You’ve probably never heard of the Whiffenpoof. You’ve probably never wanted to. But now you’ll never forget it! Here’s everything you need to know about this cheese-eating aquatic cryptid of the Lumberwoods:

1) Recorded in lumberjack folklore storybooks such as Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods and Fearsome Critters (1939), the elusive, little known whiffenpoof could make a list of absurd cryptids just by its name alone. However, this creature also possesses some crazy characteristics that make it even more bizarre. For example, the whiffenpoof is a large, juicy fish that will only deign to live in perfectly circular lakes, making them very difficult to locate, let alone catch.

2) In order to reel in a whiffenpoof, a bold fisherman must row a boat to the center of the round lake, bore a square hole in the water, and then bait the hole with cheese.

3) Given that the whiffenpoof already seems to be extremely particular about where it lives, you can also bet it is extremely particular about what it eats: the types of cheese it requires are Stilton, Brie, Liederkranz, or Limburger, because its just so fancy.

4) Once the whiffenpoof smells its delicious stinky cheese and rises up through the hole, the final trick to catching it is to spit tobacco juice in its eye, naturally. This insulting act allegedly so angers the whiffenpoof that it puffs itself up with rage and becomes too large to withdraw through the water hole.

5) Voilà - you’ve just caught yourself a mythical whiffenpoof!

Our Whiffenpoof Creature Feature Friday was excerpted from our blog, 9 Cryptids That Are (Probably) Too Absurd To Be Real - check it out for even more weird cryptid tales!