa, meaning shark species. Basically at sea, a Taniwa often appears as a whale or as quite a big shark, like a northern right whale or a whale shark.

Compare the Maori name for the Great White Shark to Mongo Taniwa. I guess they're similar in how they kind of use the word. They're both called Taniwa. In inland waters. Yeah. In inland waters, they may still be of whale like dimensions, but look more like a gecko or a tuatara, which is a lizard also in New Zealand.

So they're like whale sized geckos. So we're back in monster territory is what you're saying. Yes, this is very much monster hunter territory. Yeah, very, very much. This is promising so far. I got to say that I agree. That's my yeah, I agree. I won't say which one's my favorite of them because we got

still got more coming. The Taniwa have rows of spines along their back as well. Other Taniwa appear as a floating log, which behaves in a disconcerting way. Some can tunnel through the earth, uprooting trees in the process. Legends credit certain Taniwa with creating harbors by carving out a channel to the ocean. Wellington's harbor Te Wangunai Atara was reputed.

I'm sorry if I butcher that as always was reputedly carved out by two Taniwa according to legend. The petrified remains of one of them turned into a hill overlooking the city. What other Taniwa allegedly caused the land size landslides beside lakes or rivers. Taniwa can be male or female and is said to have arrived in New Zealand with the early voyaging canoes and her 11 sons by

the Oh, sorry. The Taniwa Arai Teru, which is a canoe, I guess a canoe area is where they apparently arrived from. There has been some speculation based on several marine sightings and on purported habitat and physical representations that the Taniwa myth may be based on periodic populations of salt water crocodile, which rarely end up crossing the straight from Australia.

Northern New Zealand presently appears to be just outside the temperature range where a population can sustain itself and definitely dying out during unusually cold. What do they need? Why that's like this? Yeah, what do they get up to? I was thinking you were going to say they have like, you know, house like houses and stuff.

I don't know. Well, we're going to get a little bit more into the mythology of them now. So most Taniwa have associations with tribal groups. Each group may have a Taniwa of its own because remember they can be guardians. That's what it translates to the Taniwa Urea depicted in this picture, which I can I will be showing you in a minute, was

associated as a guardian with the Maori people of the Harukai district. Many well known Taniwa arrived in Hawakie. Often as guardians of a particular ancestral canoe once arrived in Aotariora. They took a protective role over the descendants of the crew of the canoe that they had accompanied. So like the original Maori people as they canude into this

area, they were protected by the Taniwa as their spirit guardian basically. The origins of many other Taniwa are actually unknown. We don't know where the roots of the others are. When accorded appropriate respect, Taniwa usually acted well towards their people. Taniwa acted as guardians by warning of the approach of enemies, communicating the information via a priest who

was a medium. Sometimes the Taniwa saved people from drowning this because they. Yeah, I got Zilla because they lived in because they lived in dangerous or dark and gloomy places. The people were careful to placate the Taniwa with appropriate offerings if they needed to be in the vicinity or to pass by its layer.

These offerings were often of green twig accompanied by fitting incantation and in harvest time, the first kumara which is a sweet potato or the first taro was often presented to the Taniwa as its tribute. Arising from the role of Taniwa's tribal guardians, the word can also refer in a complimentary way to chiefs. The famous saying of the Tanui people of the Waikato district plays on this double meaning.

Waikato Taniwa Rauru Waikato of the hundred chiefs is what it translates to and Taniwa is part of that that dedication. As they're in their role as guardians, Taniwa were vigilant to ensure that the people respected the restrictions imposed by Tapu. Tapu is a Polynesian traditional concept denoting something holy or sacred. It involves rules, prohibitions, etc.

etc. Religious rules basically and these in Taniwa and forced these religious rules, they made certain that any violations of Tapu were punished. Taniwa were especially dangerous to people from other tribes that were not under its protection. There are many legends of battles with Taniwa, both on land and at sea.

And often these conflicts took place soon after the settlement of New Zealand, generally after a Taniwa had attacked and eaten a person from a tribe that had no connection with. Always the humans managed to outwit and defeat the Taniwa. Many of these creatures are described as being lizard-like form and some of the stories say the huge beasts were cut up and eaten by the people who slayed them. It's really cool.

It really is. Many Taniwa were killers, but in this particular instance, the Taniwa Karaware was eventually tamed by Tamure. Tamure lived in Harukai and was understood to have a magical power that was able to defeat them on how to tame your dragon. This is perfect. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm on board.

The Manukau people then called a Tamur, a Tamur to help kill the Taniwa and the two creatures wrestled and the Tamur clubbed the Taniwa over the head, although he was unable to kill it, his actions tamed the Taniwa and Kaeware still lives in the waters, but now lives on on the food of crayfish and octopus. Basically, that's about it. We can keep going into more details though.

We've got a couple more I want to get through before we wrap this is my one of my personal favorites of these. Where do you boys sit with the Tani? I'm campaigning for number one on the Taniwa. I like this Taniwa campaigning. It's like a little Godzilla for everyone. It's like a like, you know, it's like a mix between. Here's a a stone carving of what it would look like as like

a get goes type thing. Like, are you kidding me, dude? I must say that the Taniwa not only is featured in a lot of popular culture. There's Taniwa stuffed animals. There's a Taniwa magic, the gathering car that's two dollars and six cents on eBay. There is this delightful image of a Taniwa looking like Alex

Fossiani on a beach with his friends. What? Oh, hell yeah is the Taniwa number one. Taniwa is killing it right now. Everything I guess there's a TV show called Wellington Paranormal, which I think is like related to what we do in the shadows, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's an episode where they go find the Taniwa. There is Taniwa's everywhere. I love it. Huge fan of this. I love it. This is definitely number one. Let's get this guy up. This is a solid one.

Yeah. All right. Is he number one for you too? 100% Did he bump the muller down? Yeah, 100%. Okay. All right.

We'll go into the next one. This next one is actually originated in Australia. However, there have been claimed sightings of this in New Zealand. Is this six of six? No, there should be one more after this and then it should be six. So dear roads, trails and rivers.

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Put pen to paper and start your journey today with Papier. Visit papier.com for 10% off your first order. That's 10% off at papier.com. This one is called the Bunyip. Bunyip? Have you always heard of the Bunyip before? I have an awesome picture of the Bunyip. How about you, Jesse?

Have you heard the Bunyip before? I don't think so. All right. I think you're going to like this picture. I think Magic the Gathering. When I see this picture, there it is. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is pretty good too.

Yo, that guy looks awesome. Yeah, he really does look like a magic card. You're 100% right there. Yeah, but the other guy was a magic card. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And also, you know, as a knock against the Bunyip while it's been seen in New Zealand, it originates in Australia.

So is it really in New Zealand cryptic? That's not like as a as somebody who's trying to like, you know, market do marketing for New Zealand. I think that's going to be a pain point. We're going to have to figure out some way to establish this as New Zealand desk if we're going to. Yeah, I don't know if you're going to be able to here's I'll give you the rundown of its origins coming from Australia.

The Bunyip, which is translated an Aboriginal Australian to mean devil or evil spirit, also known as the Keon Pradi is a creature of Aboriginal mythology. It lives in swamps, billabongs. I love that word, by the way, creeks, riverbeds and waterholes all over Australia and can be found in New Zealand Bunyip in the Wemba Wemba language means devil or evil spirit as well. Aboriginal peoples used to tell tales of creatures

that stalked the waterways and any prey item that came close and the creature had developed a taste for humans, mostly for children. Many of the modern sightings that have come from the Australian people come in a wide variety of descriptions, scaly, furry, big, small, skinny, fat and so on. The Bunyip then is represented as uniting the characteristics of a bird and an alligator.

It has a head resembling an emu with a long bill at the extreme, extremity of which is a transverse projection on each side with serrated edges like bone of the sting. Transverse projections on my on each side. No, thanks. Yeah. So it's like a saw sawed bill on on the sides. Like, wait, I'm trying to wait.

So what is that? Is he like a predator? What does that mean? It looks like an emu and then has like a long bill and then the sides of the bill are like pointed like a saw like pointy. Okay. All right. I guess I understand that.

Okay. I thought you meant like his mouth open like the freaking predator. It's like a saw like thing inside. The hind legs are remarkably thick and strong and the four legs are even are much longer than the rear, but still of great strength. The extremities are furnished with long claws, but the they

usually the usual method of killing its prey is by hugging it to death. When in the water, it swims like a frog and when on shore, it walks on its hind legs with its head erect in which position it measures 12 to 13 feet in height. Don't want to get hugged by it. I don't like that detail. That's creepy to me.

There's a bunch of descriptions for this creature. Some say it has a dog like face, dark fur, a horse like tail, flippers, even just looking at the Wikipedia. It's like every single picture of it is totally different. Yeah, it just looks all crazy. They not only did they say they like children, but some say it prefers women as well. One legend says that a man named Bunyip broke the rainbow

serpent's greatest law by eating his totem animal banished by the good spirit beyond me. The man became an evil spirit that lured tribesmen tribesmen and their livestock into the water so that he could eat all of them. God damn. One of the first recorded accounts of the Bunyip took place in 1818 when James Meehan and explorer Hamilton Hume both found enormous bones in Lake in Lake Bathhurst located in New

South Wales of Australia. They described the creature similar to a manatee or hippopotamus. There's your Bunyip, ladies and gentlemen again, definitely has a knock against it because I like it really has like a nice good cultural background. I like that there's many many different descriptions of it, but yeah, it's hard to put it as the emblem of New Zealand when it's not really New Zealand.

Where would you put it on your list? I think I want to put it at number four. OK, this is for all my New Zealanders out there. This is a six because it is not New Zealand and I will not have it higher than the New Zealand things. Six. All right, last crypto gentleman. We're going to end where we began with another big bird, the

Pau Kai, also known as the Hakawhi or the Hokioi. It's a carnivorous bird from Maori mythology. It's described by Sir George Gray, an early governor of New Zealand, as a huge black and white bird with a red crest and yellow tinged wingtips. In Maori legend, the Pau Kai was said to kill and eat humans. In Maori mythology, the Hakawhi was one of 11 tapu, which means sacred birds of Raka Mau Mau, the god of the winds.

Hakawhi lived in the heavens and only descended to earth at night, presumably to hunt. It was considered to be a gigantic bird of prey. This bird of prey has been killed in at least two separate legends and one Pua Kai was killed by Punger who God man Punger who with a stone axe to help the Nuku Mai Tor, a race of fairies. So basically this guy was enlisted by fairies to help kill

this giant bird. How Otara also led a band of 50 men to kill one that had been targeting a local village by luring it into a hole, which caught the beast and allowed the men to kill it before ascending Mount Tarawara to finish off its young. So they went like that's hardcore. They killed the beast and they're like, you know what? Let's also go kill this thing's children.

So hearing the call of the Hakawhi was considered to be a bad omen, traditionally pre-saging war. Ornithologists in New Zealand believe the myth related to an unknown real life bird species as to whether it is a species that is extinct or still alive is unknown. Mention of the Hakawhi has occurred in Maori mythology throughout New Zealand for centuries. Since European Pean settlement of the main islands, direct

experience of the Hakawhi via its call is largely restricted to the Mutton Bird's Island, several small islands in the vicinity of the Fovo Strait and Stewart Island. The islands have no permanent human residents but are visited seasonally from mid-March to the end of May for mutton birding, the harvesting of sooty sheer water chicks for food and oil. There the sound a scur... Yeah, I know, I know, I'm looking at this like this is crazy.

There the sound described to the Hakawhi was described as having two main components, a vocal noise described as Hakawhi Hakawhi Hakawhi and its name, followed by a non-vocal roar similar to that of a jet engine. What? It is most often... Yeah, I know, it is most often heard on calm moonlit nights and typically sound as they come from a great height.

So that's that's the that's the Paukai. This thing just sounds like it's real. Yeah, but it comes from Malorie mythology and it apparently eats people. The there's no real image of it, no real sightings, just legends of this thing. I mean, big eagles and stuff like you said is not necessarily kind of...

There's nothing particularly fantastical about this bird compared to the other things. It is heavily, it is heavily culturally relevant. It's kind of pretty. Do we have a good picture of it? If you look it up, I got the Hakawhi on Wikipedia, but this bird might be what I have as well. This bird just looks kind of like a beautiful Audubon watercolor

of a bird. Yeah, that's I think we're looking at the same exact. Is this, are you looking at the image of it attacking the other birds? Yes. No, I'm looking at the Kono Korfa Aucklandica. Oh, I'm looking at it attacking those big ass birds we talked about at the beginning, which to me places it above that.

The Moa? This is this is what I've got. This guy can attack the Moa. This guy is above the Moa. Is this not the right bird that I'm looking at right now? The thing you clicked linked me to sent me to an empty page. What? Wikipedia?

Alex, are you okay? I said you're doing Wikipedia. Are you guys not seeing this? I'm not seeing it. All right, I'm going to link it again. You guys really aren't seeing this? Oh, you know why your link for some reason, the very last bracket is going is like not clickable.

It's like a regular text. What the hell? I got it now. Okay. So what you're looking at is 100% not what we're talking about. Yeah. No, that looks like Kiwi. I know.

That's what I was saying, but it says it's it's the Hakawhi. The Hokioi. Yeah. Right. That's what you said, right? Hakawhi. No, yeah, that's a picture of the supposed Hakawhi. The one I sent you just looks like a giant eagle.

Yeah. We're talking about sending a pommet. Yeah. This one looks way dope compared to that one. This looks like the predator that you said it had at the beginning of the episode. Is it? Yeah. Doesn't it?

It does kind of sound like that. It does look a little like that. I would love to see this happen in real life. That would be fun to watch. Uh, where would you rate it, boys? I'm going to put this one at number three. This is fair. This is my four because the first guy, the Maori was five.

Right. No, this is my three. You're absolutely right. This is three, Maori five, weird, uh, carcass. No, wait, we're carcass five, more for Australian guys. Six, six. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Number one that I think we're all in agree is the Taniwa. Taniwa is that it's solid. The best solid one. Yeah. It's yeah.

It's the best. I agree. It's the best cryptid. When I was reading these, I think a hundred percent. My favorite one is the question better than Lord of the Rings. I'm going to say as a representative of the culture of New Zealand, one hundred and ten percent. Yes.

All right. Uh, I don't think I would want to replace Lord of the Rings. You can still have Lord of the Rings. You just, you know, when we talk about New Zealand, people should be like, sure, sure. You know what? You know what? Yeah.

Yeah. I lost sight. I lost sight of the criteria we were looking for here. I have no, I forgot numbers. So it's all right. It's fine. Taniwa, I agree, should be the draw of New Zealand. So government, if you're listening to us, your favorite podcast, please.

It clearly is important because you look it up and there's so much Taniwa stuff. He's awesome. He's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I'm surprised I hadn't heard of it. I thought that was a super cool cryptid. New Zealand, we're doing, it's all going to be Taniwa themed.

Hell yes. I would so be down for that. All right, y'all. That's going to wrap it up here for Shlumanati podcast, episode 146. We are off to the Patreon to do a mini-sode where we're going to talk about, I don't know, some weird news that we found throughout the week. And last time I would go to ShlumanatiPod.com. A live show is May 26, Austin, Texas in the parish.

Get your tickets now before they sold out to ShlumanatiPod.com. Just click on the poster and buy your tickets. Thank you guys so much for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye. Goodbye. Bye. Anyway, me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night, enjoying ourselves.

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