Zoologica Fantastica includes fifteen stories of devilish creatures, unknown species, and weird beasts from air, sea, and land. Cryptofiction is a form of science fiction, where the excitement of zoological discovery meets imaginative biology and adventure. The stories in this anthology arise from the pulps (primarily the 1920s and 1930s), the bedrock of today's speculative fiction. From giant insects to Sargasso Sea monsters, creatures from past eons, or horrors from the cavernous depths, these stories celebrate the as yet undiscovered creatures that hide in the far corners of our planet, waiting for unwary explorers to cross their paths.

Officially, Elmer Brown Mason was a government entomologist in charge of the Gulf States. Privately, he journeyed to the dangerous corners of the world in search of adventure. In 1915-16, he turned his experiences into vivid, and fantastic, fiction set in the places he knew. In each of these ten stories, taken from The Popular Magazine and All-Story Weekly, Mason's scientist-adventurers visit strange places and encounter strange people and undergo often horrifying ordeals.