Squonk
Aliases: Lacrimacorpus dissolvens (mock Latin) / Territory: États-Unis
The saddest creature in American folklore, dissolving into tears when caught — a documented literary invention of 1910.
Among North America's invented beasts, the squonk holds the melancholy chair. It is said to haunt the hemlock forests of northern Pennsylvania wearing skin that fits badly — loose, warty, blotched with moles — and, worse, to know exactly how it looks. Ashamed, it hides by day, travels at dusk, and weeps as it goes; hunters are advised to follow the tear-trails. Its final defence is a logician's joke: cornered, the squonk dissolves into its own tears, leaving the captor a puddle and some bubbles.
Unlike most cryptids, the squonk comes with a printed birth certificate. It first appears in 1910 in Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, the slim volume in which William T. Cox — a professional forester — catalogued, with a perfectly straight face, the imaginary animals of American logging camps, assigning each a mock-Latin binomial; the squonk's is Lacrimacorpus dissolvens, roughly 'tear-body that dissolves'. Cox supplies the canonical anecdote: one J. P. Wentling, working near Mont Alto, lured a squonk into a sack by imitating its sobs, only to find the load suddenly light on the walk home — nothing left inside but tears and bubbles.
The squonk thus belongs squarely to the fearsome critters, the campfire bestiary in which invention was the whole game: greenhorns were hazed, veterans competed in absurdity, and durable belief was never expected of anyone. Folklorists also read in the squonk a note of bittersweet self-mockery unusual in the genre — a beast that weeps over its own ugliness is a storyteller's device, not a target for expeditions.
Its afterlife has been artistic rather than zoological. Genesis built the song 'Squonk' around the legend on A Trick of the Tail in 1976, Steely Dan name-checked the creature in 'Any Major Dude Will Tell You', and it has since wandered through novels, comics and games; Johnstown, Pennsylvania, even throws it a small festival. The squonk never needed to exist to have a career — being sad was enough.
+ Notable reports
// Hemlock forests, northern Pennsylvania
William T. Cox describes the squonk in Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods under the mock binomial Lacrimacorpus dissolvens. The book, an openly playful compilation of logging-camp folklore, is the creature's documented point of origin.
// Mont Alto, Pennsylvania
In Cox's canonical anecdote, hunter J. P. Wentling coaxes a squonk into a sack by mimicking its sobbing; the sack grows light on the way home and proves to hold only tears and bubbles. The tale encodes the beast's built-in unverifiability.
// Popular culture
Genesis releases 'Squonk' on A Trick of the Tail, giving the creature a worldwide second life. That artistic career — from Steely Dan to video games — is what keeps the saddest of the critters in circulation.
+ Leading rational explanations
- A documented literary invention: the squonk originates in William T. Cox's humorous 1910 compilation
- Lumber-camp folklore, where creatures were invented for entertainment and hazing
- Dissolving into tears is a narrative device that makes verification impossible by design
- Its survival owes to popular culture (Genesis, Steely Dan), not to any sightings
Status note
Class 5: not a hoax but an invention documented as such — the squonk was born in an identified humorous book, with no tradition of testimony ever presenting it as real.
+ Frequently asked questions
- Is the squonk real?
- No, and it never claimed to be: the creature originated in William T. Cox's 1910 humorous catalogue of imaginary logging-camp beasts. Its trick of dissolving into tears makes verification impossible by design — that is the joke.
- Why does the squonk cry all the time?
- Folklore holds that it is ashamed of its loose, wart-covered skin, hiding by day and weeping as it walks. Storytellers made it the saddest creature in the American bestiary, and that trait is exactly what has attracted musicians and novelists.
- What is the connection between the squonk and Genesis?
- In 1976 the band released the song 'Squonk' on A Trick of the Tail, drawing directly on the legend of the critter that dissolves into tears. It is a major reason this 1910 invention is still known worldwide.