Title: “A Number of Creatures”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a creature you’ve never seen.
Answer: CYCLOPS
Correct entries: 310

Something was strange about this grid, but what exactly was it? The four longest entries were PRESCIENCE, CRINKLE CUT, green paint-y TAKING MATH, and CHINA HUTCH. But they weren’t placed like theme entries really, and no obvious connection existed between them.

There was a nudge at 75-Across: [Number of clues (and creatures) in this puzzle] = EIGHTY. Looking in the clues didn’t lead anywhere, but if there are 80 clues there must also be 80 entries, and what do all 80 of these entries have in common? Each contains exactly one letter I, so the “creature you’ve never seen” in the prompt had to be a CYCLOPS, the most famous one-eyed (“I”-ed) creature out there (and which no one has seen, since they’re mythical. I think.)

Got some understandable pushback from solvers about the final click, since there are other fictional creatures that with one eye, which you can see a list of here. The cyclops is the most obvious, of course — of the 310 correct answers, 304 submitted it. I had decided beforehand that I would accept any other creature with one eye, but decided against using a qualifier in the instructions like “beginning with C” or “with seven letters in its name” because I didn’t think it was necessary. But a number of solvers did wish there had been more to signal the correctness of that answer.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a First Lady of the United States.