The Hooded Grebe - Maca Tobiano

 
Some people suggest that there are no cryptids or mysterious animals out there because they say that they should have been discovered a long time ago. After all, Europeans have been roaming around Patagonia and its coast since 1520. Aren't 490 years enough time to discover a strange species?

Well, as we all know, species unknown to science crop up quite often (though not as fast as those that are known and become extinct through our actions -or rather our lack of actions!).

Among these "recently discovered" species is one endemic to Patagonia, that is, found only in Patagonia, and more specifically, in certain small habitats within Patagonia.

I am talking about the Macá Tobiano or Hoded Grebe (Podiceps gallardoi), a tiny aquatic bird found only in the windswept lakes of Southern Patagonia's basaltic highlands.[1][2]

It was discovered and described barely 36 years ago, in 1974, by Mauricio Rumboll (a well known naturalist and ornithologist, son of Hilda and Bill Rumboll who, in 1976 reported sighting Nahuelito the Nahuel Huapi lake creature. at Bariloche, Patagonia - isn't it a small world?).

This bird, so recently discovered is at risk of becoming extinct. Its numbers are dropping quickly (its population has fallen by nearly a 73% over the last 21 years) and no one knows why. Birdlife International has ranked it as Endangered, [3] and also on the IUCN red list as Endangered. [4] A real tragedy!

It seems that human action may be causing this dramatic drop in its population (garbage may be increasing the population of predator gulls that attack the Macá and its young). Furthermore, the introduction of exotic fish (trout and salmon) into the lakes that the Macá uses to mate and build its floating nests seems to have had a negative impact on them. Though the exact reason is not yet understood.

I love fishing in Patagonian lakes, but, I do realize that these rainbow, brown, brook and lake trout (plus the Pacific salmon on the Pacific watershed and some sea-run brown trout on the Atlantic basin) are a serious problem (see my posts on this issue and their negative impact for other species such as the naked minnow).

Sources

[1] Imberti, S. & Casañas, H.. 2009. Hooded Grebe (Podiceps gallardoi), Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; retrieved from Neotropical Birds Online: http://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/portal/species/overview?p_p_spp=91111.
[2] SIB. Sistema de Información de Biodiversidad Podiceps gallardoi
[3] Birdlife. Hooded Grebe.
[4] The IUCN Red list of thratened species. Podiceps gallardoi

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall © 

Big Birds - Surviving Terror Birds

 

Red Legged Seriema. From [1]

The closest living relatives of the Terror Birds are the (much smaller) seriemas, which live in the southernmost regions of South America.

The seriemas are the only surviving members of the ancient family Cariamidae which dates back to nearly 63 million years, and which comprised the Terror Birds.

They can be found in northern and central Argentina, though not in Patagonia.

There are only two species, the Red Legged Seriema (Cariama cristata) and the Black Legged Seriema (Chunga burmeisteri). Both measure about 75 to 90 cm tall (30 to 35 inches. Omnivorous, they also eat snakes, frogs, small mammals and insects.

The Black Legged Seriema runs quickly (60 km/h - 37 mph) and only flies if forced to, and then, only for a short distance.

Their monstrous relatives

Imagine their prehistoric relatives, monsters that weighed up to 40 kg (88 lb.) and were about 1,40 m tall (5 ft.), who eat large sized mammals competing with the Sabre tooth cat!.

A recent paper [1] indicates that one of these terror birds, the Andalgalornis steulletiits "bite's strength" was smaller than expected and that it must have it "applied multiple well-targeted strikes in a repetitive attack-and-retreat strategy" or restrained its prey -though it lacked claws. Its big but hollow beak could not withstand lateral shaking so the bird pecked with repeated boxer-like blows at its victim (see an image here).

Sources

[1] Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled
[2] Degrange FJ, Tambussi CP, Moreno K, Witmer LM, Wroe S, (2010). Mechanical Analysis of Feeding Behavior in the Extinct “Terror Bird” Andalgalornis steulleti (Gruiformes: Phorusrhacidae). PLoS ONE 5(8): e11856. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011856

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall © 

Terror Birds - some images

 

Some images to illustrate our previous post on "Big birds".

Size comparison of some of the better known large, flightless, extinct predatory birds. Kelenken, Phorusrhacos, Titanis and Gastornis.. Author Shepherdfan. From [1]

Kelenken. The giant bird could snap up dog-sized mammals. From [2]

Drawing of Phorusrhacos, a giant prehistoric bird by Charles R. Knight published in Animals of the Past (1901). From [3]

Bibliography.

[1] Wikimedia.
[2] Telegraph. Hang on to your dog: meet the vicious 10ft terror bird. 26.10.2006.
[3] Wikipedia.




Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

Flying creatures - Strange birds. Part 3.

 

Flightless “Big birds”

Besides giant condors, there was also another kind of monster bird in Patagonia, the predator flightless one.

Alicanto

The Mapuche believe in “Alicanto”, a big bird with a curved beak and long legs ending in big claws. It is nocturnal creature with a strange diet: it eats gold and silver ore; these somehow shine through its body, giving off an eerie golden light. It can’t fly, it runs. If followed by miners seeking a new strike, it may turn on them and kill them.[1]

Folklorist Bertha Koessler-Ilg, when describing the evil beings that the Mapuche believed that lived in the forests, mentioned that at one time “even the big birds dared to attack the small people of the valleys: they wounded them to devour them later, they kidnapped their children”.[2]

This implies carnivorous birds much larger than humans.

Kelenken

A similar though independent myth is found among the Aonikenk, where “Kelenken” the twin brother of “Maip”, the evil spirit of the cold, was a gigantic black bird of prey.[3]

Once again, both legends point towards an enormous raptor that could maim adults and carry away their children.

Father Alonso de Ovalle’s map Tabula geográfica Regini Chile dated 1646 not only showed a tailed Fuegian Coludo, it also depicted, in the correct scale, guanaco, llama, deer, ñandú and also, a strange man-sized bird of prey. This bipedal animal is drawn standing on the steppe and looks very much like a now extinct Patagonian killer bird.[4]

Gigantic bird of Prey. Detail of Ovalle’s map (1646). Notice the relative sizes of the ñandú (top), llama (bottom) and “big bird” (center). From: [4].

Male ñandú

The Aonikenk believed in a “Male ñandú”, that was an evil creature controlled by a witch, Kéenguenkon (the moon-woman), who sent it to attack and kill men.[5]

Terror birds

Patagonia was home to a now extinct group of carnivorous flightless birds. These predatory creatures dominated South America while it was an island continent from 65 Ma. to roughly 2 Ma. when the terror birds died out around the time that North and South America merged at the Isthmus of Panama. Pressure from the invading placental mammals let to their demise.

These birds didn't fly because they didn't have to. Instead, they put their biological resources into growing bigger and faster than anything else on the continent. They were warm-blooded energetic beings. The largest of these monsters was the “Terror Bird”, a phorusrhacid that was nearly 3 meters (10 ft.) tall and weighed about 500 kg (1,100 lb.). Its discoverers named it Kelenken guillermoi, after the Tehuelche’s fearsome killer bird.[6]

The question is why did the Tehuelche have a myth involving a “Terror bird”? and why did de Ovalle depict one in his map?

They seem to have been a very persistent myth because in the early 1900s, professor F. B. Loomis noted that the local Patagonian gauchos (cowboys) “sometimes talk of great wingless birds”, he attributed it to their alcohol induced fantasies.[7] But, how could these mostly illiterate men have learnt about a killer flightless bird if not from personal experience? Were terror birds still roaming the steppe barely one hundred years ago?

Part 1 of Strange Birds is Here.
Part 2 of Strange Birds is Here.

Bibliography.

[1] Vicuña Cifuentes, J., (1915). Op. cit. pp. 1.
[2] Koessler-Ilg. B., (2000). Op. Cit. pp. 81.
[3] Baleta, M., (1977). Joiuen Tsoneka (Leyendas Tehuelches). Río Gallegos: Talleres Gráficos Noguera.
[4] de Ovalle, A. Op. Cit. Tabula geográfica Regini Chile. pp. 521.
[5] Colombres, A., (2008). Op. Cit. pp. 40
[6] Bertelli, S., et al., (2007). A new phorusrhacid (Aves: Cariamae) from the Middle Miocene of Patagonia, Argentina. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 27, 409-419. pp. 410.
[7] The New York Times, (1922). Seeing things in Patagonia. New York. US 11.03.1922.





Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

Flying Creatures - Strange birds. Part 2.

 

Patagonian Pterosaurs.

Another fantastic flying creature was reported at Lake Nahuel Huapi which may also belong to the same group, despite being classified as a pterosaur (Yes, the purported home of a “plesiosaur” -Nahuelito- is also said to be home to an extinct flying reptile).

The Lost World . From [7]

According to German investigator Ulrich Dunkel, two hunters named Shirdos and Milacsek in the late XIX^th century shot a flying reptile at Nahuel Huapi. It had leathery skin and looked like a pelican. The animal was retrieved and sent to a Museum at Santiago, Chile, but somehow got lost.

Dunkel believed it to be a Pterosaurus though German zoologist Hans Krieg who read the report classified the animal as a Flying Steamer Duck (Tachyeres patachonicus), which is found all over Patagonia –this bird is quite unlike a pelican,[1][2][3] nor is it like a flying reptile –it has feathers. Furthermore all pterosaurs became extinct with the dinosaurs, 65 Ma.

The story may be apocryphal as we have not found any other reference to these two hunters in any published work.

Fürüfühué

There is however a myth which explains the bitter Patagonian winds as being created by an enormous and mysterious creature resembling a cross between an eagle and a fish. This bird is the size of a Mapuche hut and its body is covered with shiny scales instead of feathers, it is known as the Fürüfühué.[4][5] Scales are a definitively reptilian feature, which it also shares with the Copiapó “bird”. Fürüfühué is seldom seen, but its song is heard at a great distance “even in the whole world”.[6]

Part 1 of Strange Birds is Here.
Part 3 of Srtange Birds is Here.

Bibliography.

[1] Dunkel, U., (1961). Abenteuer mit Seeschlangen. Stuttgart: Kreuz-Verlag.
[2] Krieg, H., (1940). Als Zoologe in Steppen und Waldern Patagoniens. Munich: J.F. Lehmann.
[3] Eberhart, G., (2002). Op. Cit. pp. 365.
[4] Noticias de Antropología y Arqueología, (2002). El Diccionario de Mitos y Leyendas.
[5] Batic, L. Op. Cit. pp 54.
[6] Alvarez, G., (1969). Op. Cit. pp 303.
[7] Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Lost World. Illustrations from the Strand Magazine installments of The Lost World, 1912.


Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

Flying creatures - Strange birds. Part 1

 

Condors, griffins and big birds

The Condor

Patagonia is home to the World´s largest flying bird, the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus). They can reach a height of 1,3 meters (4.2 ft.) and have a wing-span of 3,3 m (10.8 ft.), weighing up to 12 kg ( 26.5 lb.).

They soar for hours in the ascending hot air currents of the Andes searching for prey (or carrion, because they also eat dead animals like all vultures). At one time their range extended to the Patagonian Atlantic coast but they were hunted to extinction. Now they are being reintroduced there.

It was believed that they gathered in groups to attack and kill calves and lambs, and that an adult condor could carry off tiny guanacos,[1] and children. Even the Tehuelche had a myth in which their demigod hero Elal punished the condor for abducting children; he plucked all the feathers from its head giving it its current bald appearance.[1]

We know that condors could never carry off a child or a calf, but the belief must be based on reality; perhaps another larger bird, now extinct.

Calquín

The other “big” Patagonian bird is the aguila mora, which the natives called calquín. This Black Chested Buzzard-Eagle (Geranoaetus melanoleucus) has a wingspan of 2 meters (6.6 ft.) and was said to be able to speak with God (what did they talk about?).[1]

Argentavis the biggest flying bird ever

Though huge, both birds are midgets in comparison to the world’s largest known flying bird, which lived in Patagonia about 6 Ma. the Argentavis magnificens and belonged to a family of birds known as Teratornithidae (Greek for "monster bird").

This vicious predator named after Argentina (hence the ‘Argent’ part of its name) weighed some 70 kg (155 lb.) and had a wingspan of over 7 m (23 ft.). Like condors it lived in the mountains where it could find strong winds and thermals to keep it aloft.[2]

It lacked the claws of modern predator birds but its beak and massive head 55 cm (1.8 ft.) long clearly indicate that it was a predator and not a carrion eater.

Condors do not descend from Argentavis but from another line of North American Teratorns that later spread into South America. These gigantic Teratornid ancestors of the condor became extinct some 10,000 years ago together with the megafauna at the end of the last Ice Age.

But did any of them somehow manage to survive? Did they all die out or do they still soar the skies in hidden locations? Did they originate the myth of abducting birds?

Griffin

Outside of Patagonia, in the XV^th century, there were reports of a gigantic “condor-griffin” (the latter is a fantastic creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle). Cieza de León, a Spanish conquistador and chronicler noted that in Perú (in the 1540s) there were “some very big condors that almost look like griffins; some attack lambs and small guanaco in the fields”.[3]

I posted on a map drawn in 1546 that depicts some griffins Here.

Copiapó "pterosaur"

Further south, in central Chile, at Copiapó, which is 1.000 km (622 mi.) north of Patagonia, a very strange sighting happened in 1868, when some miners saw something odd in the sky:

a gigantic bird […] we could mark the strange shape of its body. Its immense wings were clothed with a grayish plumage, the monster’s head was like that of a locust with wide open eyes like burning coals, it seemed covered with something resembling thick and stout bristles, like a hog’s, while on its body, elongated like that of a serpent, we could only see brilliant scales which clashed together with metallic sound as the strange animal turned its body in its flight. [4][5]

Setting aside the embellishments (locust head, ember eyes) they seem to have seen a very unusual gigantic bird which perhaps extended its habitat south into Patagonia, where there have also been some “big bird” sightings.

Lake Foitzick - big birds

At Lake Foitzick (our post on its lake creatures is Here) in Aisén (home to a lake bull) there is a mythical bird known as “Chimayén or wizard bird, a large bird with the shape of a condor that cries like a child”.[6] Close by, at the Coihaique mountain range, in 2009, Juan Moran wrote that “they say there are some black birds whose extended wings are 6 meters [19.6 ft. long] […] their eating habits are the same as those of condors and their life is more nocturnal than diurnal”.[7]

These are very strange birds, because they do not fly in the dark as they can’t see. Bats are night creatures.

Could the Copiapó bird, Chimayén and the black birds at Coihaique be the same creature, a relict Teratornid?

Tierra del Fuego - big birds

In 2000, at Providencia, Tierra del Fuego, after many sheep appeared mauled a dock hand named Luis Gutiérrez Galli said that “I saw a bird fly over us, the size of a human being and with big wings”.[8] Apparently, he believed that this bird was involved in the killings.

Magellan going through the Straits.
Notice the Roc carrying an elephant on the upper right corner and the fires burning on Tierra del Fuego (right) (Fire Land) and Patagon swallowing an arrow (left). From [9]

Also at Tierra del Fuego, a XVII^th century engraving by Theodore de Bry shows Magellan sailing through the straits, and behind him, high in the air flying out of the island, an enormous bird is seen gripping an elephant with its sharp talons.[9] The elephant is definitively a fancy of de Bry, but perhaps the big bird reflects some now unrecorded testimony of a crew member.

Part 2 of Strange birds is Here.
Part 3 of Strange birds is Here.

Bibliography.

[1] Soldano, A., (2006). Leyendas Nativas Argentinas de La Patagonia: Recopilaciones. B. Aires: Ed. Dunken.
[2] Chatterjee S., Templin R., Campbell K., Jr., (2007). The aerodynamics of Argentavis, the world's largest flying bird from the Miocene of Argentina. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104:12398–12403.
[3] Cieza de León, P. Ballesteros, M., [Ed.], (2000). La crónica del Perú (1553). Madrid: Dastin S. L. pp. 367-368.
[4] The Zoologist, (1868). A Strange Bird. London, Serie 2, v.iii: xxvi. July 1868. pp. 1295.
[5] El Constituyente, (1868). Este Es Cuento. Copiapó, Chile. 18.03.1868, Nº 1853, Año VII, pp. 2 -3.
[6] Mansilla Contreras, J., (2008). Op. Cit.
[7] Grothe, S., (2009). A nuestros lectores. Bestiario de lo cotidiano y extraordinario. Online.
[8] Nuñez, O., L., (2000). Ovnis enigmas chupacabras. La Prensa Austral. Punta Arenas, Chile. 10.06.2000.
[9] De Bry, T., (1613). America. Part IV. Plate XV. Frankfurt [Engraving]. Library of Congress, the Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake.




Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters