Country file · Central America & the Caribbean
Cryptids of the Bahamas
What cryptids are in the Bahamas? The best-known are Lusca, Chickcharney and Soucouyant.
The Bahamas’ largest island, Andros, is a wilderness of pine forest, mangrove creeks and the world’s deepest concentration of blue holes – flooded sinkholes whose dark depths and tidal currents are real hazards. They are also the home of the Lusca, a giant octopus-like monster of local lore said to drag boats and divers under, which was reported to diver George Benjamin by guides in the 1950s and made famous by a 1970 National Geographic article.
- 3 cryptids
- 7 recorded sightings
Cryptids reported in the Bahamas
Lusca
A giant octopus-like beast of Bahamian lore said to lurk in Andros’s blue holes and drag boats and divers down, with arms reportedly 75 feet long. FolkloreChickcharney
A red-eyed, owl-like elf of Andros’s pine forests whose head turns full circle and who curses those who mock it; science points to an extinct barn owl. FolkloreSoucouyant
A skin-shedding old woman of Caribbean folklore who flies as a fireball to drain sleepers’ blood; rice and salt are the classic defences. FolkloreThe legends of the Bahamas
The island’s pine forests have their own folklore: the Chickcharney, an owl-like, red-eyed elf that brings luck to the kind and trouble to the disrespectful. Biologists have suggested it descends from memories of the extinct barn owl Tyto pollens. Bahamian oral tradition also includes the hag, a skin-shedding night witch recorded in the early twentieth century.
Hotspots
- Andros Island
Largest Bahamian island, with pine forests for the Chickcharney and blue holes for the Lusca.
Sightings timeline
- 1872The American Naturalist letter Lusca
J. S. George described a dead ten-foot octopus washed up on a beach. This is often cited as a natural source of the legend.
- 1904Clavel on the Bahamian hag Soucouyant
M. Clavel’s “Items of Folk-lore from Bahama Negroes” recorded that when a hag enters a house she sheds her skin.
- 1918Folk-tales of Andros Island Soucouyant
Elsie Clews Parsons repeated the account and noted that hags could also be men.
- 1947Time: Chickcharneys at Munich Chickcharney
Time magazine retold the legend, in connection with the claim that the creatures had cursed Neville Chamberlain’s family plantation.
- 1950sA guide’s warning to a diver Lusca
A local guide told diver George J. Benjamin that the Lusca would kill him if he entered the open-ocean blue holes.
- 1970National Geographic reports the legend Lusca
Benjamin’s article on diving the blue holes recounted the Lusca stories and said he found no trace of the creature.
- 1995The extinct owl hypothesis Chickcharney
Forester Bruce G. Marcot suggested in a U.S. Forest Service publication that the legend may stem from the prehistoric barn owl Tyto pollens.