Case file · Folklore / legend
The Chilote basilisk
The basilisco chilote is a serpent with a rooster's head, hatched from an egg laid by an old rooster, that hides under houses and dries out its inhabitants with a wasting illness.
1914 CE · -42.20, -73.60 · status: legend
The account
The only remedy is to burn the house with the creature inside. The belief adapts the European basilisk to Chiloé's farmhouses. The year is approximate, marking early 20th-century folklore collections.
The sceptical view
A folk explanation for tuberculosis and other wasting diseases that seemed to spread through a household.