The bunyip is a creature from the aboriginal mythology of southeastern Australia, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds and waterholes.
Etymology The origin of the word bunyip has been traced to the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of the Aboriginal people of Victoria, in South-Eastern Australia. apud Ramson, William Stanley (ed.) 1988 The Australian National Dictionary; Dixon, Robert M. W.; Ramson, W. S.; Thomas, Mandy (eds.) 1992 Australian Aboriginal Words in English .
The word bunyip is usually translated by Aboriginal Australians today as devil or evil spirit.See for example, "Oodgeroo Noonuccal", Kath Walker's story collected in Stradbroke Dreamtime. This modern translation may not accurately represent the role of the bunyip in pre-contact Aboriginal mythology or its possible origins before written accounts were made. Some modern sources allude to a linguistic connection between the bunyip and Bunjil, "a mythic 'Great Man' who made the mountains, rivers, man, and all the animals".
The word bahnyip first appeared in the Sydney Gazette in 1812. It was used by James Ives to describe "a large black animal like a seal, with a terrible voice which creates terror among the blacks".
Distribution The bunyip is part of traditional Aboriginal beliefs and stories throughout Australia, while its name varies according to tribal nomenclature. In his 2001 book Robert Holden identified at least nine regional variations of the creature known as the bunyip across Aboriginal Australia.
Characteristics
The bunyip has been described as amphibious, almost entirely aquatic (there are no reports of the creature being sighted on land), inhabiting lakes, rivers, (Lake Tyrrell, Little Wimmera River). swamps, lagoons, billabongs, creeks, waterholes, sometimes "particular waterholes in the riverbeds".
Physical descriptions of bunyips vary widely. George French Angus may have collected a description of a bunyip in his account of a "water spirit" from the Moorundi people of the Murray River before 1847, stating it is "much dreaded by them ... It inhabits the Murray; but ... they have some difficulty describing it. Its most usual form ... is said to be that of an enormous starfish."George French Angus (1847) Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand. Vol 1, p.99. London. Reprinted 1969 Libraries Board of South Australia. The Challicum bunyip, an outline image of a bunyip carved by Aboriginal people into the bank of Fiery Creek, near Ararat, Victoria, was first recorded by The Australasian newspaper in 1851. According to the report, the bunyip had been speared after killing an Aboriginal man. Antiquarian Reynell Johns claimed that until the mid-1850s, Aboriginal people made a "habit of visiting the place annually and retracing the outlines of the figure [of the bunyip] which is about 11 paces long and 4 paces in extreme breadth".Johns cited in The outline image no longer exists. Robert Brough Smyth's Aborigines of Victoria (1878) devoted ten pages to the bunyip, but concluded "in truth little is known among the blacks respecting its form, covering or habits; they appear to have been in such dread of it as to have been unable to take note of its characteristics."Smyth cited in Eugénie Louise McNeil recalled from her childhood memory in the 1890s that the bunyip supposedly had a snout like an owl ("a Mopoke"), and was probably a nocturnal creature by her estimation.
The bunyips presumably seen by witnesses, according to their descriptions, most commonly fit one of two categories: 60% of sightings resemble seals or swimming dogs and 20% of sightings are of long-necked creatures with small heads; the remaining descriptions are ambiguous beyond categorisation. The seal-dog variety is most often described as being between 4 and 6 feet long with a shaggy black or brown coat. According to reports, these bunyips have round heads resembling a bulldog, prominent ears, no tail, and whiskers like a seal or otter. The long-necked variety is allegedly between 5 and 15 feet long and is said to have black or brown fur, large ears, small tusks, a head like a horse or emu, an elongated, maned neck about three feet long and with many folds of skin, and a horse-like tail. The bunyip has been described by natives as amphibious, nocturnal, reclusive and inhabiting lakes, rivers and swamps. Bunyips, according to Aboriginal mythology, can swim swiftly with fins or flippers, have a loud, roaring call and feed on crayfish, though some legends portray them as bloodthirsty predators of humans, particularly women and children. As a result Aboriginal People purposely avoided unfamiliar bodies of water lest there were bunyips lurking in the depths. Bunyip eggs are allegedly laid in platypus nests, making them brood parasites.
The bunyip appears in Ngarrindjeri dreaming as a water spirit called the Mulyawonk,Fargher, John. Fleurieu Peninsula Swamps Aboriginal Values - Spirits and mythological creatures Department for Environment and Water. Retrieved 17 June 2025. which would get anyone who took more than their fair share of fish from the waterways, or take children if they got too close to the water. The stories taught practical means of ensuring long-term survival for the Ngarrindjeri, embodying care for country and its people.
Debate over origins There have been various attempts to understand and explain the origins of the bunyip as a physical entity over the past 150 years. Writing in 1933, Charles Fenner suggested that it was likely that the "actual origin of the bunyip myth lies in the fact that from time to time seals have made their way up the Murray and Darling (Rivers)". He provided examples of seals found as far inland as Overland Corner, Loxton, and Conargo and reminded readers that "the smooth fur, prominent 'apricot' eyes, and the bellowing cry are characteristic of the seal", especially southern elephant seals and leopard seals.
Another suggestion is that the bunyip may be a folk memory of extinct Australian marsupials such as the Diprotodon, Zygomaturus, Nototherium, Palorchestes or Thylacoleo. This connection was first formally made by Dr George Bennett of the Australian Museum in 1871. In the early 1990s, palaeontologist Pat Vickers-Rich and geologist Neil Archbold also cautiously suggested that Aboriginal legends "perhaps had stemmed from an acquaintance with prehistoric bones or even living prehistoric animals themselves ... When confronted with the remains of some of the now extinct Australian marsupials, Aborigines would often identify them as the bunyip." They also note that "legends about the mihirung paringmal of western Victorian Aborigines ... may allude to the ... extinct giant birds the Dromornithidae".
In a 2017 Australian Birdlife article, Karl Brandt suggested Aboriginal encounters with the southern cassowary inspired the myth. According to the first written description of the bunyip from 1845, the creature laid pale blue eggs of immense size, possessed deadly claws, powerful hind legs, a brightly coloured chest, and an emu-like head, characteristics shared with the Australian cassowary. As the creature's bill was described as having serrated projections, each "like the bone of the stingray", this bunyip was associated with the indigenous people of Far North Queensland, renowned for their spears tipped with stingray barbs and their proximity to the cassowary's Australian range.
Another association to the bunyip is the shy Australasian bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus). During the breeding season, the male call of this marsh-dwelling bird is a "low pitched boom"; hence, it is occasionally called the "bunyip bird".
Early accounts of European settlers
During the early settlement of Australia by Europeans, the notion became commonly held that the bunyip was an unknown animal that awaited discovery. Unfamiliar with the sights and sounds of the island continent's peculiar fauna, early Europeans believed that the bunyip described to them was one more strange Australian animal and they sometimes attributed unfamiliar animal calls or cries to it. Scholars suggest also that 19th-century bunyip lore was reinforced by imported European folklore, such as that of the Irish Púca.
A large number of bunyip sightings occurred during the 1840s and 1850s, particularly in the southeastern colonies of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, as European settlers extended their reach. The following is not an exhaustive list of accounts:
First written use of the word bunyip, 1845 In July 1845, The Geelong Advertiser announced the discovery of fossils found near Geelong, under the headline "Wonderful Discovery of a new Animal". This was a continuation of a story on 'fossil remains' from the previous issue. The newspaper continued, "On the bone being shown to an intelligent black, he at once recognised it as belonging to the bunyip, which he declared he had seen. On being requested to make a drawing of it, he did so without hesitation." The account noted a story of an Aboriginal woman being killed by a bunyip and the "most direct evidence of all" – that of a man named Mumbowran "who showed several deep wounds on his breast made by the claws of the animal".
The account provided this description of the creature:
Shortly after this account appeared, it was repeated in other Australian newspapers. This appears to be the first use of the word bunyip in a written publication.
Australian Museum's bunyip of 1847
In January 1846, a peculiar skull was taken by a settler from the banks of Murrumbidgee River near Balranald, New South Wales. Initial reports suggested that it was the skull of something unknown to science. The squatter who found it remarked, "all the natives to whom it was shown called [it] a bunyip".Cited in By July 1847, several experts, including W. S. Macleay and Professor Owen, had identified the skull as the deformed foetal skull of a foal or calf. At the same time, the purported bunyip skull was put on display in the Australian Museum (Sydney) for two days. Visitors flocked to see it, and The Sydney Morning Herald reported that many people spoke out about their "bunyip sightings". National library of Australia. Bunyips – Evidence Reports of this discovery used the phrase 'Kine Pratie' as well as Bunyip. Explorer William Hovell, who examined the skull, also called it a 'katen-pai'.
In March of that year, "a bunyip or an immense Platibus" (Platypus) was sighted "sunning himself on the placid bosom of the Yarra, just opposite the Custom House" in Melbourne. "Immediately a crowd gathered" and three men set off by boat "to secure the stranger" which "disappeared" when they were "about a yard from him".
William Buckley's account of bunyips, 1852