Zoology is the study of animals. Cryptozoology goes looking for animals that don’t exist - or if they do, nobody has been able to prove it.

Sometimes, the supposedly nonexistent animal turns out to be real on the hoof - for example, the okapi: a sort of part giraffe-looking, part zebra-striped improbability.

More often, the evidence falls short of convincing. The jury is out with the hunters in search of a unicorn, chimera (lion-goat snake with wings), Loch Ness Monster or even the merest Wyoming jackalope.

Arkansas has an uncommon number of resident monsters, Mark Spitzer writes in Crypto-Arkansas. He credits the state’s “rich tradition of storytelling.”

But practically every state has some sort of creature that people claim to have seen, but can’t prove it, including these:

New Jersey: The Jersey Devil. A goat sort of whoozit with cloven hooves and a forked tail, it flies on bat-like wings. Also, it ice skates, having given its name to the New Jersey Devils hockey team.

West Virginia: Mothman. A wing-flapping man-or something with glowing red eyes, this ominous apparition co-stars with Richard Gere in The Mothman Prophecies (2002).

“I think we can assume that these entities are more advanced than us,” Gere says in the movie. But Skeptical Inquirer magazine attributed the sightings to people scared of barn owls.

Colorado: The Rockslide Bolter. A gigantic land whale, it slides down the mountain with its gaping mouth open to swallow tourists.

Some monsters come out of folk tales, some out of wishful thinking.

Style, Pages 52 on 12/15/2013