Manticore

This monster of the Asian forests, especially those of India, Malaysia and Indonesia, is the most dangerous predator of the tropical regions.

It has the body of a lion and a head with some resemblance to that of a human male, except that the awful gaping mouth is filled with three rows of razor-sharp teeth which were were shutting as a fox-trap when the beast was closing its mouth. The tail is as scaly as a snake and tipped with a ball of poison darts, possibly envenomed with the juice of the upas tree.

The manticore stalks humans through the forest and creeps near enough to fire a volley of poison darts at a victim - it could fire and hit with a deadly poison from 30 meters away. Death is immediate and the manticore then uses its terrible teeth to crunch up every fragment of its meal. Skull, bones, clothing, and even such items as gourds carried by women when going for water, all vanish down the manticore's voracious gullet. The total disappearance of a human from a forest village is proof positive of the presence of a manticore.