Man-Eating Plant – The Ya Te Veo
In 1881 intrepid explorer Carl Liche told the tale of a terrible tree. The Ya-Te-Veo that would feast upon the Mdoko tribe of Madagascar.
The German gave a gruesome account of his encounter as the plant slobbered on a filly: “… slender delicate palpi, with the fury of starved serpents, quivered a moment over her head, then as if instinct with demoniac intelligence fastened upon her in sudden coils round and round her neck and arms; then while her awful screams and yet more awful laughter rose wildly to be instantly strangled down again into a gurgling moan, the tendrils one after another, like great green serpents, with brutal energy and infernal rapidity, rose, retracted themselves, and wrapped her about in fold after fold, ever tightening with cruel swiftness and savage tenacity of anacondas fastening upon their prey.”
Thankfully it seems that the Ya-Te-Veo never existed, the Mdoko tribe were certainly not bothered by it either as they too were made up… indeed even intrepid adventurer Carl Liche appears to be the product of an overactive imagination.
In similar cryptozoological style, have you heard about the south-american Harpy of Lake Fagua ?
http://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2011/09/monster-is-taken-to-king-of-spain-1784.html
An English translation of the text id provided in the comments
More context here : http://plbh88.blogs.wm.edu/2010/09/20/464/
It seems to have been a hoax fabricated by king Louis XVI’s own brother (who would later become king Louis XVIII). What world do we live in where you can’t even trust royalty ?
And he wasn’t getting the lest bit excited while inventing all of that out of whole cloth, oh goodness no…
*LEAST. One apologises for that lapse in spelling.