Skunk Ape Myakka Photographs — Anonymous Photos Sent to Sarasota Sheriff

In 2000, two photographs were anonymously mailed to the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office in Florida accompanied by a letter from a woman claiming to have photographed a creature peering through her backyard porch in the Myakka River area. The letter described an animal that had been raiding her fruit trees for several nights. The photographs show a large, dark, ape-like creature with an orange tinge to its coat and white eyes reflecting the camera flash, crouching in vegetation at night. The creature appears to be between 6 and 7 feet tall and heavily built. The photographs were never definitively authenticated or debunked. The Skunk Ape—named for its reportedly powerful odor—has been reported in the swamps and forests of Florida and the broader southeastern United States for decades. Unlike the Pacific Northwest Bigfoot, it is associated with subtropical environments and is described as having a reddish-orange coat similar to an orangutan. Cryptozoologists and primatologists who examined the Myakka photographs noted that the creature displayed anatomical features consistent with a large ape—the rounding of the head, shoulder proportions, and limb structure—that would be difficult to replicate convincingly in a costume. The creature remains unidentified, and Florida Fish and Wildlife authorities have periodically received reports of large unidentified apes in the Everglades region.