Waitoreke

In its rare inferred sightings it is usually described as a small otter-like animal that lives in the South Island of New Zealand.

Land mammals introduced to New Zealand by the seafaring Polynesian ancestors of Maori, apparent to the early European visitors and settlers, were kurī (dog) and kiore (rat).

Evidence for the existence of the waitoreke is mainly based on sporadic accounts of an "unidentified amphibious animal" in the South Island spanning well over 200 years.

[5] Some of the more infamous accounts are dubious and/or incongruous - but a significant number of descriptions (particularly from the late 19th century onwards) share a striking similarity to each other and to species known to exist outside New Zealand.

I saw a furred animal of medium brown colouring – lighter rather than darker – about the size of a hare, but of totally different movement and bodily proportions.

[15] Many of these sightings were assessed in papers on the subject of the waitoreke by G. A. Pollock in 1970 and 1974,[16][17] which led to a search of the area around lakes Waihola and Waipori in Otago during the 1980s.