Chad Arment (1972 – ) is the creator and moderator of the first specifically cryptozoology email list, founder of a publishing company, and author/editor/publisher of cryptozoology books.

His interest in cryptozoology began in the fourth grade when he read Marian Place’s On the Track of Bigfoot (Dodd Mead, 1974). He casually studied the subject until high school, then began actively to investigate reports of unusual animals wherever he was living. Specific cryptids he has tracked include a mystery cougar, giant snakes, and an unknown hairy biped, all in Maryland, and a mystery cat in Ohio.

Chad Arment self-published a pamphlet in 1995, The Search for Enigmatic Animals: A Guide to Cryptozoological Investigation Techniques.

Before he began the cz list on February 1, 1998, he had written two short articles on giant snakes and cougar sightings for the INFO Journal of the International Fortean Organization. He gave a presentation on amateur cryptozoology at a September 1998 meeting of a Bigfoot group in Ohio.

Arment is the editor/publisher of a retired publication, North American BioFortean Review (18 pdf issues), as well as his newer online publication The BioFortean Review and his current Strange Ark blog. He is the publisher of cryptozoological and other books during the 21st century, through his own small press, Coachwhip Publications.

Chad Arment is the author of Cryptozoology: Science and Speculation (Coachwhip Publications, 2004), and The Historical Bigfoot (Coachwhip Publications, 2006). He is the editor of Cryptozoology and the Investigation of Lesser-Known Mystery Animals (Coachwhip Publications, 2006). Forthcoming book projects include Boss Snake, about Giant Snake accounts in America, and the 1981 Champ Conference proceedings.

Some of Arment’s other natural history books from Coachwhip include Herper’s Life List: A Field Checklist for the Native and Introduced Herpetofauna of the Continental United States and Canada
(2004), Herper’s Field Survey Journal: A Field Notebook for Herpetofaunal Surveys (2005), Stick Insects of the Continental United States and Canada: Species and Early Studies (2006).

As may be obvious from his books, Arment is an amateur herper with an avid interest in reptiles and amphibians, especially snake husbandry, natural history of North American reptiles, and biogeography of Ohio’s herps. He has an undergraduate degree in biology from Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.

While known as a cryptozoologist and herper to most readers of his blog and books, Arment is also openly active, as noted in a list by Jerry Bergman, Ph.D., in a movement with other scientists that Bergman characterizes as “Darwin Skeptics.”