The Elusive Tatzelwurm

  This "clawed worm", also called the Stollenwurm, or hole-dwelling worm, is said to be a snakelike reptilian beast 4-5 feet (1.2-1.5m) long, with two clearly visible forelegs (only very occasionally have hind legs been reported)- in short, a mysterious creature wholly unlike any species know by science to exist in this part of the world, and bearing more than a passing resemblance to a lindorm.

  Some reports describe its head as catlike, and it is supposedly capable of jumping considerable distances. One day in the summer of 1921, at Hochfilzen in southern Austria, a feline-headed tatzelwurm allegedly leaped at a herdsman and a poacher, who had ill-advisedly taken a shot at it; both men promptly fled in terror.

  Although these remarkable animals have never been reported many times before and since and, according to local lore, have even been killed on rare occasions, zoologists have yet to receive the body of one for identification.

  Similar creatures have been seen farther south, too. One of the most famous modern-day records dates from 1954, when a number of farmers claimed to have spied a cat-headed snake like beast with two legs attacking a herd of pigs near Palermo in Sicily.

  Those zoologists willing to believe in the tatzelworm's reality have suggested that it could be a large, undiscovered skink,or lizard, for some of them have enlongated bodies but only very small limbs. Others have proposed that it is not a reptile but a siren, an eel- like amphibian without hind legs; sirens are however, known to exist only in North America.

  Several types of dragons may well have been inspired by sightings of living animals. Perhaps, therefore, the lindorm (many tales of which stem from central Europe) is also based upon a real creature, but one that continues to elude formal scientific discovery.

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