Agropelter

Sources present the Agropelter as a product of American lumbering/woodland tall-tale tradition and classify it among the so-called "fearsome critters," even given a mock-taxonomic name (Anthrocephalus craniofractens) in some summaries. The supplied materials do not record any cosmogonic origin, cultic founding myth, or religious genealogy; instead the creature appears in anecdotal and cataloguing accounts used by storytellers and camp lore to explain forest hazards and entertain.

Accounts vary. One formulation describes a "slender, wiry body, the villainous face of an ape, and arms like muscular whiplashes," a comparison that includes the simile that it can "snap off dead branches and hurl them... like shells from a six inch gun." Other tellings depict "the head of a gorilla or some other terrifying ape, but fully furred, and its body... like that of a stretched-out, starving bear." A separate description gives its coloration as "completely black save for its face, which had a ... ash-grey skull pattern." Sources note variation among tellings and also remark on the creature's elusiveness.

Folkloric accounts ascribe to the Agropelter the behavior of perching in hollow conifer trees and hurling wooden splinters, branches, and other thrown wood at intruders; one source emphasizes great strength and accuracy in this action. Tales list a humorous/folk diet ("subsists on woodpeckers, hoot owls, high-holes, and dozy (rotten) wood") and include reproductive lore that "pups are born on February 29 and always arrive in odd numbers." In tall tales the creature is blamed for disappearances in northern forests and for logging accidents in which falling branches killed workers; individual anecdotes include a story of an Agropelter kidnapping a pioneer surveyor and feeding him raw fish until escape.