"It belongs to a species of gigantic lizards supposed to have been extinct many thousand years." (Image by Arthur Weasley.)

Iowa was overrun by giant, hog-eating lizards in 1885, and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle was only too happy to reprint ridiculous stories about them. An excerpt from a January 10 article of that year:

“A monster animal was killed near Oskaloosa, in this state recently. It measured from one end of tail to tip of nose eighty-one feet. Its heart weighed eight pounds and had four cavities. After being hunted for a long while it was finally killed with a twelve pound cannon loaded with railroad spikes. It required a team of twelve strong men to pull the monster to the river bank after its death.

It was skinned and a taxidermist is stuffing it, when it will be sent to the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia. The flesh is being carefully removed from the bones, and the skeleton will be properly wired and kept for the present on exhibition at Oskaloosa. Dr. Peck, of Davenport, calls it the Cardiff Giant, and says it belongs to a species of gigantic lizards supposed to have been extinct many thousand years.

The monster had been swallowing farmers’ hogs weighing 300 to 400 pounds each at one gulp. Thousands of people have been gunning for the monster, but it was proof against everything until the cannon brought it down.–Newton (Ia.) Herald“