Case file · Cryptid
'Bahnyip' in the Sydney Gazette
In 1812 the Sydney Gazette printed James Ives's description of a 'bahnyip', 'a large black animal like a seal', the earliest written form of the word in the colonial press.
1812 CE · -33.86, 151.21 · status: legend
The account
The word comes from the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia languages of western Victoria, where the bunyip is a dangerous water being of billabongs and creeks. Colonists turned it into a zoological puzzle.
The sceptical view
Wandering seals far up rivers and misidentified waterbirds or platypus explain many colonial bunyip sightings.