CONTINENT FILE

Cryptids of Central America & the Caribbean

Island legends, jungle wildmen and the birthplace of the chupacabra.

Choose a country

Nicaragua4 cryptidsGuatemala3 cryptidsHonduras3 cryptidsEl Salvador3 cryptidsCosta Rica3 cryptidsPuerto Rico2 cryptids

Cryptids of Central America & the Caribbean

Artist’s drawing of the classic Puerto Rican chupacabra: an upright gray creature with big eyes and spines along its back OTHER · 1995

Chupacabra

Canóvanas, Puerto Rico

The “goat-sucker” of 1990s Puerto Rico: a spiny, bloodsucking beast blamed for livestock deaths that spread across Latin America and Texas.

WIDELY REPORTED Actors in costume during the theatrical performance of La Llorona on the water at Xochimilco, Mexico City SPECTRAL · 16th century

La Llorona

Canals of Xochimilco, Mexico City

A weeping ghost in white who wanders rivers and canals at night crying for the children she lost – Mexico’s most famous and most widely told legend.

FOLKLORE Carlos Loarca’s 2011 acrylic painting “La Línea,” inspired by the mythical dog El Cadejo DOGMAN & CANINE · Pre-colonial roots; recorded 19th century

El Cadejo

Night roads of Guatemala and El Salvador

A spectral dog with burning eyes that follows night travelers in Central America – the white one protects them, the black one leads them to ruin.

FOLKLORE A welcome sign and green hills at Moca, Puerto Rico, the town where the 1975 animal deaths took place. FLYING · 1975

Moca Vampire

Moca, northwestern Puerto Rico

In 1975 a mystery killer left Puerto Rican livestock dead with puncture wounds; a tabloid named it “the Vampire of Moca,” 20 years before the chupacabra.

REGIONAL LEGEND HOMINID · Pre-colonial

Sisimite

Mountain forests of Honduras, Belize and the Yucatán

Central America’s hairy wild man of the mountain caves, said to walk on backward feet, fear water and dogs, and carry off people who stray into the forest.

FOLKLORE