This is the Beast of Gévaudan, a wolf the size of a cow that terrorized southeastern France in the 18th century. All the big press in “cryptozoology” goes to Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Abominable Snowman, but there’s a cast of B players that are a lot more colorful:

• The Mongolian Death Worm haunts the Gobi Desert, using poison and electrical charges to kill men, horses, and camels. It’s said to resemble a four-foot length of cow intestine.
• The Great Grey Man of Ben MacDhui lives in Scotland’s Cairngorm Mountains. He can appear as a 10-foot humanoid, or he can afflict victims psychically, with overwhelming terror, dark blurs, echoing footsteps, and “an icy feeling.”
• The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp attacked 17-year-old Chris Davis while he was changing a tire early one South Carolina morning in 1988. Reportedly a series of long scratches were later found on the roof of Davis’ car.
• The Monkey Man of New Delhi might have had metal claws, or glowing eyes, or a helmet, or green lights on its chest, or it might have been a remote-controlled robot. Whatever it was, it was mad. Between May 14 and May 17, 2001, Delhi police fielded more than 40 reports of attacks around the city.
• The most lyrically named “cryptid” is the Clutchbone, a seven-foot leathery monster that roamed Europe in the 1800s, burning and dismembering its victims. It had a lit torch in place of a head.

My favorite, though, is the New Jersey Vegetable Monster: A single drunken witness claimed to have seen a humanoid resembling a giant stalk of broccoli in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. “Likely attributable to a case of delirium tremens.”