INTRODUCTION
It was not so long ago that tales of an awful creature that stalked the
Argentine pampas were commonly told. It was difficult, if not impossible, to
find anyone who had actually seen it, but many knew of its fearsome power. It
was called the Yemisch, and it was a predator that preferred
to disembowel its prey. One moment a person or some cattle would be crossing
the stream and the next the water would be a blood-red boil. All that was
usually left of the victims were greasy entrails floating their way downstream.
That such a creature existed was confirmed by a discovery made in January 1895
near Last Hope Inlet in Argentina. Near the entrance of a cave a group of men
found a large piece of skin, about five feet long and three feet wide, covered
with coarse hair and pockmarked with tough ossicles. This must have been the
skin of the Yemisch. The
jerky-like bits were divvied up among the discoverers and fame of their find
spread.
Sooner or later word of the find reached the eminent South American
paleontologist Florention Ameghino,
and he quickly recognized the type of animal the skin belonged to. In 1898 the
Argentine naturalist identified the skin as belonging to a giant ground sloth.
That this was true was backed up by a story he knew of a man named Ramon Lista who said he had seen a
giant pangolin trundling about the pampas.
It could not have been a pangolin, Ameghino knew, but was
instead the Yemisch of the native people and the giant ground sloth of
scientists. In his report Ameghino wrote:
"Lately,
several little ossicles have been brought to me from Southern Patagonia, and I
have been asked to what animal they could belong. What was my surprise on
seeing in my hand these ossicles in a fresh state, and, notwithstanding that,
absolutely similar to the fossil dermal ossicles of the genus Mylodon, except only that they are
of smaller size, varying from nine to thirteen or fourteen millimeters across.
I have carefully studied these little bones from every point of view without
being able to discern any essential difference from those found in a fossil
state. These ossicles were taken from a skin, which was unfortunately
incomplete, and without any trace of the extremities. The skin, which was found
on the surface of the ground, and showed signs of being exposed for several
months to the action of the air, is in part discolored. It has a thickness of
about two centimeters, and is so tough that it is necessary to employ an axe or
a saw in order to cut it. The thickest part of the skin is filled by the little
ossicles referred to, pressed one against the other, presenting on the inner
surface of the skin an arrangement similar to the pavement of a street. The
exterior surface shows a continuous epidermis, not scaly, covered with coarse
hair, hard and stiff, having a length of four to five centimeters and a reddish
tint turning toward gray."
The skin indeed belongs to the pangolin which Lista saw living. This
unfortunate traveler lost his life, like CreVaux, in his attempt to explore the Pilcomayo, and until the
present time he is the only civilized person who has seen the mysterious
edentate of Southern Patagonia alive; and to attach his name appropriately to
the discovery, I call this surviving representative of the family Mylodontidae Neomylodon listai.
Now that there are certain proofs of its existence, we hope that the hunt for
it will not be delayed, and that before long we may be able to present to the
scientific world a detailed description of this last representative of a group
which has of old played a preponderating part in the terrestrial faunas which
have succeeded each other on South American soil.
Ameghino's hypothesis was confirmed when his brother Carlos, the field man of
the duo, collected some more descriptions of the Yemisch from native people. It was indeed a large, amphibious
mammal that sounded just like a giant ground sloth. They even had some bits of
skin like those collected from Last Hope Inlet which they attributed to the
animal. Clearly giant sloths were still roaming South America, and they were
very dangerous creatures indeed.
Newspapers in Argentina went crazy over the story. Not only had the continent's
most eminent paleontologist confirmed the existence of living giant sloths but
new sightings funneled their way into the press. The megatherium fever
even stretched to England where some naturalists, like E. Ray Lankester, agreed that giant ground sloths may still
survive in South America. It is not surprising then that some enterprising
souls set out to catch the beast, but all ultimately returned empty handed. It
seemed that those who went out looking for the Neomylodon were the least likely to find it.
Not
everyone was convinced that giant ground sloths survived into the modern day,
however, and some of Florentino's South American colleagues thought that his
enthusiasm had superseded good judgment. To check the validity of Ameghino's
claim the naturalist Rodolfo Hauthal
went back to the Lost Hope Inlet cave to reexamine the evidence. His
conslusions were just as startling as Ameghino's.
When Hauthal investigated the cave he found stone tools, hay, charcoal, plant
fibers, sloth bones, and a pile of sloth dung several feet high. What could
this all mean? Clearly humans and sloths had both used the cave, but Hauthal
went a step further to suggest that they had been in the cave at the same time.
Humans had held sloths in captivity and may have even domesticated them,
Hauthal argued, and the Lost Hope Inlet cave had once been a giant sloth
stable. For this reason the kind of extinct sloth represented by the scraps of
skin and bones was renamed Grypotherium
domesticum, the domestic ground sloth.
(It is also noteworthy that Hauthal and colleagues re-named
the animal said to terrify the native people. Based upon the evidence from
folklore they renamed it Lemisch
listai, a move that irritated some other scientists. In a review of
the papers, for instance, the paleontologist J.B. Hatcher objected to 1) using a "barbarous" native
word as a genus name, and 2) erecting a new genus and species on folklore.)
It seems that other authorities did not quite know what to
make of Hauthal's hypothesis. It was often repeated in reviews and
announcements but rarely did it receive further comment (at least in
English-language publications). The author of To the River Plate and Back,
William Jacob Holland, agreed
but it seems that many others did not know how to handle the idea of
domesticated giant sloths. Even the paleontologist A.S. Woodward, while skeptical, wanted to know more about this
potential relationship between humans and ancient sloths.
In the end, though, the tale of the Yemisch seemed to unravel. J.B.
Hatcher stated that he had never heard of such a creature during his time in
South America and others suggested that the mythological creature was better understood
as an amalgam of a giant river otter and a jaguar. It was entirely possible
that the Ameghino brothers inflated what little they had heard from the native
people and the newspapers ran with it once it hit the academic presses.
We should not be too hasty in saying that the Ameghinos
created a story where there was none, however. Recall that Thomas Jefferson, on
first sight of seeing the huge claws of the giant sloth Megalonyx, thought they belonged
to an enormous tiger-like cat. If the native people of Argentina did hold
beliefs about the Yemisch
it is entirely possible that their beliefs were reinforced by finding the
plentiful remains of giant sloths. This one sounds like a case for a
geomythologist.
(Cryptozoologist's Note: To read portions of the original
account of Ramone Lista's discovery of the Mylodon Cave and its
contents, follow this link: http/blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=214751458&blogId=510186744)
THE MAPINGUARI
The
Mapinguari (also called
mapi, inashi or sloth) is actually believed to be a species
of Mylodon, a medium-sized ground sloth, weighing about 500 pounds, and
standing up to 9 feet when on its hind legs. They had very large claws that
curled under their feet and faced backwards when they walked on all fours. They
reportedly ate leaves and may have even been raised by local inhabitants at one
time as a source of food, similar to today’s cattle. They were similar in many
ways to the modern, though much smaller, three toed sloth and two toed sloth.
The Mapinguari is generally thought to have died out around ten thousand
years ago (some believe closer to 4,000 years ago) but survived as late as the
1500’s and may even still be thriving in the remote jungles of South America.
According to fossil records, these sandy red-haired vegetarians once roamed
North and South America, the Caribbean and Antarctica.
The existence of the Mapinguari went mainstream in 1994 when biologist
David Oren told The New York Times that the Amazonians were reporting
sightings of this ground sloth; however he had no physical evidence to support
his theory and as a result the scientific community still considers the Mapinguari,
Mylodon, to be extinct.
THE LEGEND: MAPINGUARI VS. MAPINGUARY
Some
are of the impression that mapinguary is simply another spelling of mapinguari,
and that both are names for the same creature; however, this does not seem to
be the case. Although there appears to be some overlapping in the lore
associated with both creatures, and both are firmly embedded in the local
folklore of the Amazon Rainforest of South America, legends of mapinguary
describe a hairy biped with characteristics that would tend to classify this
beast as, at the very least, a South American version of Bigfoot, and at the
other extreme, a supernatural being, which scares away researchers who work in
the field of cryptozoology.
According to local native legends, the Mapinguari (or Mapinguary)
is a prehistoric cryptid that reportedly lived (and is still reported to live)
in the Amazon rain forests of South America, particularly in Brazil and
Patagonia. It was consistently described as resembling either an ape or giant
ground-dwelling sloth, having red hair, long arms, powerful claws that could
tear apart palm trees and rip out the tongues of cattle, a sloping back, a
crocodile-like hide that arrows and bullets could not penetrate, a second mouth
on its belly and backwards feet (said to make a bottle-shaped footprint). It
was said to stand up to 6 feet tall when it assumed a bear-like stance on its
hind legs, which it did when it smelled a nearby human. It also gave off a
putrid, disorienting stench, emitted a frightening shriek, and could move
slowly and stealthily through the forest, often surprising unsuspecting locals.
Although it was believed to be carnivorous, by all accounts it did not eat
humans. Finally, it was said to sometimes speak and to enjoy punishing hunters
who violated religious holidays. Certain lore even seemed to link it with the
South American werewolf. The more werewolf-like version of the creature is
called the "wolf's cape" and is thought to have originally been
human.
Although most mainstream scientists dismiss the Mapinguari as myth, some
cryptozoologists believe that the Mapinguari is a close relative of
Bigfoot, while others, among them ornithologist David Oren, theorize that it
may be a surviving giant ground sloth similar to the Mylodon, generally
thought to have gone extinct about ten thousand years ago. It would not be
entirely unprecedented to discover a living specimen of a species thought to be
extinct for such a long period. In 1972, Dr. Ralph Wetzel discovered living
specimens of the Chacoan Peccary, a close relative of pigs and boars, while on
an expedition to the Gran Chaco. Prior to his discovery, the only example of
this type of peccary had come from fossil remains, and they were generally
considered to have died out about ten thousand years ago.
In addition to the legend of the Mapinguari (or also overlapping it) is
an even more interesting legend which has developed over the years. It is one
that proposes the existence of a lion-sized sloth that still has some arboreal
traits. But this beast, called Xolchixe (pronounced shoal-CHICKS-ay)
or the Tiger Sloth seems to move much faster than its sloth
contemporaries. What makes it even more bizarre is the claim by local natives
that it is carnivorous—that is, it eats meat. But if the sloth does exist, how
could it become a carnivore?
It
has recently come to light that many paleontologists believe prehistoric sloths
were not strictly vegetarians, but also scavenged meat, even stealing meaty
kills from feral predators. A scene like this was even played out in the
Discovery Channels Walking with Prehistoric Beasts program. Could
such a creature still exist?
I suggest the possibility that these legends actually encompass three (3)
separate entities and that they may be sorted out based on their reported
characterisitics, which I shall attempt to do here, recognizing that certain
characteristics may be shared by all three. In my opinion, there are enough
characteristics that are unique to each of these entities, to validate
separating them into at least two separate species of cryptids, or possibly three
if Xolchixe constitutes a species separate from Mapinguari. These
would be as follows:
Mapinguari
A giant ground sloth, possibly a surviving Mylodon.
Mapinguary
A South American species of Bigfoot.
Xolchixe (or the Tiger Sloth)
A partially arboreal, carnivorous, lion-size sloth.
All other characteristics, which cannot logically be attributed to any species
in the natural world, and are related to other preposterous beings of Brazilian
mythology, I have relegated to the supernatural and local native superstitions.
These include:
A second mouth on its belly—The only possibility
I can think of, which would explain this characteristic as one which might
occur in the natural world, would be if the creature has a pouch for carrying its
young, and that this pouch has been mistaken for a second mouth by frightened
natives. However, as far as we know, such pouches only occur in marsupials
(kangaroos, opposums, koala's, etc.), and all living species of sloths are
placental mammals, not marsupials. Was the giant ground sloth an exception?
There is currently no evidence to support such a supposition.
Backward feet—No known species of animal has
"backward feet". First, let's consider the obvious: If one did, they
would not be backward, now would they?" Regardless, backward feet would be
the ultimate hinderance to balance and locomotion, and would defeat the entire
physiological function of the structure of the foot and toes. The only possible
explanation that comes to mind is if this observation is based on tracks of the
giant sloth, which is known to have had long claws on it's feet that were
folded under the feet when it walked.
Capable of speaking—This characteristic obviously
stretches the limits of credulity for any creature in the natural world, with
the exception of man, certain birds that learn to mimic the sounds around them,
and the occasional, dubious report of a talking Bigfoot.
Punishes hunters who violate religious holidays—I
think this one speaks for itself. The Mapinguari is also believed to protect the rainforests, and punishes those who overharvest and take more than they need.
Was once human—As previously mentioned, certain
lore even seems to link Mapinguary with the South American werewolf. The more
werewolf-like version of the Mapinguary is called the "wolf's
cape" and is thought to have originally been human.
Having differentiated between what I regard as three separate and distinctive
species of cryptids, I will devote the balance of this article to the Mapinguari
and the Xolchixe, which I will hereafter refer to as the Tiger Sloth.
Legend has it that arrows and bullets could not penetrate the Mapinguari’s
caiman-like hide. A paleontologist’s examination of preserved ancient ground
sloth skin samples in the late 19th century revealed hard dermal ossicles,
small pieces of bone also found in the skin of dinosaurs and caimans, that
protected them from predators. It is possible that such skin would have been
impervious to arrows and bullets.
MEGATHERLINAE AND CRYPTOZOOLOGY
Charlie Jacoby went as principal expert to South America for Giants of
Patagonia, filmed in 2005, which aired first on the History Channel in the USA
in April 2006. Part of the History Channel series Digging for the Truth,
presented by Josh Bernstein and directed by Priya Ramasubban, the programme
Giants of Patagonia showed viewers that the giant sloth may still exist. Portions
of the following are from a script by Mr. Jacoby for a TV documentary proposal
about the giant sloth.
I grew up with an image like this in my head. It is one of the giant ground
sloths, the mylodon, a 9ft hamster-like creature which once roamed across
Patagonia in South America. Although almost certainly extinct 10,000 years ago,
rumours persist that the mylodon still lives in pockets of forest. These
rumours were what drove my great grandfather Hesketh Prichard to lead an
expedition to find it in 1900 and 1901. Thanks to the Daily Express, I
spent a month in Patagonia looking for the giant sloth and following his
footsteps.
By the early years of the last
century, Prichard had established himself as a first-class explorer,
naturalist, cricketer, journalist and, of course, big-game shot. He counted men
such as Robert Falcon Scott of the Antarctic, the author Arthur Conan-Doyle and
the African explorer Frederick Courtenay Selous among his friends. Conan-Doyle
based part of his book The Lost World on Prichard's adventures in
Patagonia.
We are going to use the words of another of Conan-Doyle's
creations to track down the giant sloth's habitat—its ecological niche—the
"lost world" where it still may live. Sherlock Holmes said:
"When you have eliminated all that is possible, whatever remains no matter
how improbable, must be the truth."
The
first rumours that a giant ground sloth species may still exist reached Europe
in the 16th century. Sailors brought home stories of "water tigers"
backed up by fossil bones.
This creature is a "su" or "succurath". Reported as early
as 1558, it lived on the banks of Patagonian rivers. It had the head of a lion
with—according to reports—"something human about it", a short beard
from ear to ear, and a tail armed with sharp bristles which provided shelter
for its young. The Su was a hunter but not for meat alone. It killed animals
for their skins and warmed itself in the cold climate.
In 1789, Dr. Bartolome de Muñoz
found Megatherium bones near what is now Buenos Aires. He gave them to
the King of Spain, prompting the King to order a complete specimen of the
animal alive or dead. Charles
Darwin, during his famous voyage of the Beagle, found the bones of a mylodon
among his "nine great quadrupeds" on the beach at Punta Alta in
northern Patagonia.
The rumours gained more credence in
the late 19th century. The future governor of Santa Cruz province in southern
Patagonia, Ramón Lista, was riding in Santa Cruz in the late 1880s when a
shaggy red-haired beast resembling what he called a "giant pangolin"
trotted across his path. He had time to loose off several rounds from his rifle
before it disappeared into the scrub, and was amazed to note that they bounced
off the animal's hide. Lista only gave a verbal account of this story, to an
animal collector called Carlos Ameghino, who told his brother Florentino
Ameghino, who was one of Argentina's most notable naturalists and later the
vice-director and secretary of the best natural history museum in South
America, La Plata, which opened in 1888 outside Buenos Aires.
There
is now a giant fiberglass mylodon at Last Hope Sound in Chilean
Patagonia, where a German sheep farmer, Herman Eberhard found a near-perfect mylodon
skin in 1895. The skin was covered in bony nodules, which may explain what
deflected Lista's bullets. Eberhard believed it was the skin of an unknown sea
mammal. He hung it on a tree where it remained until 1897. Expeditions to
Eberhardt's cave and other caves soon recovered additional pieces of hide.
Another great Argentinean naturalist
and explorer Perito Moreno found it, boxed it up and sent it back to La Plata
museum, of which he was both founder and director.
Something
fishy was afoot, however. The skin's arrival coincided with a story by
Professor Florentino Ameghino, a paleontologist in Argentina, that a native
Indian had knocked down a mylodon with bolas—rounded stones that are covered in leather and tied to leather thongs, which
they used with deadly accuracy—and that he, Ameghino, had the skin.
Professor Ameghino had heard Lista's story and began to wonder if the strange
beast was a giant sloth that had somehow survived till the present day. He had
already collected legends from natives in the Patagonia region about hunting
such a large creature in ancient times. The animal in the stories was
nocturnal, and slept during the day in burrows it dug with its large claws. The
natives also found it difficult to get their arrows to penetrate the animal's
skin. Ameghino claimed that he was so sure this was the creature Lista had
seen, that he had decided to name it after him: Neomylodon listai, or
"Lista's new Mylodon."
Despite being colleagues, Ameghino and Moreno were enemies. They had strong
personalities and different points of view about natural history—and Ameghino
was notoriously arrogant. Their enmity started when they worked together at the
La Plata Museum, where Moreno was director. Perhaps, the museum was too small
for two celebrities like them. It
is likely that Ameghino intended to pinch Moreno's mylodon skin and say
that it was the Indian's. In the end, he didn't steal it and went quiet on his
claims.
Moreno brought the skin to the British Museum in London for safekeeping. It is
now held by London's Natural History Museum. In a lecture to the Royal Society
on 17th January 1899, he said the animal was long extinct. Dr. Arthur Smith
Woodward, keeper of palaeontology, said, however, that the skin was so fresh
that, were it not for Dr. Moreno, he would have "no hesitation in
pronouncing the animal recently killed." The skin story caused a
sensation. Giant sloth fever gripped the British public.
Arthur
Pearson, who had launched the Daily
Express newspaper in 1897, at once despatched his star journalist, Hesketh
Prichard, to Patagonia to find it. The words of the director of the Natural
History Museum, Professor Ray Lankester, went ringing in his ears: "It is
quite possible—I don't want to say more than that—that … [the Mylodon]
still exists in some of the mountainous regions of Patagonia."
Head for the Moreno Glacier and you are 150 miles north of the Mylodon
Cave and back in Argentina. There's another 800 miles to go before you reach
the northern end of Patagonia. It's a big place.
The Moreno Glacier is one of the biggest in the world, which moves slowly in
the vast Lake Argentino, the fourth biggest lake in South America. This was the
setting for the climax of Prichard's year-long journey through the region.
With the backing of Perito Moreno, Prichard pushed further
than any western explorer into the Andes. He found and followed a river he
named Katarina after his mother, Kate. He found a new lake, Lake Pearson. He
also discovered a new subspecies of puma, named Pearson's puma. All
these stories, plus accounts of his adventures and of the dying Tehuelche
Indian tribe he published in a book, Through the Heart of Patagonia.
Despite local Indian legends of a mountain ghoul called lemisch or yemische, which fitted descriptions of the mylodon,
he found no trace of any giant sloth. He wrote: "Although the legends of
the Indians were manifestly to a large extent the result of imaginative
exaggeration, yet I hoped to find a substratum of fact below these fancies.
After thorough examination, however, I am obliged to say that I found none. The Indians not only never enter the
Cordillera but avoid the very neighbourhood of the mountains. The
rumours of the Iemisch
and the stories concerning it, which, in print, had assumed a fairly definite
form, I found nebulous in the extreme when investigated on the spot. Finally,
after much investigation, I came to the conclusion that the Indian legends in
all probability refer to some large species of otter."
All
of which brings us to the present day. With the development of the Carbon-14
dating method in the twentieth century, the age of the Mylodon remains in Eberhardt's
cave was apparently settled: the skin was estimated to be roughly 11,000 to
5,000 years old, give or take 400 years. Conditions in the caves may have
preserved the skin, making it look fresh to the eye and fooling Moreno. Despite
the fact that Hesketh Prichard was vindicated by the carbon-dating, there have
been a number of sightings of creatures which fit the mylodon's
description, and in locations ranging from the rainforest of the Amazon basin
to the southern Andean beech forests of Patagonia.
(Cryptozoologist's Note: Carbon-14
dating is not as accurate as it is often made out to be. First, plants
discriminate against carbon dioxide containing Carbon-14. That is, they take up
less than would be expected and so they test older than they really are.
Furthermore, different types of plants discriminate differently. This also has
to be corrected for. Second, the ratio of Carbon-14/Carbon-12 in the atmosphere has not been
constant—for example, it was higher before the industrial era when the massive
burning of fossil fuels released a lot of carbon dioxide that was depleted in
Carbon-14. This would make things which died at that time appear older in
terms of carbon dating. Then there was a rise in 14CO2 with the advent of
atmospheric testing of atomic bombs in the 1950s. This would make things
carbon-dated from that time appear younger than their true age.
Measurement of Carbon-14 in historically dated objects (e.g., seeds in the
graves of historically dated tombs) enables the level of Carbon-14 in the
atmosphere at that time to be estimated, and so partial calibration of the
"clock" is possible. Accordingly, carbon dating carefully applied to
items from historical times can be useful. However, even with such historical
calibration, archaeologists do not regard Carbon-14 dates as absolute because
of frequent anomalies. They rely more on dating methods that link into
historical records. Outside the range of recorded history, calibration of the
Carbon-14 "clock" is not possible. Finally, it is unfortunate but true that on occasion, mainstream evolutionary
scientists have manipulated Cabon-14 dating results to fit evolutionary theory
rather than allow the evidence to potentially discredit their theory.)
The common features of mylodon's habitat are forest and grassland; a
forest big enough to support a breeding population of these creatures; an area
of land that is sufficiently cut off from the world of humans that people rarely
see mylodons; and, most importantly, an area walled in on all sides, be
it by mountains, lakes, glaciers, sheer cliffs like the plateau in
Conan-Doyle's book The Lost World or the walls of a volcanic crater.
We're looking for a (prehistoric) refuge, which stops the animals escaping and
in which the animal survived the great extinction. Hesketh Prichard would approve of this combination of science and
adventure.
The forest theory is well supported. Since 1994, ornithologist and Amazon
biodiversity expert David Oren
has left his teaching post at the Emilio Goeldi Museum in Belem six times to
look for the Mylodon in
the rainforests of Brazil. He canoes up and down the Tápajos and Jamauchím
rivers uttering soul-wrenching cries in order to provoke a response from mylodons.
Stories of Mylodon
sightings by local people are what drive him.
In 1975, mine worker Mário Pereira de
Souza claims he came face to face with a giant sloth on the Jamauchím.
He heard a scream; he looked and saw the creature coming towards him on its
hind legs. The animal seemed unsteady and emitted a terrible stench.
On
another occasion, Manuel Vitorino
Pinheiro Dos Santos was out hunting near the Tápajos when he heard it,
he says. Again, there was the scream. It came from a tangle of vines 50 metres
away. He dropped the game he had shot and sprinted for the river. He heard two
more screams, which he says shook the forest, as the animal moved away.
David Oren has had some success. He has videotaped clawed trees, taped
minute-long screams he believes are the sloth's call, and made casts of some
big tracks which had backwards-facing claws.
Now we are going to work on the Mylodon habitat photo-fit. Let's
pretend that we have a map of areas in South America fulfilling all the
criteria we have gathered so far. These are the forest "islands", cut
off from the rest of the continent and far away from people. We can remove a
lot of these areas by looking at what Mylodon ate—or eats.
We need to become "forensic scatologists". Feces discovered in the Mylodon Cave in Chile reveal that
it ate X and X, so we can cut out areas which don't have those plants.
On our new map, we can cut out more areas by working out the minimum size that
a healthy breeding population of Mylodon
would need. For this, we must look at fossil evidence, at similar browsing
forest-dwellers and talk to relevant experts to find out whether these beasts
moved around the forest in herds.
Now we're getting somewhere. We need to know whether the climate in the area
where we know Mylodon to
have been fits the climate in the areas on our map. We also need to check that
there are sufficient levels of sloth-essential minerals in the soil, such as
cobalt and copper.
This process of layering intelligence on to maps is used by modern armies to
predict their enemies' advances. It is called "Intelligence Preparation of
the Battlefield" or IPB.
We will be left with a handful of locations across the continent. We can knock
out a few more by interviewing any zoologists who have worked in any of them
and who can make a case for there being no Mylodons. Finally, we need to take cameras to the best of
the remaining areas.
I want to be able to stand in a South American forest and say: "This is
perfect sloth country: it's X square miles, hemmed in on all sides; it has
these trees, these minerals in the soil, this climate, and it's relatively
untouched by man."
Our methods of searching these areas can range from the Oren technique of
calling the Mylodon
through to infra-red imaging. This will be the most thorough attempt to find Mylodon yet made.
This Project: Not for the Superstitious
Many of those connected with the hunt for the giant sloth have died before
their time. Bruce Chatwin, whose
seminal book about exile In Patagonia was based on the giant sloth story, died
aged 48 in 1989. Ramon Lista was
assassinated in the Chacos forest in 1897 by two guides who were leading him to
the Pilcomayo River. Nobody knows why.
Three leading members of the Smithsonian Institute in the 19th century, who
formed a science and drinking society called the Megatherium Club, died in
their thirties and forties. The club's leader, William Stimpson, died of tuberculosis aged 40. Robert Kennicott, died aged 30 of
heart failure—possibly suicide—on a collecting trip to Alaska. Fielding B. Meek died young of TB. And
Hesketh Prichard perished of
blood poisoning in 1922 aged 45.
These
tragedies are not discouraging the work of the Max Planck Institute in Munich.
Scientists there have identified DNA from Megatherium feces found in a cave in Nevada, USA. The next
generation of giant sloths could be roaming the forests of southern Germany.
But to a boy who was brought up on stories of his great grandfather's exploits
in Patagonia, where's the fun in that?
DESCRIPTION OF THE MAPINGUARI
The Mapinguari is
described as capable of rising up on two legs. When standing like this it is
said to reach up to six feet in height. Therefore, cryptozoologists who are
investigating this creature usually think that if it exists, it is really a
giant sloth. It's possible that this form of the Mapinguari is the
source of the Bolivian jucucu reports. Even its footprints resemble
those of the giant sloth.
The Stats – (Where Applicable)
• Classification: Presumed Extinct /
Other
• Size: 6 to 9 feet tall
• Weight: 500-2000 pounds
• Diet: Vegetation (Omnivore?)
• Location: South America
• Movement: 4-legged walking
(Occasionally 2-legged for short distances)
• Environment: Tropical Forest
BEHAVIOR
The Mapinguari is normally reported in South America. It is said
to be largely nocturnal and to have a strange, frightful cry and a foul smell.
It has extremely powerful claws that can shred palm trees. Its hair is usually
said to be red in colour.
When surprised or threatened, it is believed to rise up on its hind legs, emit
its fierce cry and display its claws. It will also become aggressive if its
territory is invaded. The Mapinguari has enormous strength and would be,
without a doubt, capable of tearing a fully-grown man into pieces.
Most accounts state the Mapinguari is a carnivore, although not necessarily a
human-eater. When it senses humans, it stands up on its rear legs and is as
tall as seven feet. The nocturnal animal has a lumbering gait like Grizzly
bears.
- It’s said to have a flat snout and, normally, it moves clumsily on four legs.
- These are large animals of a particular region or time.
- Generally, they are defined as animals that weigh over 1102 pounds to over a ton.
According to legend, it is slow but ferocious and very dangerous due to its
ability to move without noise in between the thick vegetation, its only
weakness being that of avoiding water bodies (which limits its movements in a
region where so many rivers, brooklets and lagoons exist, especially during the
rainy season). However, other accounts describe it as being as much at home in
the water as on land.
MAPINGUARI: MYTH OR CRYPTID?
Ornithologist David C. Oren, head of
the Zoology Division of Emile Goeldi Museum in Belém, Brazil, spent eight years
gathering accounts of the creature. His findings suggest that the Mapinguari
may be a descendent of Megatherium, a species believed to be extinct,
and he speculated it might be a surviving Mylodon.
Oren is the researcher who is most strongly associated with the theory that Mapinguary
legends represent sightings of living giant sloths who survived the Ice Age
extinctions, but there are many other scientists and adventurers who have
looked into the problem. Charles Fort was perhaps the first to suggest the
survival of giant ground sloths in South America, in reference to legends about
the "blonde beast" of Patagonia.
Megatheriinae were a group of
elephant-sized ground sloths that evollutionists believe lived from 2 million
to 8,000 years ago (some scientists think as recently as 4,000 to 1,000 years
ago). Its smaller ground sloth-type relatives were the Mylodon. Giant ground
sloths such as the mylodon used to exist but are believed by mainstream
scientists to be long extinct. If one still exists then it could be an example
of the "Lazarus effect" or more properly the "Lazarus
taxon".
The Lazarus Taxon
In paleontology, a Lazarus taxon (plural taxa) is a taxon that disappears from
one or more periods of the fossil record, only to appear again later. The term
refers to an account in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus miraculously raised
Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus taxa are observational artifacts that appear to
occur either because of (local) extinction, later resupplied, or as a sampling
artifact. If the extinction is conclusively found to be total (global or
worldwide) and the supplanting species is not a lookalike (an "Elvis"
species), the observational artifact is overcome. The fossil record is
inherently imperfect (only a very small fraction of organisms become
fossilized) and contains gaps not necessarily caused by extinction,
particularly when the number of individuals in a taxon becomes very low. If
these gaps are filled by new fossil discoveries, a taxon will no longer be
classified as a Lazarus taxon.
(Cryptozoologist's Note: In evolutionary paleontology, an "Elvis
taxon" (plural Elvis taxa) is a taxon which has been misidentified as
having re-emerged in the fossil record after a period of presumed extinction,
but is not actually a descendant of the original taxon, instead having
developed a similar morphology through convergent evolution. This implies the
extinction of the original taxon is real, and the two taxa are polyphyletic. By
contrast, a Lazarus taxon is one which actually is a descendant of the original
taxon, and highlights missing fossil records, which may be filled later. A
"Zombie taxon" is a type of Lazarus taxon sample that was mobile in
the time between its original death and its subsequent discovery in a site of
younger classification. The term was coined by D. H. Erwin and M. L. Droser in
a 1993 paper to distinguish descendant from non-descendant taxa: "Rather
than continue the biblical tradition favored by Jablonski (for Lazarus taxa),
we prefer a more topical approach and suggest that such taxa should be known as
Elvis taxa, in recognition of the many Elvis impersonators who have appeared
since the death of The King." (Erwin, D.H. and Droser, M.L., 1993. Elvis
taxa. Palaios, v.8, p.623-624.)
The terms "Lazarus effect" or "Lazarus species" have also
found some acceptance in neontology — the study of extant organisms, as
contrasted with paleontology — as an organism that is rediscovered alive after
having been widely considered extinct for years (a recurring IUCN Red List
species for example). Examples include the Wollemi pine, the Jerdon's courser,
the ivory-billed woodpecker (disputed), the Mahogany Glider and the Takahe, a
flightless bird endemic to New Zealand. It should be noted, however, that being
"extinct" strongly relates to the sampling intensity and the whims of
the IUCN, and that such a period of apparent extinction is too short for species
to be designated as "Lazarus taxa" (in its paleontological meaning).
Lazarus taxa that reappear in nature after being known only as old enough
fossils can be seen as an informal subcategory of the journalist's "living
fossils", because a taxon cannot become globally extinct and reappear. If
the original taxon went globally extinct, the new taxon must be an
"Elvis" taxon. On the other hand, all species "correctly
considered living fossils" (with all conditions fulfilled, living and
found through a considerable part of the geologic timescale) cannot be Lazarus
taxa.
Another suggestion is that the Mapinguari, if it exists, might not be a
sloth but some unusual form of anteater.
THE EVIDENCE
Despite repeated efforts, until recently, searches for verifiable physical
evidence remained futile. The only evidence for the existence of the Mapinguari
was anecdotal. Theories of the identity of the Mapinguari suggested that
it was a giant primate, a giant ground sloth, or possibly even an unusual giant
anteater, perhaps Myrmecophaga tridactyla.
Ornithologist David C. Oren collected evidence to prove the Mapinguari
existed, but most of what he collected turned out to be anteater scat, agouti
fur, inconclusive tracks and tree claw marks.Other evidence had been found
suggesting the Giant Sloth's survival into modern times. There is reason to
believe Indians hunted them. Fresh skin, dung and footprints had been
discovered in a cave in the Patagonian region of Argentina in 1895. Tales of
the native Indians revealed that when they tried hunting these creatures with
arrows, the arrows bounced off their skin. It was discovered that Megatherium
had a layer of strong, bony armor in its skin, something also seen in the skins
found in the cave. There had also been sightings of giant ground sloths in the
area. One of the witnesses was Ramon Lista, the governor of Argentina.
Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence, even eyewitness accounts, do not constitute
incontrovertible evidence of the existence of the Mapinguari. So far,
there had been no solid physical evidence and no documented sightings of
a living Mapinguari...until now!
Aknowledgements
I would like to personally thank my good friend Randy Merrill for allowing me to borrow his own research on the fascinating Mapinguary and repost it on my blog. His website may be found at
The Cryptozoologist. Thank You, Randy!!
Sources
MAPINGUARI: LEGENDARY MAN-EATING CRYPTID OF THE AMAZON RAINFOREST - PART 1
MAPINGUARI: LEGENDARY MAN-EATING CRYPTID OF THE AMAZON RAINFOREST - PART 2
