Imaginary Animals

Over many thousands of years people have created animals that do not actually exist. Here are some, starting with the most recent:
Aloysius Snuffleupagus (/ˌsnʌfəlˈʌpəɡəs/), more commonly known as Mr. Snuffleupagus or Snuffy for short, is one of the characters on Sesame Street. His head bears resemblances to elephants and mammoths, but he has no tusks or (visible) ears. He also has a tail similar in shape to that of a dinosaur (like a sauropod; in particular, a Brontosaurus). He has thick, brown hair and a trunk, or "snuffle", that drags along the ground. Snuffy is also Big Bird's best friend, and has a younger sister named Alice.

For many years, only Big Bird would see Snuffy, because he would always leave while Big Bird went to get the others, leading everyone else to believe Snuffy was simply an imaginary friend. After Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird, Big Bird finally succeeded in revealing Snuffy to his friends on Sesame Street. Before that, the main adult characters teased Big Bird when he said that he had seen Snuffleupagus, because they did not believe that there was such an animal. This was often despite evidence to the contrary, such as an oversized teddy bear that Snuffy had left behind, or segments in which Snuffy interacted with other characters, such as a street scene where Snuffy was seen playing London Bridge with some of the neighborhood children.

A Heffalump is an elephant-like creature in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories by A. A. Milne. Heffalumps are mentioned, and only appear, in Pooh and Piglet's dreams in Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), and are seen again in The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Physically, they resemble elephants; E. H. Shepard's illustration shows an Indian elephant. In Disney's Winnie the Pooh franchise, they are mentioned repeatedly, with several Heffalumps appearing featured in the animated television series.

Although the fifth chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh is titled "In Which Piglet Meets a Heffalump", Piglet only actually meets a Heffalump in his imagination. In this chapter, Pooh and Piglet bravely attempt to capture a heffalump in a clever trap; however, no heffalumps are ever caught, and indeed they never meet a heffalump in the course of the books. The sole appearance of heffalumps in the books is imagined, as Pooh tries to put himself to sleep:

[H]e tried counting Heffalumps [but] every Heffalump that he counted was making straight for a pot of Pooh's honey ... [and] when the five hundred and eighty-seventh Heffalump was licking its jaws, and saying to itself, "Very good honey this, I don't know when I've tasted better", Pooh could bear it no longer.

In the third chapter of The House at Pooh Corner, Pooh and Piglet fall into a similar trap (it is implied it was the same trap) and think that it was made by a Heffalump to catch them. Pooh and Piglet rehearse the conversation they will have when the heffalump comes, but Pooh falls asleep and when Piglet hears a voice, he panics and says the wrong thing. He is mortified when the voice turns out to be that of Christopher Robin.

Woozles are iconic, fictitious weasel-like creatures from A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh books. Famous for the "Heffalumps and Woozles" song from Disney's adaptations, the term has also inspired the "Woozle effect" in research, describing how repeated citations of unproven claims can make them seem like factual truths.

Woozles were first introduced in Chapter III of the 1926 book.

The Hunt: Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet set out to track a mysterious creature, only to get confused when more tracks keep appearing.

The Twist: Christopher Robin finally reveals they have actually just been walking in circles, tracking their own paw prints.

Nightmare Sequence: In Disney's Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, Woozles appear alongside Heffalumps in a famous, psychedelic nightmare sequence as they try to steal Pooh's honey.

"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The book tells of Alice's adventures within the back-to-front world of the Looking-Glass world.

The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (Ancient Greek: γρύψ, romanized: grýps; Classical Latin: gryps or grypus; Late and Medieval Latin: gryphes, grypho etc.; Old French: griffon) is a legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion, and the head and wings of an eagle with its talons on the front legs.

Dragons are everywhere. Every country and culture on earth has dragon stories.A dragon is a mythical creature found in the folklore of cultures throughout the world. It is roughly serpentine in form, and often possesses features drawn from different animals, such as wings and claws. In nearly all cultures, it is conceived of as a powerful and awe-inspiring creature.

The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead.
Learn about the history of these mythical creatures and how they came to fill the imagination of many cultures across the world!

The Kraken is a legendary Scandinavian sea monster described as a gigantic, tentacled cephalopod. While myths of the beast terrorizing sailors originated in ancient Viking folklore, the legend is widely believed to be inspired by real-life encounters with elusive deep-sea giants like the Colossal Squid.

You have a worksheet with started ideas for imaginary animals of your own. Or you can create your own from scratch. Draw one now.