The Cryptid Zoo: Yowie (or Yahoo)

All hairy humanoids reported from Australia are called yowies or yahoos, even though there is enough variation in the reported creatures to create 4, 5 or more separate classes of Australian hairy humanoid. Some researchers say that "yowie" and "yahoo" are just different words that refer to the same type of creature, while others say that each term describes a distinct type of being.

If they are regarded as different beings, then they might be described according to the following classification: the yahoo is a mostly-quadrupedal beast that is about five feet tall on those rare occasions that it stands upright. It has dark fur on its back and sides, light fur on the head, arms, legs and belly. It is thought that it might be an undiscovered species of giant wombat or a diprotodont, a supposedly extinct marsupial that looked surprisingly like an ape. The yowie is weirder than the yahoo and is more likely to walk on two legs. The yowie generally looks more human-like and more monster-like than the yahoo.

Some people working in the field of cryptozoology divide the yowie and the yahoo in a different way. To them, the yahoo is the "devil man" of Aboriginal legend, while the yowie is the man-beast of modern sightings. The older term "yahoo" has almost been replaced by "yowie." Thus, older tales and folklore are more likely to call Australian hairy humanoids yahoos.

Even so, both creatures seem to vary in appearance quite a bit and are easy to confuse with each other. Different areas have different types of yowie, and in addition the reports seem to vary over time. Today's yowie is not the same as the yowie of a hundred years ago.

You can find out more about the Yowie from the following sources:

Brookesmith, Peter, ed. Creatures from Elsewhere. London, Chartwell Books, 1989. Pages 11-12

Clark, Jerome and Coleman, Loren. Cryptozoology A-Z. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999. Pages 255-257

Clark, Jerome. Unexplained!. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1999. Pages 527-533

Gilroy, Rex. Giants from the Dreamtime: The Yowie in Myth and Reality. Katoomba, Australia: Uru Publications, 2001.

Joyner, Graham C. The Hairy Man of South Eastern Australia.

Newton, Michael. Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology: A Global Guide to Hidden Animals and Their Pursuers. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2005. Pages 31, 68-69, 76, 152, 172, 198, 219-220, 327, 355, 391, 438, 451, 489, 496, 499, 504-506

Shuker, Karl. The Beasts That Hide From Man: Seeking the World's Last Undiscovered Animals. New York: Paraview Press, 2003. Page 283

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Smith, Malcolm. Bunyips and Bigfoots: In Search of Australia's Mystery Animals. Alexandria, Australia: Millennium Books, 1996.

Sydney Region Research into Cryptic Hominoids Group. What is a Yowie?

Weidensaul, Scott. The Ghost with Trembling Wings: Science, Wishful Thinking and the Search for Lost Species. New York: North Point Press, 2002. Page 173

Wikipedia, The. Yowie

Yowie Hunters Online. Australian Yowie Research