THE SNOLIGOSTER

In the cypress swamps of the South, especially around Lake Okeechobee in Florida, woodmen speak of a fearsome creature known as the snoligoster. Said to reach immense proportions, this beast is described as having a terrible and insatiable hunger, with a particular taste for human flesh.

The snoligoster resembles a monstrous crocodile, yet it differs in several uncanny ways. Its body is sheathed in sleek, dark fur, and it possesses no legs or fins. Instead, a single long spike rises from its back, both weapon and tool. Propulsion through the water and swampy muck is accomplished by three great bony plates fixed to the end of its tail, which spin like the blades of a steamboat propeller. With these, the snoligoster speeds through the marshes like a living torpedo.

Its hunting methods are as grisly as its form. Victims are seized and hurled backward to be impaled upon its great dorsal spike, where they remain until the beast has gathered enough for a meal. The snoligoster then drives its tail deep into the mire, whirling it with such force that it hollows out a pit. The captives are scraped from the spike into the cavity, where they are beaten to a pulp by the spinning plates and finally consumed.

One of the most curious accounts comes from Mr. Inman F. Eldredge of De Funiak Springs, Florida, who once claimed to see a man impaled upon what at first seemed a slender cypress knee. To his astonishment, the “knee” began to move away, revealing itself as the snoligoster’s spine. Eldredge raised his gun to fire but thought better of it, reasoning that the monster was serving as an unlooked-for enforcer of justice, making the swamps too dreadful a refuge for wrongdoers.