Creature Feature Friday: The Ahool

If you’ve been swept up in the latest Stranger Things craze following the recent release of Season 4 (guilty), you’ll definitely remember the vicious Demobats from a few key scenes (and we’ll probably never get over them). But those little razor-toothed monsters from the Upside Down are pure science fiction… right? Meet the Rightside Up’s version of the Demobat in this edition of Creature Feature Friday: the cryptid creature known as the Ahool.

Ahool image from Cryptid Wiki.

1) Encountered deep in the jungles of Java, the Ahool is said to be a winged cryptid possessing both bat- and primate-like characteristics. Accounts of the Ahool’s size can range widely, with some sightings pegging the bat creature as the size of a one-year-old child and bearing a 12-foot-wide wingspan. Other more terrifying reports say the Ahool is enormous, with a wingspan reaching upwards of 28 feet. With dark bat eyes, red-skinned wings, and large claws, the Ahool is a fierce-looking legend.

The Stranger Things Demobat. You never know.

2) The Ahool was named after the sound of its cry, a loud long “ahOOOooool” which can be heard as it flies through the night.

3) Fortunately for most humans who might possibly encounter it, unlike the bloodthirsty Demobat that loves to tear people apart (…yep, still devastated…), the Ahool generally prefers to subsist on the fauna of the jungle, using its claws to snag large fish. But if the opportunity arises, the Ahool has been known to go rogue and attack a person to two, thanks to its territorial nature.

4) There have been two major reported encounters with the Ahool, both from naturalist Dr. Ernest Bartels, the son of ornithologist M.E.G. Bartels. First in 1925, Dr. Bartels claimed he was exploring a waterfall near the Salek Mountains when a giant unknown bat flew directly over him. Then on a night in 1927, Dr. Bartels was lying in bed in his hut near the Tjidjenkol River, when he heard the loud “AhOOOoool!” cry for which the cryptid is named. Cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson also reported a sighting of an Ahool-like creature, although his encounter happened in Cameroon rather than Java.

5) Several theories exist about what the Ahool may actually be. While it’s possible that a giant species of bat remains undiscovered in Java’s rainforests, there are also theories that the Ahool is a surviving pterosaur leftover from when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Dr. Bartels, the first person to report seeing the Ahool, also suggested that the creature could possibly be a large bird, like an unidentified species of owl. Another theory even claims that the Ahool could be the world’s first case of a flying primate! But, with so few confirmed eyewitness sightings and a reportedly shrinking habitat in Java, we may never know if the Ahool really exists.

…Or maybe it just goes back home to the Upside Down every day... you never know. Anyway, Happy Friday to everyone except the Duffer Brothers. (You know what you did.)

What do you think the Ahool is?