On HLA and ROHs in Amerindians

Arecent paper published in Science (Elena S. Gusareva et al., From North Asia to South America: Tracing the longest human migration through genomic sequencing. Science388,eadk5081(2025).DOI:10.1126/science.adk5081), looks into the peopling of America, and mentions that "Over the past 10,000 years, all four Native South American lineages have experienced population declines ranging from 38 to 80%." However, it does not consider the impact of population decline on genetic diversity. Just imagine the lost variants when such a bottleneck takes place (most of the people died in the aftermath of the European discovery and conquest of the New World).

The authors state that: (my comments in bold face)

"We were not able to identify a specific Siberian group as the direct ancestors of Native Americans owing to deep divergence and limited genetic continuity. [we'd expect this since 25ky have gone by since both groups split] However, west Beringian populations remain closely related to Native Americans. Koryaks and Inuit show 5 and 28% Native American ancestry, respectively, owing to gene flow between 700 and 5100 ya." [Inuit are late arrivals so they don't count when we talk about the early peopling of America]

The paper then uses the high ratios of runs of homozygosity (ROHs) among Amerindians to suggest that they are due to interbreeding and bottlenecks in the population (which is reasonable). However we should also consider the fact that 80 to 90% of American natives were wiped out by the diseases brought to America by the European voyages of conquest and discovery. Those that survived, did so because they had a selective advantage against these diseases, and Selection plays an important role in the formation of ROHs: they might be favored by natural selection, and this would lead to a higher frequency of ROHs in the population.

The same argument can be made for the lower diversity of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes among Amerindians. Natural selection promotes a higher variety to fend off disease. But with a massive death toll like the one triggered by the European Conquest of 1492 HLA variants that had been effective until that date, became extinct, and the few lineages survived were then selected for as they protected againsts the new Eurasian-African pathogens brought to America by the conquerors. Furthermore, Europeans admixed with the survivors, as did the African slaves brought to America. This adds even more complexity to the matter.

For an insight into the great dying caused by the conquest, see this article: The immunogenetic impact of European colonization in the Americas (Collen Evelyn Jane, Johar Angad Singh, Teixeira João C., and Llamas Bastien. Frontiers in Genetics Vol 13-2022 doi=10.3389/fgene.2022.918227): "Ancestry-specific identity-by-descent methods predicted that the ancestors of present-day Puerto Ricans underwent a reduction in effective population size to less than 100 individuals at the time of European arrival. Large-scale population (and therefore diversity) declines were also inferred in other regions among the Southern Chilean Huilliche–Pehuenche (an estimated decline of 96%), the Mexican Mixe (94%), and the Tsimshian (57%) around the same time."

Those who died took their HLAs with them, the survival of the fittest wiped out ancient lineages that had coped with New World pathogens for +30,000 years.

The smallpox in Mexico. From the Historia General de la Nueva España, or Florentine Codex, prepared by Mexican Indians led by Friar Bernardino de Sahagún, between 1540 and 1585.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Remains found in Colombia 6,000 years-old, unrelated to all South American natives old and current

A Paper (Kim-Louise Krettek et al., A 6000-year-long genomic transect from the Bogotá Altiplano reveals multiple genetic shifts in the demographic history of Colombia. Sci. Adv.11,eads6284(2025).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.ads6284) published last June, reports that they analyzed the genes of people who lived 6,000 years ago in the highlands of Colombia, close to what is now Bogotá, and found that they are unrelated to all the rest of Amerindians that live in South America and are not similar to ancient North American natives. They were completely replaced around 2,000 years ago by other groups crossing through Panama.

The authors write:

"Here, we report genome-wide data of 21 individuals from the Bogotá Altiplano in Colombia between 6000 and 500 years ago. We reveal that preceramic hunter-gatherers represent a previously unknown basal lineage that derives from the initial South American radiation. These hunter-gatherers do not carry differential affinity to ancient North American groups nor contribute genetically to ancient or present-day South American populations. By 2000 years ago, the local genetic ancestry is replaced by populations from Central America."

This is interesting: we have people living in Colombia that are not related to Ancestral North American natives. We'd expect them to be linked to North Americans if the flow of peope into South America was north-to-south across Central America via Panama. But they differ from the 12,700 year-old Anzic-1 people!

They are not related to any known ancient or modern South American natives. But, surely they would have been part of a migration that spread across South America. They were replaced by later arrivals. This shows how the lower genetic diversity in extant Native Americans reflects loss due to whole populations becoming extinct.

The study shows that we have limited knowledge about how many waves of people reached America, when the arrived and when they died out. We also lack data regarding in-depth genetic coverage of ancient and contemporary native people.

Their analysis lead the authors to state that "these results suggest the positioning of Colombia_Checua_6000BP as an outgroup to virtually most Indigenous South Americans." in fact "this group is not more closely related to subsequent ancient Colombians than to any other South American population in our dataset..." These ancient people were replaced by other groups that reached the Colombian highlands: "Overall, the performed analyses provide robust evidence for a major genetic replacement on the Altiplano between 6000 and 2000 years ago"

The paper concludes that they are quite unique and unrelated to other native groups:

"We show that the hunter-gatherer population from the Altiplano dated to around 6000 yr B.P. lack the genetic ancestry related to the Clovis-associated Anzick-1 genome and to ancient California Channel Island individuals, suggesting their affiliation to the southern Native American lineage that became the primary source of ancestry of South Americans by 9000 yr B.P. However, unlike ancient genomes from the Andes and the Southern Cone that are associated with the same wave of ancestry, the analyzed Preceramic individuals from Colombia do not share distinct affinity with any ancient or modern-day population from Central and South America studied to date. Colombia_Checua_6000BP can thus be modeled as a previously undescribed distinct lineage deriving from the radiation event that gave rise to multiple populations across South America during its initial settlement."

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Americas: the language diversity problem

Ten years ago, I posted on the high diversity of languages in America, and a recent paper has added some interesting information on the subject.

The paper was published last month (June 28, 2025). It confirms the diversity and its uniqueness among the languages around the World. Furthermore, the authors can't explain why (see the bold text that I highlighted in the quote below):

"Linguistically, the Americas remain one of the most diverse parts of the world, despite the loss of many languages since European colonization (Campbell 2024). Within the Americas, the diversity of South America exceeds that of North America as measured both by the number of distinct languages as well as by the number of singular linguistic lineages (“language families”). Within South America, in turn, the Amazonian lowlands are generally more diverse than the Andes and the Southern Cone, though the uneven demographic and cultural impact of European conquest may have contributed to accentuating the observed diversity cline. About 60% of South American lineages are isolates (Seifart and Hammarström 2017), that is, consist of only one extant member whose ties with related lineages were severed at a point of time that exceeds the time horizon that can be reached by historical linguistic methods (under ideal conditions ~8000 years). This indicates high rates of linguistic diversification and cladogenesis already in an early phase of human presence. The causes of this remain poorly understood. South American languages are also characterized by extreme heterogeneity concerning their evolved sound systems and grammars—a third parameter of linguistic diversity that contributes to the overall complexity of the linguistic situation in the continent."

The paper, explored genetic and language similarities, and as you'd expect, they found "strong similarities in language and morphology between the Selk'nam and Qawaskar", the boat-people that lived in the seas of Tierra del Fuego and SW Chilean Patagonia. They were the human beings who lived furthest south in the whole World!

The Mapuche have an Amazon-Chaco origin

The paper also found affinities between Chacoan people (called Quom) and the Mapuches of Chile.

In my book, I mentioned many myths and legends of the Mapuches that are similar to myths of the natives that lived in Southern Amazonia, and the Chaco region (the Guaraní people). But the homeland of the Mapuche and the Chaco-Amazon region are nearly 1,500 miles (2,400 km) apart, with the Andes rising 6,000 m (20,000 ft.) high between them.

I also wrote a post on the subject see: Mapuche natives and their possible link to the Guarani.

The Mapuche don't like the idea of being considered as "recent" arrivals in Chile, migrants from the central South American jungles. They prefer to believe they have always lived in Chile. However, the facts are quite the opposite. This paper says:

"The Qom and Mapuche exhibit the strongest genetic similarities among the groups we studied. The Qom are a lowland group from the southern Chaco, while the Mapuche historically inhabited northern Patagonia, later expanding to the Pampas. Recent genetic studies on the Mapuche suggest that their genetic profile reflects an ancient ancestry linked to early migration waves (SNA2), followed by prolonged isolation before recent gene flow from the Central Andes (Arango-Isaza et al. 2023; Capodiferro et al. 2021). In fact, mtDNA affinities between Chaco and Andean populations have led some scholars to suggest a shared evolutionary history (Cabana et al. 2006; Russo et al. 2018). This is consistent with previous genetic studies, which have reported close biological affinities between the Qom and Mapuche (Cabana et al. 2006; Demarchi and García Ministro 2008; Sevini et al. 2013) despite the fact that they are not geographic neighbors."

Read the paper online: Menéndez, L. P., and M. Urban. 2025. “ Tracing Human Diversity in South America's Southern Cone: Linguistic, Morphometric, and Genetic Perspectives.” American Journal of Biological Anthropology 187, no. 3: e70077. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.70077.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

The flood that formed Lake Lolog , a Mapuche Myth

There is a "flood" myth about Lake Lolog, in Neuquén. Similar to the flood that originated Lakes Colhue Huapi and Musters, Lake Lolog is also said to have formed in a flood.

The story tells that where Lake Lolog is now located there was a small lake called Paila Co, which in Mapuche language means "placid waters". The lake was surrounded by bogs and marshes. Nearby lived a family whose beautiful daughter used to comb her hair by the lake every day.

Looking west from the middle of Lake Lolog. Source

On a cool fall morning a young man called her from the lake, he said he was a king and he was lonely, that if she followed him she would be his queen, and become rich. She was bewitched and followed him despite the calls from her parents to come back.

A year later, she reappeared dressed in robes with gold and silver jewels. She told them not to be sad, that she was happy, and would return once a year to visit them.

When she got ready to leave, her father took holde of her and said he'd not let her go because she was their only child. But, suddenly, there was an earthquake, and a strong gale took the girl away. At the same time the house and the parents blended into the marsh, and the lake started to get bigger, becoming Lake Lolog.

Lake Lolog has a glacial origin, and is fed by three main streams: Boquete, Nalca and Auquinco. It drains towards the Atlantic Ocean through the Quilquihue River, on the lake's southeastern tip. Its flow is 39 m³ per second que tiene su nacimiento en el extremo SE del mismo. Este curso de agua posee un módulo anual de 39 m3/sec (1,377 cu ft/sec).

The lake lies in a narrow valley that has a general east to west direction, and its upper reaches are in the main ridges of the Andes. The lake is set at an elevation of 900 m (2,950 ft). It is deep (210 m - 689 ft.) and has very clear water.

Surprisingly, a map published in 1883, shows a "tiny" lake, more or less the size of its current eastern tip. See below:

1883 Map with a "tiny" Lake Lolog. Source

Compare it with the long, crooked Lake Lolog in this Google map, pictured below:

The old map seems to have omitted the western side of the lake. Perhaps it was due to lack of on-the-ground map-making, they hadn't gone into the Andes and only mapped the eastern tip.

It is unlikely that the lake was formed by a sudden flood. There is a marshy area on its northeastern end, called mallín Lolog (Lolog marsh), low-lying, a marsh, which runs for 2.5 km (1.6 mi) along its shores (map). The geological map of the area shown below for lakes Lacar and Lolog give the area a glacial origin:

There are extensive proglacial planes, which are flat areas that were formed by the sediment laid down by the glacial meltwater. Glacial flow was west to east as marked by the arrows (⇒), maybe the tiny lake Paila Co was in a proglacial plane that flooded when the lake reached its current levels (?).

The map showing flood danger in the Lake Lolog area (source) shown below, marks the western tip of the lake as having a HIGH risk of flooding. Was this the area that flooded when tiny Lake Paila Co was submerged?

Finally, 16 km (10 mi.) north of Lake Lolog is an active volcano called Huanquihue. It is 1.585 m tall (5,200 ft) and its last eruption took place 360 years ago (map).

Could it have caused a flow of lava, ash, melted snow down the Auquinco River into the lake, causing a flood?

Neighboring Achen Ñiyeu volcano did precisely that, with a lava flow that flowed into Lake Epulafquen, and formed a basaltic field (Escorial) altering that lake and Lago Verde. This eruption took place during historic times.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Paleolakes Colhue Huapi and Musters

Modern lakes Colhue Huapi and Musters are located in the middle of the Patagonian badlands, in the arid steppe of Chubut province, Argentina. They are surrounded by plateaus and basaltic mesas (see them in Google maps). They were not formed by glacers and are quite a distance from the Andean forests, yet they have an interesting story regarding their origin, and some curious native myths about how they formed.

The origin of Lakes Colhue Huapi and Musters

There was a low-lying area, a depression in the Patagonian steppe south of Mount Puricelli. Which received the output of the Paleo-Senguer river (formed in the Andes by the outflow of lakes Fontana and La Plata, and by several smaller rivers like Rio Mayo, Genoa, and Gato). At the end of the last Ice Age, Senguer carried more water and formed the Sarmiento Paleolake (named after the town that stands beside the modern lakes).

Paleolake Sarmiento covered an area of 4,300 km² (roughly 1,660 sq. mi.) and its surface rose to a level 60 meters above the current lake levels (196 ft.) it was large yet shallow (not more than 80 m - 262 ft).

At first the Senguer River bypassed the depression, flowing along what is the current Chico River valley towards the northeast, meeting the Chubut River and reaching the Atlantic (see a in the image below). The depression was fed by the scant rain that fell in the area.
A dry period followed, and the paleolake shrank (seee b in the image).
It was followed by the capture of the Senguer when a creek that ran along the Valle Hermoso valley eroded upstream and led the Senguer River to flow along it, into the depression (see c in the image). This flooded the depression and the lake grew to its maximum size.

This took place around 8,400 years ago. The lake drained towards the northeast along the valley of the Chico river.

Around 6,000 years ago, a dry period set in, and the Senguer carried less water, this led to a drop in the level of the Sarmiento paleolake. It shrank, and split into the two current lakes, Musters and Colhue Huapi. (see d in the image).

CAPTION HERE. Copyright © 2025 by Austin Whittall

The Native Myths

Berta Vidal de Battini compiled an ancient story told by Aurelio Nahuelquir in 1950 (source), it tells about the flood that formed Lake Colhue Huapi:

"My grandfather said that his grandparents told him that their grandparents said how the Lake Colhue Huapi appeared there. This is very ancient. Many, many years ago, the site of the lake was in those days a deep bog, like the Sacana salt flats. There was grass, and there was water and there were plenty of guanaco and ostrich to huynt. In this spot there was a large population of pure Tehuelches, with their animals and their homes, and all the tools they used, men and women. But, nobody knows how a great tragedy came about like a storm, and water welled up everywhere. They were all covered by the water, submerged the people with their animals, and everything, as if it was a punishment. And, there, this large and very pretty lake was formed, Lake Colhué-Huapí. It seems that an island remained, but it can't be seen. "

Was this an ancestral memory of the capture of the Senguer River and the flood that submerged the Sarmiento depression?

Battini also mentioned a story by Juan Quichanal (1952), from Sarmiento, it tells about the origin of Lake Musters, as a consequence of a camaruco (a traditional ceremony or prayer where they asked their gods for help favors and to ward off misfortunes).

"Many, many years ago, the countrymen of ancient times lived in Lake Musters. My great-uncle told me. He said it was very, very dry, and windy all day. The wind drove them mad. It didn't rain during the whole year. The animals died. There was nothing to eat. The people didn't have anything to hunt... the guanaco had gone far, far away to the hills of the Cordillera. The people had no option but to do a camaruco, a very large camaruco to plead for water and be well.
They say that all the people of the Cordillera sent messages to those in the lowlands to make a camaruco together. A tribe came down from the Cordillera. They all gathered together, and they waited for those people who lived where Lake Musters is. But those people didn't come. It is said that they had done their own separate camaruco and it rained. It rained a lot, a lot, and it formed alare lake. They say that when the other people went down to the lake, it got ancry and the waters rose, and growled, and a strong wind blew. This was the cry of the people that were there, under the waters of the lake. It can be heard from very far. This is what the old people at Lake Musters said."

Lake Creatures

See my posts on the Lake Colhue Huapi creature and the Giant Sloth at Lake Musters.

Both lakes are slowly drying out, due to the use of Senguer's water to irrigate the farms in Sarmiento. Below is a view of each lake: Colhue Huapi, with sand dunes (top), Musters (bottom)

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

White Sands NM footprints are 23,000 years old

Anew paper published on June 18 2025 in Science Advances, confirmed that the human footprints found in White Sands, New Mexico, US are indeed 23,000 years old (see my post of Sep. 2021 on these ancient footprints)

The tracks are pictured above

The authors of the original study were confronted by skeptical scholars who were not convinced by the early date, so the same team conducted additional research and dated pollen from the layers where the footprints were found. They confirmed their original dates and published their findings in 2023. Skeptics remained unconvinced so one of the co-authors, who also wrote the original paper went ahead and did a third study. Which ratified the very early dates.

This new 2025 publication is: Vance T. Holliday et al., Paleolake geochronology supports Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) age for human tracks at White Sands, New Mexico. Sci. Adv.11, eadv4951(2025).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adv495)

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Just published the 2nd edition of my book

I have finally published the updated, revised, and expanded second edition of my book, Monsters of Patagonia in Amazon. It is an ebook. And will surely have some typos and mistakes (their Kindle editing tool isn't as good as you'd expect). But I am happy. I have fixed many mistakes, updated the information, added more content, restructured the book and included some more images and content.

You can find it here. It fills the gap of the out-of-print original edition.

The new cover. Copyright © 2025 by Austin Whittall

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

The Harbin Dragon man (146,000 years-old) is a Denisovan

The skull formerly known as the Harbin "Dragon Man", found in China over 90 years ago, has been asigned to a Denisovan. It is the first known skull of these mysterious people.

A paper published on June 18, 2025 in Science reported the following:

Denisovans are a hominin group primarily known through genomes or proteins, but the precise morphological features of Denisovans remain elusive due to the fragmentary nature of discovered fossils. Here we report ninety-five endogenous proteins retrieved from a nearly complete cranium from Harbin, China, dating to at least 146,000 years ago and previous assigned to a new species, Homo longi. This individual has three Denisovan derived amino acid variants and clusters with Denisova 3, suggesting the Harbin individual belongs to a Denisovan population. This study fills the gap between morphological and molecular evidence, enhancing our understanding of Denisovans’ spatiotemporal dispersal and evolutionary history.>

Qiaomei Fu et al. ,The proteome of the late Middle Pleistocene Harbin individual.Science0,eadu9677 DOI:10.1126/science.adu9677

The skull had been discovered in 1933, and not long ago, in 2021, had been proposed as a new species, called Homo longi. Now it is the first remains of a Denisovan beyond some teeth, and a finger bone found in the Denisova Cave in Altai.

Another paper published in April 2025 confirmed a Denisovan origin for a jawbone dredged up from the bottom of the sea in Taiwan (see my 2015 post on this Primitive yet recent jawbone from Taiwan; Penghu 1).

So now we have plenty of Denisovan remains and now need to find out what link exists between them and our very old ancestor, Homo erectus. Erectus was well established in Asia for over 1.5 million years and surely interacted with Denisovans.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Did the Phoenicians Discover America?

This post won't go into this complex matter, I just want to share an online book, published in 1913, written by Thomas Crawford Johnston, and titled "Did the Phoenicians Discover America?"

>>This is the link to the book

In the past (2011) I posted extensively on the Phoenicians - America subject (this is an index to all the posts).

Personally, I don't object to the idea of Phoenicians reaching America. Wind or sea currents could have dragged their ships across the Atlantic towards Brazil from the Canary Islands (like it did with the Portuguese ships sailing to India). Interestingly, Johnston has them reach America from Asia, by crossing the Pacific!.

They could have discovered the dye of Brazil wood and used it as a source for their dye trade. But their impact on the Amerindians if any, was small. No tools, artifacts, or buildings have been found. They did not mention America in any texts. No DNA has been found in any ancient remains or in extant natives.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025by Austin Whittall © 

"Water Creatures" at Lake Futalaufquen

An illegal occupation of land by Lake Futalafquen in Chubut province, on the eastern side of the Los Alerces National Park (see map) took place a few years ago, and the Mapuche squatters called it a piece of their ancestral lands.

In fact the Mapuche lived further north mainly in Central Chile, later in Southern Chile, and only moved into Neuquén province, in Argentina to escape from the Spanish conquest. The natives of Chubut were the Tehuelche people, a different ethnic group.

These Mapuche called their "territory" by lake Futalufquen, Lof Paillako.
I found a report on their illegal occupation (read it here - in Spanish), and below is the part relating to their sightings of mysterious creatures in the area, like a cuero (more on the cuero in this post):

In some watering places or bogs, the forces of the land materialize as the water hide (cuero) or in an animal, like the white pony. Not all watering spots are the same, but through these apparitions, the Mapuche learn to recognize some menuko (bogs) due to the forces (newen) that live there, and the kimün (knowledge) that these have. These forces are usually named as "owners" (ngen) of the menuco... Several members of the community explained:
"...when I was a little girl we would go to wash at the trayenko [waterfall, the river is called Cascada, in Spanish, which means waterfall] that runs behind the Paillako. We would go in the morning because at midday you could not go, because there was the water hide (cuero). It was never seen going towards the lake.. it was out of respect, not going. The creature I most remember being mentioned was the choncón, and in my case I remember the subject of the frogs. Like they were evil. It was a harm, something evil. You could not see the frogs." Belén Salinas.
"An old lady from here, Mrs. Baldomero (Doña Emilia), said that she ahd seen on that stone known as the stone of the ducks, the stone that is between Bermúdez and here. Tha she had seen a small horse, on top of the stone. That is what she said. A horse as tiny as this, she said, but it stood upon the rock. And when it saw them, it rushed into the water. And nobody saw it again." (L.C.C.)
"At night you could see things, hear things. He said he saw a white horse. Their house was a wooden one, and outside was a large flat meadow, not one tree, and he said that in the meadow you could see a white horse that ran aroung, and he'd say to his wife: look, look at the horse, whose is it?"

Regarding the Chonchon, it is a bird-like creature, made of a human head, with sharp claws and large ears that it uses to fly about. It makes a sound like "tué, tué" and it appears when someone is dying.

In 2010 I posted about a cuero in Lake Futalaufquen.

On the Natives of Patagonia

An excerpt from my book

The Mapuche people, who in the past were known as Araucanian, lived in some parts of the northwestern area of Patagonia. During historic times, after the mid-1500s, they settled in the northern and central parts of the current province of Neuquén in Argentina, and Chile’s VIIIth, IXth, and Xth Regions were peopled after the mid-1500s.
They are distinct from the other Patagonian natives and were originally established in central Chile, from where they were first dislodged southwards by the Inca who invaded the region in the mid-1400s and incorporated this region into their Empire.
Spanish conquistadores, after destroying the Inca Empire, reached central Chile in 1541. Conquistador is the Spanish word for conqueror; they were the adventurers, soldiers, and explorers who took the New World by force, seeking gold, silver, and gemstones. They replicated the Inca serf system, making the natives work in the mines that produced precious metals. Violent and merciless, they found their match in Chile. Mapuche and Spaniards engaged in a war that continued for over three hundred years, the longest standoff between natives and Europeans in America. The Spanish conquest dislodged the Mapuche from their homeland and forced them to move south towards the Island of Chiloé and eastwards, deeper into the Andean forests.
They also moved across the Andes, settling on its eastern foothills in what is now Neuquén, Argentina, where they gradually “araucanized” the local natives, the Pehuenche = “people of the pehuén forests,” and Picunche = “people of the north,” who adopted their more convenient language (Mapudungun) which was the lingua franca that replaced the language of the Tehuelche. The Mapuche progressively extended their cultural influence eastwards towards the Pampas, and through war, trade, and cattle rustling, absorbed and araucanized the original Puelche inhabitants of Tehuelche blood during the 19th century. This was a slow process, and both cultures, Mapuche and Tehuelche, coexisted until their demise in the 1880s. The expedition led by Gerónimo Luis de Cabrera in 1620-21 from Río Cuarto in Córdoba province, Argentina, to the Andes in Aluminé, Neuquén, on the border with Chile, noted that the Puelche and the inhabitants of Central Neuquén all spoke the same language, Gennakenk, the Northern Tehuelche language called caguane by the Spaniards. However, at Aluminé, they also spoke “Chilean”, that is, Mapudungun.
Two centuries later, Theophilus Schmid, who served as an Anglican Missionary in Argentina’s Patagonia from 1858 to 1865, noted that “the Araucanians call themselves and their language Chilean,” showing that they still recognized their original homeland.
Research by Rodolfo Casamiquela, has shown that Gennakenk was spoken in southern Neuquén until the late 1700s and that it was used by the natives in Buenos Aires province until 1823.
The Mapuche were sedentary farmers who made pottery, worked silver, and wove the wool they obtained from the llama, which they domesticated. They lived in solid houses called rucas. These aspects distinguish them from all the other mainland Patagonian natives who were nomadic hunter-gatherers, lacking pottery and agriculture, who lived in leather tents known as toldos, and hunted guanaco, ñandú, skunks, and foxes. A large Mapuche community still inhabits its original homeland in Argentina and Chile.

Tehuelche
They were the descendants of the ancient Patagonian Paleo-Indians. There are two versions about the origin of the name Tehuelche:21 one is that it comes from their words tehuel = “south” and chu = “land”, this suffix was later distorted by the Mapuche into che = “people”. The other is that the Mapuche called them chewuel = “surly”, “unsociable” and che = “people”, hence the “unfriendly people.” The Tehuelche, in turn, called the Mapuche yákarsh and Teluna-Küne.
We divide them into two distinct groups, each with cultural and linguistic differences: the Northern Tehuelche (Günnuna Kenna or Gennakenk – which, in their language, meant “people”) and the Southern Tehuelche. The region between the Senguer, Chubut, and Chico rivers was a flexible border between both groups.
Northern Tehuelche. Gradually, during the 17th century these northernmost Tehuelche expanded further north out of Patagonia, across the Negro and Colorado rivers and into the Pampas where they replaced the original natives of Buenos Aires province and became known as the Pampas or Puelche. The former because they lived in the prairies of the Pampa region, the latter, in Mapudungun, means “Eastern people.”
In the Pampas, they encountered vast quantities of free-roaming wild cattle and the horses that the Spaniards had bought to America (we will present an interesting theory about horses and cows in Chapter XVI).
The horse was quickly adopted, and through the Puelche, it rapidly spread south into the heart of Patagonia.
A group of Puelche who lived in what is now the Argentine province of La Pampa were known in Spanish as Ranqueles, from the name the Mapuche gave them Rankülche, from rankul = “reed,” che = “people”, as they lived near the scarce water sources in the arid open woodland or monte of that region. The original Gennakenk continued living in Patagonia between the Negro and Chubut rivers until their demise in the late 1800s.
Chüwach a Künna. There was yet another smaller group, on the eastern flanks of the Andes in the Argentine provinces of Chubut and Rio Negro. South of the Limay River, and north of the Senguer River. They were usually at war with the Mapuche, who frequently invaded their territory. Their name (Chüwach a Künna) means people at the edge of the mountains. Little is known about them.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Cacao 1 site is 37 to 42,000 years old

An update with additional information regarding a post from October 2021, (Human hair 40,000 years old in Argentina (Cacao 1.A cave). I found a reference to a publication in a Conference that took place in 2023.

The paper was named Investigaciones en cueva Cacao 1.a (Antofagasta de la Sierra Catamarca): interdisciplinariedad y nuevas líneas de evidencias and was presented at a conference (I Jornadas de Arqueología de Antofagasta de la Sierra) on March 21, 2023. The event was organized by the Universidad Nacional de Catamarca amd was published in the Libro de resúmenes de las I Jornadas de Arqueología de Antofagasta de la Sierra (book) by that university (ISBN: 978-950-746-280-1).Source - Conicet

The paper's abstract reads:

The Antofagasta de la Sierra micro-region is characterized by a diversity of archaeological sites that have occupations that date back to the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. The site Cueva Cacao 1.A (CC1.A) is set at the confluence of the Curuto and Cacao canyons. It is a stone shelter that has occupations from different periods. Inside of it we found a stratum composed mainly of vegetation remains and fine compact sedimentary material, originated by the disaggregation and trampling of the feces of extinct fauna (Layer 5). Stratigraphic excavations in this layer allowed the recovery of formatized artifacts and debris from the working of different stone varieties (vulcanites and obsidians), bone remains of extinct megafauna, and fibers of various species. Carbon-14 dating of this stratum gave a range of approximately 42,000–37,000 years BP.

The date of 42 to 37 thousand years before present is really ancient, among the oldest in the Americas, but this paper hasn't been mentioned in the media, it lies in an obscure publication, ignored.

See the following Map showing the location of the site

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

The Cuero at Lake Mascardi

The Cuero at Lake Mascasrdi

This is a sighting reported in the local media on August 9, 2022. The image below shows the spot where this event took place (a normal, beach on a mountain lake, by a campground.

Subtitulo

Pebble breach on the northeastern tip of Lake Mascardi, looking south/b>. Copyright © 2025 by Austin Whittall

The translation of the article is the following:

"This story ... was compiled by the writer and investigator, Dora Fornaciari and published with other texts of myths and legends in the "Revista Patagónica".
This is the story in first person of an anonimous informant: 'My grandmother said that one time, up here, on the tip of the Mascardi, at the end of the Gutiérrez, there, on that shore, inwards, on the tip of the Mascardi, a very old man, who told that he had lost a dark colt, and was out looking for it, and one day, he said he was going along the coast, the shore of the lake, inwards, to see if he could find it, and he saw a colt, but dark, dark and it was tugging his colt... and it was like half-past eleven, and at that time the animals come out of the water to sunbathe, and he saw it there, but this dark colt didn't notice him. So he threw his lassoo at it, and caught it, and while it was on dry land it didn't pull with strength but as soon as it touched the water, he was dragging him in, into the deep water. And he had to cut the lassoo, he had no choice, because, who knows, the dark colt would have taken him. It was a real cuero.'

This is the source of this post.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Curly-Haired Horses revisited

Back in 2019, I mentioned this type of horse (see post). I have found more information while updating my book for its 2nd edition, and decided to improve my original post.

One unusual trait found in American horses is curly hair. This is extremely odd, and it has only been reported in some isolated regions of Asia and the Americas, but not in Europe. This suggests that it wasn’t introduced into America by the Spanish horses.

Perhaps it originated here among the indigenous American horses?

Felix Manuel de Azara, in his The Natural History of the Quadrupeds of Paraguay and the River La Plata, described a curly-haired horse found in Paraguay, South America:

"I have seen many crisp-haired horses, called in Paraguay Pichaí; their hair is curly, like that of the Negros of Guinea and their hoof as narrow as that of Spanish mules, in which they differ from the common run of horses. I have seen them in various colors, but not piebald or white.

He used the native Guaraní word Pichaí, which means “curly.” Curly-haired horses are not very common, and Azara added that “as they are very ugly, attempts have been made to exterminate them by castration, and even by killing the mares,” so it isn’t surprising that there were not many reports of curly-haired horses in historic records.

Charles Darwin, who was interested in natural oddities, wrote in 1860, that they were only found in three places: Paraguay, mentioning Azara’s text, Russia (“A Russian breed of horses is said to have curled hair”), and the US (“Dr. Canfield informs me that a breed with curly hair was formed by selection at Los Angeles in North America.”).

The curly-haired horse from Russia (actually, from Tajikistan) is known as Lokai. The International Encyclopedia of Horse Breeds, by Bonnie L. Hendricks, mentions that: “This breed was developed by the Uzbek Lokai tribe in the sixteenth century.”

Regarding the Los Angeles variety, there is a printed reference to a “curly horse” in California in 1849. It was captured by Col. Fremont. The article states it had the “general appearance of the horse, with the shaggy hide of the buffalo, and a tail without hair.” The author discussed it with an experienced Mexican rancher from Zacatecas who confirmed that it was a very rare horse, “occasionally seen among the numerous herds of Mexico,”51 where they were known as “Caballos chinos, or curly-haired horses.”

Interestingly, the Mexican word “chino” doesn’t mean “Chinese” as in regular Spanish: it has a pre-Hispanic origin. It comes from a Native American Tewa word Tsini (in Spanish it is pronounced “chini”), these people lived in New Mexico. So, here is a Native American word used to refer to curly animals applied to a curly horse. A positive proof of its ancient indigenous roots.

The current American curly horse breed originated in Eureka, Nevada, when a rancher named John Damele captured a wild colt with curly hair in the early 1900s.

But these curly horses go back even further, to the days before the Europeans arrived in America. A statement by Claire Henderson published in 1991, tells that the Dakota/Lakota native people firmly believe that the aboriginal North American horse did not become extinct after the last Ice Age, and that it was part of their pre-contact culture:

"According to Elders, the aboriginal pony had the following characteristics: It was small, about 13 hands, it had a 'strait' back necessitating a different saddle from that used on European horses, wider nostrils, larger lungs so that its endurance was proverbial. One breed had a long mane, and shaggy (curly) hair, while another had a 'singed mane'."

Argentine Curly-haired Horses

The curly horse was rare but not unknown in the Pampas region of Argentina: It is mentioned by Ricardo Hogg in 1941, who wrote that “the curly haired horse, variety almost extinct nowadays.”

An interesting article published in May 2025 in National Geographic reports that an Argentine veterinarian, Gerardo Rodriguez noticed a stranged horse in the Somuncurá plateau, in Rio Negro province, Patagonia. It had curly hair. A gaucho (name for the Argentine cowboy) told him that these animals were far more "common before the droughts, volcanic eruptions and other factors wiped them out." He bought the horse and, with his wife Andrea Sede worked with this animal and over twenty years later they have built their herd of curly-haired horses, the only one in South America.

They took samples and had their DNA analyzed at the A&M University in Texas, US, which found that they were different from all other curly-haired horses. They have a unique mutation, that is not found anywhere else in the world.

Argentine Curly-haired horse. Credits

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

The "Lady of Elche" of Patagonia - New data 2025

Back in 2011 I posted about an unusual sculpture found in Patagonia (see post here) that included a photograph of a sculpture that was supposedly found in a Museum in Comodoro Rivadavia and, according to some online sources, is now lost. The sculpture is shown below:

"Lady of Elche" of Patagonia.

I found new information today (online here). It includes a transcription of a letter sent to the Museo Regional de Comodoro Rivadavia, which was formed with objects collected by Antonio Garcés, who had been a professor in the area. In the letter, the author inquires if they have the sculpture (pictured above) and if so, where did it come from.
The Museum's Director, Ms. Matilde Diez replied on August 14, 1999, as follows:

"... you are requesting information about a sculpture that was gifted to prof. Garcés by the Reverend Parrochial Priest, Presbyter José Luís Méndez, who was in Río Gallegos. I can tell you that this piece was found in the land of the "Alquintas" establishment.
You should know that it was here in the museum for some time, and the professor Garcés asked me to paint it, because I worked as a technical draftperson. I recognized my drawing immedietely, adn that is why I would like to know how you obtained it. As he found it very similar to the "Lady of Elche", prof. Garcés took it with all the drawings and the sulpture.
I would also like to knwo where the piece is, if it is in some museum or in the hands of some researcher, or his younger daughter may have it, Gloria Garcés, because I was in Buenos Aires in April, when I exhibited by paintings in the House of Chubut, but the brothers do not know her address. I send you a copy of my drawing in the original size, wth the exact size. I accompany the text on its back."

Ms. Diez (1927-2020) and Garcés(*) are both real, they existed, and the museum is still operating in Comodoro Rivadavia, Chubut. Father Méndez was a priest in Tierra del Fuego and in Río Gallegos in the 1940s. The "Alquintas" is actually a vast sheep ranch 85 km west (52 mi.) of Río Gallegos, see map, and whose real name is "Alquinta". It covers 50,000 ha and has 15,000 sheep (37,000 acres).

There was an ancient hotel in the tiny town of Tres Lagos (map), also in Santa Cruz, with the same name "Alquinta". Since Ms. Diez says "establecimiento" meaning "establishment", the word means the same in Spanish and English... we don't know if it was a ranch or a hotel!
The hotel opened in 1918, it is still standing, and was declared a Historic Provincial Site. It was owned and ran by Don Emilio Reyes Alquinta.

"Piedra Clavada" (nailed stone), Tres Lagos, Santa Cruz.

Tres Lagos is on the Sheuen or Chalia River, close to three lakes (hence its name): San Martín, Argentino, and Viedma. It is located on Argentina's Ruta 40 and was visited by the Spaniards in 1782, who marched west from the town of Floridablanca that they had established in San Julian (it only lasted from 1780 to 1784). Tres Lagos was founded with the hotel in 1918.

Antonio Viedma, explored the region in 1782 when he went west towards the Andes from Sanb Julián along the river and reported the "nailed" stone: "Day November 18
... at 6 in the evening, with our horses broken, we reached the shore of the same creek [Chalia] at a place the indians call quesanexes, where we camped... There is a lonely, sheer and tall rock here, like a tower, that is separated some 50 varas [40 m - 120 ft.] from the hill that it is part of. On its upper side this stone is thicker than on its foot, and has crumbled naturally due to the storms."
Local historian Mario Echeverría Baleta says that the Tehuelche natives used to meet here once a year to pray to their gods. The stone was painted, but the paint has wahsed away over the centuries. He calls it "Kesaneses" which means "where your implore".

Viedma discovered the lake that bears his name, he turned around and returned to Floridablanca. Lake San Martin and Lake Argentino were discovered one century later.

The sculpture is completrely different from the crude stone productions of the Patagonian natives. It looks European, the person depicted appears to be Caucasian. Who is this woman?

The most frequently depicted woman in Christendom in Catholic Europe is Mary, the mother of Jesus. Could the Lady of Elche of Patagonia be a remain from the church of Floridablanca? Were there stone statues of the Virgin Mary there?

We know there was a chapel in Floridablanca (source), it was located inside the fortified enclave, which protected the houses of the settlers, the chaplain's house, barracks, etc.

It could also have come from the church at the failed settlement of Rey Don Felipe (Port Famine) on the Strait of Magellan, close to modern Punta Arenas. All its residents perished due to hunger and exposure (1584-87). Read more.

In 1584, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa established chapels in Port Famine (known as Rey Don Felipe), the church of "La Candelaria" and "La Anunciación" in the town of Nombre de Jesús, both were located on the Strait.

The natives could have rescued the image of the Virgin Mary from one of these towns. In fact, we know that in the case of the Nahuel Huapi mission, close to Bariloche, the natives killed the missionaries, and burned the curch, but saved the effigy of Mary. Father Mascardi established a mission on Lake Nahuel Huapi in 1672, and he placed the image of the Virgin sent to him by the Viceroy of Perú, Lemos. She was named the "Lady of the Poyas and Puelches". When the natives burned the Mission down for good in 1717, they looted it, and only respected the virgin which they placed on the shore of the lake, removed its clothing, and covered it with horse hides. The image was rescued in 1718, taken back to Chiloé, and it can still be seen.

(*) Antonio Garcés, was born in Rosario, Argentina. He was a teacher in La Pampa, Rio Negro, Neuquén, Chubut, and Santa Cruz. An amateur archaeologist in 1932 he visited the Cueva de las Manos, and over a period of 30 years, gathered a vast collection that he donated (7,000 pieces) to the local museum that now bears his name.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Huillín, the Patagonian Otter

The Patagonian otter or huillín (Lontra provocax) is a large creature: 110 cm (3 ft. 7 in.), it can weigh up to 14 kg (31 lb.) and being a carnivore is more fearsome and bold.

I had the good fortune of spotting a small huillín in the Cajón del Azul on the Azul (blue) River, close to El Bolsón, Rio Negro province. It was probably 60 cm (2 ft) long and was capturing fish and swimming in a calm pool.

It is depicted in the Nahuel Huapi National Park's official shield (see image).

Otters in the wilc

They are an endangered species, having been pushed to the brink by environmental change caused by the introduction of trout and salmon from the Northern Hemisphere in the early 1900s, which wiped out the local fish (perch, silversides, catfish, puyen) that the otters fed on.

There are around 250 of them in the park and conservation efforts are underway to protect them. Below are some videos and views of them in the Park.

@econews.es 🐾 ¡Apareció un huillín en el Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi! 🔸 Esta nutria nativa está en peligro de extinción. Se estima que solo quedan unos 250 huillines en todo su hábitat natural. 🔸 En Nahuel Huapi vive la única población de agua dulce de Argentina. 📌 Por eso, el Parque lleva adelante un Proyecto de Conservación para estudiarlos y protegerlos. 📌 El huillín no solo habita estas aguas: es parte del alma del parque. 💬 Y vos, ¿qué pensás? 🎥 Parques Nacionales #huillín #animal #naturaleza ♬ original sound - EcoNews en Español

Otters

Otters can explain lake "monster" sightings.

Otters in the water. Copyright © 2025 by Austin Whittall

The image above shows otters cavorting in a line (bottom) can be mistaken for a “Plesiosaur” (top). Their shiny dark pelt, webbed feet, flippers, long neck, small head, and “many humps” are features shared with Nahuelito. When seeing at a distance a snake-like monster with many humps swimming with a winding motion, the most likely explanation is that it is not what it seems (giant aquatic reptile), but something more normal such as a group of Patagonian otters. Patagonian otters (Huillines) enjoy swimming in a playful manner, diving, and resurfacing, and when they swim in line, something they often do, they may look like an extinct plesiosaur (see image above).

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

An Elephant Seal in the Puelo River

The elephant seal, or sea elephant (Mirounga leonina), was once abundant in Chile but had been hunted to extinction by the early 1800s. Over the past century it has slowly recovered and returned to its original habitat.

Elephant Seal, notice its long snout

It is the largest member of the seal family, and, other than cetaceans, the largest marine mammal. Its long snout, which is 40 cm (16 in.) in length, could have seemed like a horn to Huilliche; its imposing size, up to 5 m (16.4 ft.), long, weight, 4,000 kg (8,800 lb.), and aggressive behavior in males also resemble the fierceness and enormity of the mythical Camahueto of the Mapuche and the Chiloé natives.

It can be found in a wide swath of the Southern Ocean, South Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, on the shores of Patagonia in Argentina and Chile, in Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland / Malvinas Islands, the South Georgia Islands, the Antarctic, southern Austwralia, Tasmania and the Kerguelen Islands.

One was spotted in the Puelo River

The following video from 2017, shows an elephand seal playing in the water of the Puelo River, in Chile. This river has its sources in Argentina's Lake Puelo, fed by the Epuyen River and the outflow from Lake Epuyén, site of the famous plesiousaur.

The river receives the inflow of the Manso River, and is a great spot to fish trout and salmon. The locals believe that the seal entered the river chasing fish.

2017 Elephant Seal in the Puelo River

This other video from 2022 shows another seal in the Puelo River.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Isla del Puelo 🏞️ (@isladelpuelo)

2022 Elephant Seal in the Puelo River

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Giant Sloths and their demise

A recent article published in Science (The emergence and demise of giant sloths), on May 22, 2025 looked into these uniquely American creatures that over a period of 30 million years occupied different ecological niches from grasslands, the Andes, and Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, and even one that was aquatic. They grew gigantic but now they are tiny and arboreal. Humans wiped them out when they reached the New World between 30 and 15 thousand years ago.

The article has some interesting data, and concludes that "size disparity increased during the late Cenozoic climatic cooling, but paleoclimatic changes do not explain the rapid extinction of ground sloths that started approximately 15,000 years ago. Their abrupt demise suggests human-driven factors in the decline and extinction of ground sloths."

The paper reported that giant-sized sloths (over 1 tonne in size) appeared independently three times: once among the Megatheroidea, and twice in the Mylodonoidea. The authors found that:

"The primary sloth extinction event began around 15,000 years ago, during the widespread expansion of Homo sapiens in the Americas between about 30,000 and 10,000 years ago. A second extinction event had occurred by the mid-Holocene, after humans arrived in the Caribbean islands, between 9000 and 5000 years ago). These two extinction events were substrate- and size-selective, preferentially targeting partially/fully terrestrial and medium/large-sized sloths
...
he selective extinction of large sloths led to a substantial reduction in the average body size and ecological disparity of the clade, reducing ecosystem complexity and functional richness. Small arboreal sloths likely survived on continents because they avoided extensive human impacts, such as predation, as they dwelt in denser, less-accessible habitats high in the canopy and have considerably reduced muscle mass for mammals of their size".

Size comparison sloths and human. Credits

The image above by Gabriel Ugueto depicts an extinct giant ground sloth (Eremotherium laurillardi) and an arboreal and extant one Bradypus variegatus (Three-toed Sloth), and a human being for size comparison. Look at those claws! Myths were surely creatied based on these giant animals.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Father Manuel Jesús Molina - Fuegian Monkey

Father Manuel Jesús Molina, whom we have mentioned in our post on the Fuegian Monkey or Yoshi, was a special character. He was born in Patagonia in Pichileufú, Río Negro in 1904. His father was of a Native American of Chono origin who had migrated from Chile to Argentina. Molina defined himself as a "waiteca" after the Guaiteca Islands in Chile.

When he was a child his family moved to Paso de Los Indios in Chubut. He became an orphan in 1912 and with his six brothers was sent to the Catholic home Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in Rawson, Chubut. He got the call and became a seminarian in 1923, working at the Salesian school in Fortín Mercedes where he worked at the local museum.

Manuel Jesús Molina (1904-1979). Source

He studied on his own biology, entomology and social sciences. He earned a doctorate in theology in Turin, Italy, in 1932. He later taught Biology and Natural Sciences at the San Juan Bosco college of the Universidad de la Patagonia and had a Honoris Causa doctrorate in anthropology.

Starting in the mid 1940s, he was a priest in Santa Cruz, in Puerto Deseado, Río Gallegos, and Río Turbio. He was a teacher in Comodoro Rivadavia, Rawson, and Río Gallegos. During the 1950s and 60s he collected artifacts, and interviewed native people recording their myths and language.

Contemporary English travel writer Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989) surely met Molina when he visited Patagonia, and in his book In Patagonia (1977), he created a fictional character after Molina, named Father Palacios.

He died in 1979.

Below is a plate in his book Patagónica published in Rome, Italy in 1976.

The Yosi in Rock Art

Representations of the Fuegian Monkey, Fuegopithecus paakensis. 1. The monkey depicted in the Cueva del Gualichu, Lake Argentino. 2. Rio Pinturas. Online Source

Molina wrote about these images in an article about the Yosi, published in Karukinka No. 1, 1972 (cited online: part 1, part 2):

"On a wall at Punta Gualichu of Lake Argentino, there are some paintings of humanoids, in a mauve faded color that could represent these fuegopithec. They are images completely different from the others of human hunters that can be seen in the different hunting scenes in the upper Pinturas River, or the dance scenes at Charcamac Gully.
In one of them it is sitting on its legs, as you could see the yóshil when it approached a fire to get warm, as seen by Pa:ka's grandmother: with its arms open as if making signs with one hand. In the others it can be seen in the clumsy position it adopted when it walked. That is how it was seen by the hunter who shot an arrow at it. What cannot be seen in these figures is the weapon that the Fuegian monkey used to attack or defend itself."

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©