The Amikuk is a dreaded monster of the Bering Sea Yup'ik, a hairless, leathery being with four arms that is equally at home in the water and within the earth. It attacks hunters in their kayaks, seizing them and dragging them under to be eaten, and should its prey flee onto land it swims through the ground in pursuit as easily as through the sea. A shapeshifter, it is said to take various forms and to behave differently according to where it is met. Edward Nelson, who recorded the creature in the late nineteenth century, believed the accounts were inspired by the octopus of Bering Sea waters.