The Wood Devil

Illustration by J.B. Clark

Late 1880s. Einasleigh River, north Qld.

An old settler on the Einasleigh (a tributary of the Gilbert River) told adventurer Arthur Bicknell that he’d seen a strange, bipedal animal prowling around. It was as tall as a man, had long arms and huge hands, and made a strange moaning noise. He suspected that the “wood devil”, as he called it, had killed several of his dogs. That evening Bicknell, armed with a revolver, climbed a tree overlooking the place the animal had been seen:

“I had not long been in the tree when I heard the peculiar moaning noise … and also the crashing and breaking of the brushwood … it was nearly dark and the moon only just rising. I could see nothing. The noise had an unearthly ring about it.

I am not easily frightened, but … slipping down from my perch … I waited a moment to fire two or three shots … in the direction the sounds came from, and then turned and bolted for the house. If the devil himself was after me I could not have made better time. [Next morning] When the old man appeared, we [went] to the place …There sure enough he lay, as dead as any stone, shot through the heart … He was nothing but a big monkey, one of the largest I have ever seen, with long arms and big hands … These huge monkeys or apes are common in Nicaragua, but this one was certainly the largest I ever came across.”

Strangely, Bicknell didn’t seem to think it odd that an exceptionally large Central American monkey, presumably a Spider Monkey, should have found its way to the wilds of northern Australia. Spider Monkeys, in any case, grow no taller than 3 feet 7inches, don’t kill dogs, are arboreal and almost always quadrupedal. In J.B. Clark’s fanciful illustration, based on a sketch by Bicknell, the “wood devil” is man-sized and has a short tail. Bicknell’s failure to preserve even the skull of such a remarkable animal seems highly suspicious.