Review: Hunting Monsters by Dr. Darren Naish

Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths 

by Darren Naish

(paperback edition, 2017, Sirius)

As a cryptozoological reader of some 40 years and writer of 20+, and a correspondent of Dr. Naish, I looked forward to this book, and I'm hardly disappointed. Naish offers a very good skeptical analysis of the whole cryptozoology business, even if I think it could have been a little better. 

One point a reader will notice early on is that there is so much ground to cover that the author can only touch on many points in passing. Skipping over the Great New England Sea Serpent, a touchstone of the sea monster topic, is an example. 

Naish starts with whether cryptozoology is, or can be, scientific, and agrees it can be but isn't often. He begins and ends with the point cryptozoology exists in a cultural milieu and is influenced by folklore, tradition, etc. as well as modern innovations like the Internet. This isn't entirely original and he credits influences including Dr. Charles Paxton, whose work I greatly admire, and folklorist Michel Meurger, who I've always thought overreached the subject.

Naish is not closed-minded about this. He has himself put forward new species concepts over the years to explain cryptozoological sightings, including a cryptid seal and a giant orangutan, but in his blog Tetrapod Zoology and elsewhere he's uncovered or been offered new information and has generally come to conclude the "star" animals are not physically there. This book explains his reasoning well.

When he offers an explanation, I'm not always entirely convinced: the "finning" seal (a seal waving one flipper in the air for cooling) for the Valhalla sighting, for example, is clever, but I can't look at the first-hand original drawing and get a seal out of it. (As you can tell, I enjoy sea serpent lore more than the rest of the subject these days.) The opposite is true of the HMS Daedalus sighting, which I think we can put to rest.

The subject is vast and Naish can't help that, so the bibliography is essential: it's pretty good but could have been more extensive.

Lest anyone think I'm damning with faint praise, this is an excellent and important book. If it doesn't hunt down every major cryptid, it will make the veteran cryptozoology reader think hard and will give the new reader an excellent starting point grounded in good science.