The British Isles boast a diversity of mystery beasts: alien big cats and loch monsters; bat-winged monkey birds and grave-desecrating earth hounds; mermaids and sea serpents; dragons and flying snakes; cockatrices and human-headed horse-men; Black Dogs and wulvers; master otters and horse-eels; and even the (very) odd Skye-inhabiting unicorn.

Yet only a few of these, most notably Nessie, the dragons, and the Alien Big Cats (ABCs), have ever attracted any sizeable treatment in books. The rest have been allocated a few paragraphs here and there – until now, that is.

The CFZ Press, publishing arm of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, has launched a monumental, multi-volume series entitled ‘Mystery Animals of the British Isles’, in which the cryptids and zooforms of each major county or region of Great Britain will receive comprehensive coverage by a writer from that area (and therefore presumably familiar with its local crypto-fauna).