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Sliderock boster

Fearsome Critters! - (2008)

Bolter fclw

Fearsome Critters (1910)

The Slide-Rock Bolter (Macrostoma saxiperrumptus) is a bizarre creature & Fearsome Critter recounted by the lumberjacks of North America during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is believed to live in the mountains of Colorado, but only on mountains where the slope is at an angle greater than 45 degrees. It has an immense head, small eyes, and a large mouth which is similar to a sculpin. Its tail ends in a fluke like a dolphin, with enormous grab-hooks.

Description and Sightings[]

The Slide-Rock Bolter is said to have caused great uneasiness amongst tourists visiting the mountains of Colorado. This fearsome animal uses the grab-hooks on its divided tail to latch onto the crest of a mountain or ridge. It will often remain motionless for days at a time, watching the gulch below for tourists or any other hapless creatures. Once it spots its prey it will lift its tail to release its hold on the crest. As gravity sends it barreling downhill, it drools grease from the corners of its mouth to increase the speed of its huge body. The Bolter scoops its victims into its mouth as it slides down. The accumulated speed will carry the Bolter up the next slope, where it will once again grasp the ridge with its tail and wait.

Whole parties of tourists are reported to have been gulped down at once. The animal is a menace not only to tourists but to the forest as well. Many spruce-covered slopes have been rendered wastelands as the Bolter knocks the tress out by their roots or mows them down as if with a scythe.

A forest ranger, whose district included the rough county between Ophir Peaks and the Lizzard Head, conceived the bold idea of deceiving a Slide-Rock Bolter to slide to its own destruction. A dummy tourist was outfitted with a plaid Norfolk jacket, knee breeches, and a guidebook to Colorado. The dummy was filled with powder and fulminate caps and posed in a conspicuous place. The next day the false tourist attracted the attention of a Bolter that had been hanging for days on the slope of Lizard Head. The creature attacked. The resulting explosion flattened half the buildings in Rico, which were never rebuilt. The remains of the unfortunate Bolter made many a meal for the local buzzards that summer.

Slide-Rock Bolter

"Fearsome creatures" Slide-Rock Bolter (2015)

In the 2015 horror-inspired remake of Fearsome Creatures, the Slide-Rock Bolter is depicted as an enormous land fish weighing 25,000 pounds with fins, a hooked caudal fin, and three chitinous razor sharp toothed gizzards. It is vulnerable to leprosy. In the remake, the Slide-Rock Bolter is an apex predator, and despite its destructive habits, its behavior is also used to scare away the other predators haunting Colorado, such as wolves, spider-wolves, overwolves, Frenchmen and a renegade Hodag. The scientific name is Leviathanetta mucopuruluntius.

Further reading[]

"The Slide-Rock Bolter" from The Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods (1910) by William T. Cox


Gallery[]

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