YA: Your Athenaeum

In celebration of the 2012 summer reading theme across Rhode Island, Own the Night, every Monday our blog will feature two night-dwellers or otherwise creepy characters facing each other down. Vote on one below, or come on in to the Athenaeum to vote in person and see the full bracket of all the contenders!

This week we have the Bunyip and the Chupacabra, two creatures of legend that may or may not have ever existed.

The Chupacabra is a creature rumored to have been sighted in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the United States and elsewhere. Cryptozoologists (people who specialize in the search for and study of creatures whose existence has not been verified by science, such as Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster) have brought forward bones and bodies that supposedly belong to deceased Chupacabras, but descriptions of their appearance vary from something like small dogs with tusks to alien-like lizard people. Its name translates to “goat sucker”, as the first evidence of its existence was a series of mysterious livestock deaths in which the poor animals’ blood had allegedly been drained.

Tales of the Bunyip have been told for centuries by Aboriginal people of Australia, where Bunyips are said to inhabit rivers, swamps and other bodies of water. Some scientists believe that the Bunyip was another name for a real (but extinct) beast , the diprotodon… a marsupial also called the rhinoceros wombat, which should give you a good idea of its size and appearance. The Unlike this ancient plant-eater, however, Bunyips were known to devour humans, particularly if they strayed too close to the water at night.

When these legendary beasts go tusk to tusk, who’s left standing? Who will own the night?