Summary
- Skull Island is teeming with a variety of dangerous megafauna, including Skullcrawlers, Psychovultures, and Mother Longlegs. These monsters make up the island's unique ecosystem.
- Some of the deadliest creatures on Skull Island include the Sirenjaw, a crocodile-like creature with plants growing from its body, and the Death Jackals, cannibalistic predators that rarely attack other living organisms.
- The Magma Turtles, with lava pumping through their veins, and the Spore Mantis, which encases its prey in sap, are also among the deadliest creatures on Skull Island. The Mire Squid, a Lovecraftian nightmare, hunts with its powerful tentacles and creates whirlpools to capture its prey.
While he may be the king, MonsterVerse canon. Sure, the same can be said for the entirety of Earth, as the likes of Rodan, Mothra, and Godzilla are constantly shown running rampant around the planet. But Skull Island is a concentrated area with a disproportionate level of Titan activity when compared with the rest of the world. Monsters don’t just visit Skull Island, they live there, and there’s no lack of variety, either.
Skull Island doesn’t have a collection of singular monsters that all look completely unique and unrelated (like the aforementioned Rodan, Mothra, and Godzilla), it contains entire species of megafauna that make up the island’s ecosystem. Some of these species include Skullcrawlers, Psychovultures, and Mother Longlegs, but those three only scratch the surface. Indeed, a great number of Skull Island’s monstrous residents are cataloged in the four-part comic series Skull Island: The Birth Of Kong by Barnaby Legg, Arvid Nelson, and Zid. Here are the 10 deadliest Skull Island monsters in MonsterVerse canon (besides Kong).
"It Was a War of the Gods": How Kong's Species Died in MonsterVerse Canon - & Why He Survived
The MonsterVerse finally reveals exactly how Kong's species died leading up to the events of Kong: Skull Island, as well as how he - alone - survived.
10 Skullcrawlers Are The Ancient Enemy Of Kong’s Ape Titan Species
Skullcrawlers were the main antagonists in the 2017 MonsterVerse film Kong: Skull Island, but their in-world history stretches back far further than that. Skullcrawlers were actually the reason the Ape Titans of Skull Island nearly went extinct (with Kong as the sole survivor). They are vicious, reptilian-like creatures with two legs, long bodies, deadly tails, and skull-exposed faces.
The Skullcrawlers are perhaps the most significant megafauna on Skull Island aside from Kong himself, and that’s because of the ancient rivalry this species had with the Ape Titans.
9 Psychovultures (& Leafwings) Make Flying Over Skull Island Impossible
As one would expect from an island filled with monsters, there are a fair number of them that fly, and they make traveling over Skull Island airspace nearly impossible - especially the Psychovultures and the Leafwings. Leafwings are a less deadly subspecies of the Psychovultures, which are truly the deadliest creatures in the Skull Island sky. Psychovultures are literally true to their name, as their bodies create a chemical that actually drives them to a state of mania.
These bat-like monsters are driven by sheer aggressive insanity to go after anything they see, including and especially airborne craft.
8 Mother Longlegs Are The Creepiest Superspecies On Skull Island
Out of all the Titans on Skull Island, Mother Longlegs are by far the creepiest. These creatures were prominently featured in Kong: Skull Island and remain one of the most memorable monster species in MonsterVerse canon. As their name suggests, Mother Longlegs are giant spiders with impossibly long legs that look like bamboo (and every member of their species is female, hence the 'Mother').
These monsters are extremely deadly, not just because of their ability to camouflage in a bamboo forest, but also because of their inherent aggression, as these Titans will storm a human settlement without thinking twice.
7 Sirenjaw Makes Godzilla Look Friendly
Godzilla may be a terrifyingly large lizard with atomic breath and a penchant for destroying cities on a whim (though not without his reasons), but the Sirenjaw makes Godzilla look downright friendly by comparison. This creature is very similar to Godzilla in both appearance and function, though rather than swimming through the ocean only to pop up in major metropolitan areas, the Sirenjaw lives in the swamplands of Skull Island, quickly and ferociously consuming anything that ventures into its space, and/or on its person.
The Sirenjaw is essentially a giant crocodile with trees and plant life growing from its body, making itself look like a large island to anything to rest on, which is exactly how it hunts its prey - at least, when it isn’t pursuing its dinner directly, anyway.
6 Death Jackals Are Cannibalistic Nightmare Fuel
Death Jackals are described as being as agile as a leopard with the bite of a great white shark, though while they look terrifying, their cannibalistic nature ensures that being ‘nightmare fuel’ is about as dangerous as the Death Jackals are going to be. Death Jackals hunt and eat their own kind, and rarely attack any other living organism on Skull Island - including humans.
Death Jackals are definitely deadly, and they will kill and eat someone if they’re right in front of them. But, they generally only hunt their own kind, making them less of an active threat, and more of a terrifying creature to avoid at all costs.
5 Magma Turtles Are Deadly Without Even Trying To Be
Magma Turtles might be some of the deadliest creatures on Skull Island, which is ironic given their docile nature, but also completely valid due to the very nature of their existence. Magma Turtles are born within the hearts of volcanoes, and are literally covered in molten magma. More than that, they have lava pumping through their veins, making their bodies incredibly hot.
Just being near a Magma Turtle is dangerous, as it has been described as, “a walking volcano” within the informational pages of the aforementioned Skull Island: The Birth Of Kong.
4 Spore Mantis’ Eating Habits Are As Terrifying As Its Massive Size
The Spore Mantis is a giant ‘stick insect’ that can grow to be the size of a fully-mature red wood tree - but its monstrous size isn’t even close to the scariest thing about it. The way this creature eats and disposes of its waste is equal parts terrifying and repulsive, as it captures its prey with the slug-like symbiotic parasite that lives inside its trunk, only to encase its prey in sap within its body during the digestive process, and then excrete the body in a state that leaves it perfectly preserved.
In other words, if a Spore Mantis eats a human, any other nearby survivors will see the horrific outcome of that process, which makes its eating habits just as terrifying as its massive size.
3 Vinestranglers Are Even More Horrific Than Their Name Suggests
Another giant insect, the Vinstrangler hides in the branches of trees, its tendrils hanging down below it as if they were vines, waiting to capture unwitting prey. Once those tendrils have their prey, then the real horrorshow begins, as they not only strangle, but they also pull the prey right into the Vinestrangler’s stomach to be digested alive slowly.
Once in its grasp, there’s little to nothing anyone can do to break free, making an encounter with the Vinestrangler one of the more terrifying (and deadly) on Skull Island.
2 A Swamp Locust Is Described As “A Sentient Throat With Claws”
These creatures are described as “a sentient throat with claws”, which is a terrifying way to describe a 20 foot predator lurking beneath the shallow waters that wind all throughout Skull Island. A Swamp Locust has a perfectly circular mouth that’s filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth, its legs sticking out of the water to resemble trees, luring prey into a false sense of safety, only to capture and consume them.
The informational page on the Swamp Locust noted that evolution has refined this primordial creature into perhaps the most primitive (albeit incredibly deadly) predator of all time, “a sentient throat with claws”.
1 The Mire Squid Is A Legitimate Lovecraftian Nightmare
The Mire Squid is almost literally a Kraken in how it looks and how it hunts, making it a Lovecraftian nightmare of Cthulhu-esque proportions. The Mire Squid is - as one could imagine - a giant squid that hunts from beneath the surface of the water. But, what makes this predator so terrifying is that it doesn’t just grab its prey with its impossibly large and strong tentacles, it creates a whirlpool that sucks its prey into its open mouth at the center of the swirl.
The Mire Squid is a truly terrifying and unquestionably deadly monster of the sea, and is indeed one of the 10 deadliest Skull Island megafauna in MonsterVerse canon (besides Kong).
