An article published in "The Saint Paul Globe" (St. Paul, Minn.), on 8 February 1903 that can be seen online here, reported about the progress of Hesketh Prichard's expedition in search of the Mylodon (1900/1901) criticizing him for not exploring the deeper parts of the Andean forests.
It also mentions an encounter with a Patagonian Sloth, which took place around 1893, as follows:
Unless our memory serves us a trick, some half a score of years ago a party of explorers in Patagonia, among whom was a distinguished attache of a German university, encountered a monster answering perfectly to the description given by scientists of the Mylodon.
According as I remember the account to have been published in both American and European papers there were three scientists in the party and but one of these survived to tell the story of their adventures in Patagonia.
The German, according to this report, fell a victim to the mysterious reptile or mammal which was taken for the sloth and which was encountered in some vast virgin solitude on that inhospitable plateau of the Andes described by some who have been there as being beyond the possibility of actual words to convey its desolateness.
Whether it was a mirage of the pre-tertiary fossil which appeared to the travelers, for mirages are as plentiful in Patagonia as leaves in Vallambrosa, [Italian monastery, surrounded by forests. Ed.] or whether it was an actual great sloth, for these monsters might have retired to the fastness of such a remote region and even have their habitations yet in some of the vast caverns of the mountain ranges, cannot be told.
I haven't been able to find any refrence to an expedition with a Geman University member, but I did find the following note in an article published in the Buenos Aires Caras y Caretas magazine (No. 32, May 5, 1899 - online) written by Florencio Basaldúa, who wrote the following:
Breaking News from Lake Musters, reports the attack on the Mylodon by three expeditionary from the party of the former librarian of the La Plata Museum, and its escape due to the invulnerability of the monster's armour, and its aggressive rages; but it is certain that in the end it will fall prisioner of men.
The librarian was Nicolás Illin, who in 1898 set out to hunt the Mylodon, it was one of several expeditions that were sent to search for the Mylodon. Illin also explored Lake General Paz (now Lake Vintter), but didn't find the creature.
Lake Musters is located next to Lake Colhue Huapi, which has its lake creature, and is fed by the Senguer River, where Muster's water tiger (the Iemisch?) was sighted.
Lake Musters is located in the steppe, it is an arid area, except for the water provided by the Senguer River and the lakes, little else is found here, only arid basaltic mesas, some salt flats and the Patagonian shrubs and tough grasses.
In June 1899, issue 35 of the magazine carried a political cartoon cover with a painting (see below) depicting hunters stalking a weird looking mylodon, that carried a British flag and had the word empréstito (loan) written on its fur.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025by Austin Whittall ©
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