Thunderbird

The Thunderbird is a creature common to native American religion. It is named such as the beating of its enormous wings causes thunder and stirs the wind. It is described as being two canoe-lengths from wingtip to wingtip, with glowing red eyes that cause lightning when closed. Storms are said to be caused by its flight.

A famous story of the Thunderbird is Thunderbird and Whale.

The Lakota? name for the Thunderbird is "Wakinyan," a word formed from "kinyan," meaning "winged," and "wakan," "sacred."

It is also of note that there have periodically been sightings of incredibly large birds in North America over the years. Some Cryptozoologists theorize the thunderbird myth to be based on sightings of a real animal that has dwindled in population of late. In the 1960's and 1970's, sightings of a large bird the size of a piper cub airplane were made in Washington, Utah, and Idaho. On occasion, this was accompanied by large footprints or other evidence.

Scientists were quick to work at discrediting the sightings, on the presupposition that it was impossible for a bird that large to be able to fly under its own power, or to even live due to circulatory difficulties. Unfortunately for them, fossil records from prehistoric times confirm that birds this large can and did exist, and probably also flew, aided by upcurrents in mountainous regions. Cryptozoologists posit that the thunderbird was associated with storms because a large bird could use the draft of a storm to stay in flight. [John Keel]? mapped several thunderbird sightings and found that sightings moved chronologically and geographically in sync with moving storm fronts across the United States.

However, sightings in recent years had dropped to none, no bones or feathers have been found, and no evidence of preying by a bird this large has been documented. For now, the Thunderbird remains a creature of mythology.