A short list of extremely-specific lesser-known mythical monster tropes which I didn’t expect to be super widespread:
1. Ogres which, when slain, spawn huge amounts of mosquitoes out of their bodies.
2. Humanoid horrors that lurk at the tops of cliffs and kick passerbies down off of the ledge so that their mates and/or offspring can kill them.
3. Depraved ex-human cannibals for whom one of their feet has rotten away into a spike of bone which they then stab people with.
4. Creatures which resemble pitiful old men and beg people to carry them but their legs are actually tentacle-like “straps” which they use to kill or enslave their victims.
5. Hairy ogres with axe-heads sticking out of their chests.
6. Grotesque female humanoids with enormous, pendulous breasts, one of which they throw over their shoulder. (That last detail specifically shows up more times than you would think possible.)
7. Flying detachable heads. Organs hanging down frequent but optional.
8. The “animal that cannot lie down,” i.e. a monster without joints in its limbs that, you guessed it, cannot lie down and has to lean on things.
10. So. Many. Backwards. Feet. Usually as a means of making trackers think they went in the opposite direction.
11. Swallowers. I.e., monsters that swallow huge amounts of victims but keep them inside in their stomachs before spitting them out when slain. Most famously present in Sub-Saharan Africa, but basically everywhere.
12. Bisected humanoids. Creatures with only half a physical body, cut vertically.
13. Headless monsters with faces on their chests.
14. Natal revenants. The undead remains of women who die in childbirth, usually as some sort of ghostly Succubus.
15. Female creatures with hollow backs, the main giveaway of their supernatural nature.
16. Living meteor demons that spread disease.
17. Chicken-snake hybrids.
18. Rattite-snake hybrids.
19. Parrot-snake hybrids.
20. Monsters that fly around in the atmosphere, and if you look at them you die. (Related to number 16.)
21. In arid regions, RAINBOW TASTE YOU. (Because it signals the end of much-needed rain and is therefore seen in a negative light and personified as something malicious.
22. Owl demons! Tend to be witchy/hag-like.
23. Succubi whose only giveaway of their monstrousness is a single hooved foot.
24. People cursed into becoming weird donkey-things.
25. River blockers. Monsters who block off water supplies in order to cause droughts, and must be slain for that reason.
26. Monsters who inflict some kind of seemingly unsurvivable body horror on you, before resurrecting you long enough to go home at which point you promptly die for reals this time.
And many, many, more, but I’m tired right now. Might update later.
I recognize all but a couple of these, but would still want specific examples for all of them
15: Beware the Hollow back girl.
