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Monster" is a prejudicial term that conjures fear, grotesquerie, and moral judgment, yet its visceral appeal sells books, documentaries, and headlines."Cryptozoology," in contrast, is a moniker that has drifted from public view despite addressing a far broader set of phenomena than tabloids suggest.Defined broadly, cryptozoology encompasses not only putative "unknown or hidden" fauna but also a host of other animal-like phenomena that resist straightforward scientific classification (Coleman & Clark, 1999;Simpson, 1984).In particular, the taxonomy of cryptids might reasonably include traditional fauna unknown to science, taxa once considered mythical but later validated, culturally-embedded motifs like werewolves (de Blcourt, 2007) or other shape-shifters (Kachuba, 2023), folklore-type beings such as "little people" and anomalous humanoids that often overlap with ghosts and extraterrestrials (Evans, 1987;Hernandez et al., 2018;Houran, 2000;Kumar & Pekala, 2001), as well as "entity encounters" during psychedelic (e.g., Davis et al., 2020) or spontaneously occurring transcendental states (e.g., Houran, 2025).To be sure, it is not always apparent whether such interactions involve material or immaterial "creatures."Critics therefore understandably argue that "pure" cryptozoology has been muddled by the inclusion of esoteric phenomena.While such topics may merit investigation and can be tangentially related, it seems unlikely they are biologically grounded.Their presence tends to distort datasets and discourage academic participation.Many of these paranormal subjects also draw heavily from popular culture, contributing to definitional creep and blurring the boundaries of cryptozoology as a zoological discipline.Although scientists have historically engaged with ideas now associated with cryptozoology, the term was coined by zoologist Ivan T. Sanderson in the early 1940s and first appeared in print in his 1961 work Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life (cf.Heuvelmans, 1968, p. 33).The word derives from the Greek kryptos, meaning "hidden, unknown, or secret," combined with zoology, the study of animals (Mackal, 1980).Sanderson also investigated UFOs and other anomalies, but he generally kept these pursuits separate from zoological research.Belgian zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans (1986) later expanded Sanderson's framework with an annotated checklist of unknown animals ("cryptids"), including: (a) species or subspecies apparently unknown to science, such as alleged prehistoric survivors; (b) species or subspecies known from historical records but presumed extinct, yet claimed to persist; (c) known species or subspecies reported outside their scientifically recognized geographic ranges; (d) known species or subspecies allegedly introduced or occurring artificially outside their accepted ranges; and (e) unrecognized, non-taxonomic variants of known species or subspecies.