🦶 CRYPTID SIGHTING · EXP. Nº9045
ACTIVE
Skunk Ape
Skunk Ape is a cryptid — a creature whose existence is unconfirmed by science — with reported sightings near Everglades, Florida, US. This file collects the accounts and folklore surrounding it.
Where and when was Skunk Ape sighted?
- Location
- Everglades, Florida, US
- Date sighted
- 1974-07-01
- Coordinates
- 25.9, -81.3
- Testimonies
- 0
- Last updated
LOCATION
What is Skunk Ape?
The Skunk Ape is Florida's answer to Bigfoot: a large, hairy, ape-like biped said to roam the swamps and hammocks of the Everglades and other wetlands across the state, distinguished above all by an overpowering smell of rotten eggs or stagnant swamp gas that gives it its name, with one 1970s witness famously complaining it "smelled like a wet dog that had rolled in a dead alligator." Sightings and local rumors span much of the twentieth century, with a notable cluster of police reports around Dade County in 1974 that drew press attention and cemented the creature in Florida folklore, sometimes linked loosely to older Seminole stories about swamp-dwelling beings. Described as reddish-brown or dark-furred, somewhat smaller and more heavyset than the Pacific Northwest's Bigfoot, the Skunk Ape has become a minor tourism draw, complete with a dedicated 'research headquarters' in the Everglades run by a longtime local enthusiast. Skeptics attribute the reports to black bears standing upright, misidentified hunters or hikers in matted clothing, deliberate hoaxes and costume photos, and the simple fact that Florida's swamps do produce genuinely foul-smelling gases on their own.
What is the history of Skunk Ape?
The Skunk Ape is Florida's Bigfoot, and its distinguishing feature is not its appearance but its smell: witnesses consistently describe an intense stench, compared to rotten eggs or skunk musk, that precedes or accompanies the sighting.
The year that fixed the case was 1974. Several residents of Ochopee, in the heart of the Everglades, reported a large hairy creature crossing rural roads at night. Different motorists agreed in describing it as around seven feet tall, and in the smell.
That same year a ten-year-old boy named Dave Shealy says he saw one for the first time. He was deer hunting with his older brother Jack in the swamp behind his house — today part of the Big Cypress National Preserve — a few years after his father had come upon a set of tracks.
That encounter defined an entire life. Shealy became the Skunk Ape's leading investigator and founded the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters in Ochopee, where he has spent decades collecting testimony, casts and material.
The case's other celebrated item is the Myakka photographs of 2000: images sent in by an anonymous correspondent who said the creature had appeared on her property near I-75, east of Sarasota, in the Myakka river area. The creature in those photographs has been known ever since as the Myakka Skunk Ape, and they are the most argued-over images in the case.
Timeline: the documented record of Skunk Ape
- 1974 Several residents of Ochopee, in the Everglades, report a large hairy creature around seven feet tall crossing rural roads at night, with an intense and unpleasant smell.
- 1974 Dave Shealy, aged ten, says he sees one while deer hunting with his brother Jack in the swamp behind his house, today part of Big Cypress National Preserve. Years earlier his father had found a set of tracks.
- From the 1990s Dave Shealy founds the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters in Ochopee, on the Tamiami Trail, where he has spent decades collecting testimony, footprint casts and material on the creature.
- 2000 The Myakka photographs are circulated, sent by an anonymous correspondent who says the creature appeared on her property near I-75, east of Sarasota. They are the most argued-over images in the case.
Is there a rational explanation for Skunk Ape?
The favourite natural hypothesis for the Skunk Ape is interesting because it is not absurd, and it still does not work.
Many researchers have proposed that Skunk Apes are descendants of orangutans escaped from travelling circuses, which toured Florida frequently in the mid-twentieth century. The idea has its logic: Florida has an extraordinary record of exotic species established from escapes and releases — Burmese pythons, green iguanas, rhesus monkeys on the Silver River — and a large reddish ape walking through a swamp fits the descriptions reasonably well.
But it runs into the biometrics. An adult orangutan stands about four and a half feet and weighs under two hundred pounds. Skunk Apes are consistently reported at over seven feet. That is not a difference of estimation: it is nearly double the height. And there is the underlying problem of any supposedly established primate population: it would require dozens of individuals breeding across generations, and in a state with Florida's density of hunters, anglers, biologists, rangers and trail cameras, there is not one carcass, not one bone and not one conclusive video sequence.
The smell, by contrast, does have an explanation, and it is the most satisfying part of the case. The Everglades are a shallow-water wetland with enormous accumulations of decomposing organic matter, which naturally release hydrogen sulphide — rotten-egg gas. Add striped skunks, which are abundant, and opossums, which emit a powerful odour when threatened. On a night road in Ochopee, smelling something rotten is not an anomaly: it is normal.
As for the Myakka photographs, the problem is the usual one and it is methodological: anonymous source, no verifiable location, no negative available for independent analysis and no way of determining scale. Without a reference object in the frame there is no way to know whether what is behind those palmetto fronds is seven feet tall or two.
Can you visit Skunk Ape?
Ochopee is a tiny community on the Tamiami Trail (US 41), the road that crosses the Everglades east to west, in the heart of the Big Cypress National Preserve. It is also home to the smallest post office in the United States, a classic roadside stop.
The Skunk Ape Research Headquarters is at 40904 Tamiami Trail, Ochopee. It is simultaneously a shop, a small reptile zoo and a "research" centre, run by the Shealy family, and you should go knowing what it is: an eccentric roadside stop that is honest about itself, not a scientific museum. There is an admission charge for the animal section.
But what genuinely justifies the trip is the setting. Big Cypress National Preserve is one of the great natural areas of the United States and is underrated next to Everglades National Park alongside it. It has a visitor centre on the Tamiami Trail itself, boardwalk trails, kayak routes and extraordinary wildlife: alligators, roseate spoonbills, herons and — with luck and great patience — the Florida panther.
The good season is December to April: the dry season. From May to November the heat is brutal, it rains daily and the mosquitoes are a serious problem rather than a nuisance.
And a useful note: the best time to drive the Tamiami Trail is dawn or dusk, when the wildlife moves. It is also, precisely, the time window in which every one of the 1974 sightings was reported.
Sources consulted
- Smithsonian Magazine, «On the trail of Florida's Bigfoot — the Skunk Ape» — Smithsonian Magazine, 2013 newspaper archive
- Countere Magazine, «Florida's Bigfoot: the legend of the Skunk Ape — Dave Shealy y los Everglades» — Countere, 2022 interview
- PantherNOW, «Inside the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters» — Florida International University, 2021 newspaper archive
- WestPalmBeach.com, «The Skunk Ape — recopilación de avistamientos y explicaciones propuestas» — Divulgación regional de Florida, 2023 web
Reviewed by V. Serrano on 2026-07-28 · How we verify our content
📎 Source: Folclore (curado)
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