Llumu the Patagonian River Pig

While writing for my website on Argentina's National Highway No. 40 (Ruta 40), about the things to visit and do close to the town of Las Lajas in the northern part of Patagonia, in the province of Neuquén, I came across a very odd river name, which did not sound like a Spanish word or a local native Mapuche word either, actually it is the same word repeated: "yumu yumu". The map below shows the location (the river coming in from the left).

 

It is the name of a stream, which flows in a West to East direction, down from the Andes, towards the Atlantic, down the slopes of a hill named Butahuao (2,578 m - 8,452 ft.). By the way, Butahuao is the combination of two Mapuche words: "Buta" = Big and "huao" = gully.

The river crosses Neuquén provincial highway No. 21, at Campana Mahuida (place name that combines a Spanish word Campana = bell and Mahuida, Mapuche word = hill), 54 kilometers (33 miles) northwests of Las Lajas (Spanish words: The Shale in plural).

The place name repeats a Mapuche word according to Anthropologist and Historian Rodolfo Casamiquela [1]. He cites one of the few inhabitants of the region, Manuel Quinchao (note his Mapuche surname), from Chenque Cura, near Las Lajas. Mr. Quinchao said that it is the word is actually "llamü", the name of an animal, "a creature similar to a hog" [1].

There is another version which is also mentioned by Casamiquela, and he quotes Harrington-Benigar and Groeber, in which the llamü is not a pig but a crab, a freshwater crab.

I have seen these endemic crabs in the Patagonian lakes (see the photograph below where I am holding one in my hand and a close up shot on a stone):

Patagonian freshwater lake crab (Lake Nahuel Huapi). Copyright © 2014 by Austin Whittall

In case you are not too familiar with Spanish and Argentine Spanish in particular, the double "L" or "LL" is pronounced all over the Spanish speaking world -except Argentina- as the English "Y" in "Yes" (so "llumü" would sound like "You-moo" in English).

However, the Argentine Spanish pronounciation has a different sound for the double "L". It sounds like the "Sh" in "Show", and in fact it sounds identical to the Spanish pronounciation of the letter "Y".

By the way, the double "L" is not ever pronounced in the way that the double "L" in "million" is pronounced in English. So a "Llama" is not a "lama" but a "Shama" (Argentina) or a "Yama" (rest of Spanish speaking countries).

Argentines pronounce "LL" and "Y" with the same sound, the rest of Spanish speakers have two distinct sounds for those phonemes. That is why "llamü" became "yumu", (an Argentine pronounces both words in the same way: "Shoe-moo"). And this is the reason why a word written with a double "L" changed to a "Y".

In case you wonder why Argentines pronounce the language differently (Uruguayans do to), it is due to the enormous influx of Italian migrants to both countries in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Half the Argentine population has Italian blood in their veins. So the Italian accent mixed with the Spanish one, softening it. (you can hear it in this Video spoken in "Argentino" or Argentine Spanish).

But getting back to our pig or is it a crab? Which is the correct interpretation? To name a stream after the crabs that live in it sounds quite reasonble. So does naming a river after pigs. But the point is that pigs were not native animals. They were brought to America by the Spaniards. The Mapuche word for pig, hog is "Sanchu" (san-chew) which is the phonetic rendering of the Spanish word for pig: "Chancho" (chan-chou). This is logical, they adopted the Spanish word for pig.

Yes, there was a wild pig, native to America which is now extinct in Patagonia, but was known to the Mapuche: the Pecari tajacu or Collared Peccary (pictured below), which had different Mapuche names: sohue, sürse, sañhue, sanue, chanue, sane, saino. Distinct from the "Sanchu" name given to Eurasian pigs.

So what was the yumu, a pig or some other creature?

I have my doubts, I have come across the following explanations, all duly backed by bibliography:

• "Llamü are little frogs of different sizes that lived in the rushes" [2]
• Cuchi is another name for pig, and is used in Cuchivilu, or cuchi = pig, vilu = snake, the Snake-hog creature of Patagonian lakes.
• Llamü according to a nineteenth century dictionary means "blind" [3]
• Yumu derives from the Mapuche word "yumid", to shine, bright, glistening, shiny. [4] Which would be appropriate for a brook.

The question will remain open for now.

Sources

[1] Casamiquela, R., (2003). Toponimia indígena de la Provincia del Neuquén pp. 57
[2] Martin Alonqueo, (1985). Mapuche: ayer-hoy, Editorial San Francisco, pp. 135
[3] Andrés Febrés, Antonio Hernández, (1846), Diccionario hispano chileno
[4] Hasler Juan A. Topónimos Mapuches. AUCh, °5 serie N°

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2014 by Austin Whittall © 

Lake Epuyen a Lake Creature sighting

 
A few days ago I came across a comment posted on a blog entry about Nahuelito. The person who wrote it, is named Rocío (evidently a woman), who interestingly was initially skeptical but, is now a "believer" in Lake creatures.

See for yourself (I am quoting her comment from the above mentioned blog):

"Rocio said:
March 7, 2011 at 2:56 pm
I was born in Bariloche and I have spent nearly all my life in this beautiful place and have been lucky enough to navigate the Nahuel Huapi quite often.
I have never seen anything resembling the Cuero or Nahuelito. Furthermore I believe that there is an explanation for everything. That we ignore it is another matter.
But, I want to tell you that last weekend (Saturday 05-March-11) I saw something super incredible at Lake Epuyen (Chubut). It was very calm, not even one single wave, a lovely day. My friend and I felt as if somebody dived into the water on the coast opposite to us, then we both looked and saw two long [animal] backs, which could be seen on the surface and then submerged, creating waves that reached us.
Looking for an explanation, I wondered if they were not two scuba divers, but I dismissed the idea due to the large size they had. Now I do believe that there may be an unknown animal living in the Lake District."

Lake Epuyen is quite close to the lake where the famous Plesiosaur was said to have been sighted and which led to an expedition to hunt it back in 1922.

I posted on the Plesiosaur and included a map of lake Epuyen.

Comments:

So what did Rocío see? Huemul live on the northern part of the lake. There is a Provincial Natural Reserve just there, to protect them. Huemul (an endangered native Patagonian deer) like to swim in the lakes (more on Swimming Huemul. A calm day is the best one to notice waves and the lack of wind can carry sound better so a deer jumping into the lake would have been heard across the lake. Once in the water, the animal's backs would be seen.

I can't explain the "submerged" part of her comment. The animals dived under water! and did not surface again.

Maybe the creature is not a Huemul. Perhaps it is an otter? But Rocío said they were big. Otters (huillín) are not so big. Less than 3 feet long.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2011 International Year of Forests Copyright 2009-2011 by Austin Whittall © 

My big "fish" at Millaqueo Bay

 

Western Nahuel Huapi, Millaqueo Bay from Mount Campanario . Copyright © 2011 by Austin Whittall

This morning I was looking at the photographs taken during our recent trip to Bariloche, when we went up the chairlift to the summit of Mount Campanario, a solitary cone shaped mountain that lies on the southern shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi which is 1,030 m (3,377 ft.) high.

From the mountain top (which has a nice cozy restaurant where you can enjoy a hot chocolate laced with cognac!), the view is impressive. To the East, the city of Bariloche, 20 km away and beyond it, the Patagonian steppe and the eastern tip of Lake Nahuel Huapi.

To the North, the lake itself, majestic, with the forest covered hills that enclose it. Snow on the mountain tops as it is mid Spring. Far to the North, the peaks of the Andes that mark the border between Argentina and Chile. To the West, more mountains and a view of the Tristeza and Blest Arms of the lake. And, Behind us, to the South, Lake Moreno and the tall mountains (López, Capilla, Goye, Catedral -with its ski resort), and to the South East, the Otto and Ventana Mountains.

The forest, the deep blue lakes, the snow and clouds. A great scenery!
Anyway, one of the photos that we took, showed Millaqueo Bay. Behind it is Mount Millaqueo (1,800 m - 5,900 ft.) on the left, and Mount Vinagre (1,870 m - 6,131 ft.) and Colorado (1,900 m - 6,229 ft.) (center and right).

A large stream flows into the Bay's northern shore, Millaqueo Creek, this part of the bay is relatively flat and has a nice sandy beach. Its western shore is steep and forested.

Map of Millaqueo Bay. Based on Google EArth maps

The "big fish" incident

I was fishing here with my father in the early 1970s, I think it was 1975. We used to bring our boat all the way from Buenos Aires to fish for trout, trolling the lake if the weather allowed us to.

It was a 4.5 m (14.75 ft.) fiberglass speedboat equipped with a 90 HP Chrysler outboard motor. We used to troll for hours, leaving home early in the morning, at sunrise and getting back by midday.

On this particular day we decided to fish along the lake's western coast in the area by Millaqueo. We had equipped our lines (we used two canes, on on each side of the boat) with a flatfish lure. We added a small lead-sheet weight wrapped round the tip of the line to sink the lure even deeper (without the weight the lures sank to a depth of about 1 m - 3 ft., with the lures weighed down, they sank to about 3 m - 9 ft.).

With this method we had caught some big (5 kg - 11 lbs.) brown trout! Which we smoked and ate the following winter.

This morning, we began trolling at the mouth of the lake's Blest Arm, parallel to the coast, about 50 yards from it, going north. When we reached the mouth of Millaqueo Stream, I got a tug on my line. (the map shows our course, in red).

The usual sign of a bite was that the line began to run out from the spool. We had adjusted the fishing-reel's brake to allow the line to be drawn out if a fish took the lure. My Dad stopped the engine and I started to reel the line in. The brake was skidding even though the boat had stopped dead. This "fish" was pulling the line out faster than I could reel it in!

I tightened the brake a little (a delicate balance the tightness issue, I had lost some fish because the line cut due to an over-tight brake) to slow the "fish" down and kept on reeling in as fast as I could. But the line kept on running from the spool until it came to an end, tensed, became more and more taught, and cut!
We used a 0.4 mm mono-filament nylon line, which could withstand fish weighing up to 11 kg (24 lb.) so we were quite surprised at what had happened.

We had fished in the Patagonian lakes for many years, caught dozens of trout of all kinds and sizes (many were returned unharmed to the water). But not once did we lose a fish because it took the whole line and then cut it! We had big reels with over 150 m (491 ft.) of nylon line in them.

What bit my lure and drew all the line is a mystery. It must have been a very big fish. Which, by the way did not jump out of the water, not even once. Rainbow trout, once they bit the lure, jumped out of the water. But this trout stayed submerged.

We often wondered what "fish" it could have been. I don't know. It was not an underwater snag as the lake is deep there, and a rock or tree would not have taken the line from my reel.

Who knows! I only hope that it wasn't a Patagonian otter (huillín), though we never saw one of them in the lake.

2011 and the "big fish"

The reason I wrote about the big fish 36 years later, is because, if you take a good look at the photo above, in the central part of the image, close to the northwestern shore, by the mouth of Millaqueo Stream, you will see an odd thing on the lake's surface. Below is the zoomed image:

Detail showing "circular ripple" at Millaqueo Bay. Copyright © Austin Whittall 2011

The lake is perfectly calm except for this circular shaped ripple, which is quite big considering how far away it is from my observation point!.

Perhaps the "big fish" is still alive and kicking!

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2011 International Year of Forests Copyright 2009-2011 by Austin Whittall © 

Nahuelito bubbles and gas - Part 2

 
In yesterday's post I wrote about the possibility that Nahuelito (Lake Nahuel Huapi's cryptid) was actually an eruption of natural gas bubbles on the lake's surface.

I was brushing up on this subject and rereading some old sightings and I have become more and more convinced that this is an excellent explanation. Please let me share my research with you:

Peculiar sightings

The following are only three sightings that mention bubbles and foam together with Nahuelito, I quote them below and highlight the relevant parts:

• Date: 30.01.1988. “this alleged animal has a dark back and around it, it lets off a strange boiling of about 10 or 15 meters (30 - 45 ft.) diameter”. [1]
• Date: 04.01.1998. Graciela Carello and Rubén Ehara saw at Ragintuco Creek, at the mouth of Huemul Fjord, while fishing: “that the water is sucked in, as if announcing that something will surge. Then, all the surface filled up with a white foam and the back [of an animal] began to surface, of a dark brown color”.[2]
• Date: 29.04.2008. “a man saw something like two 'bus roofs' or two rectangular submarines that emerged producing an important quantity of bubbles […] Both shone intensely under the sunlight”.[3]

This last sighting is shown in the following photograph:

Nahuelito photograph. 29.04.2008. From: [3]

Common elements in each sighting: bubbles and foam.

Explaining the phenomena in a clear and detailed manner

Gas venting from the bed of Lake Nahuel Huapi. Copyright © 2010 by Austin Whittall

Along the fault (A), oozes oil and natural gas (mostly methane) and are captured in a "fault trap" which accumulates the gas (B) and the oil(C).

The overlying water's pressure does not let the oil or gas escape. As the lake is over 450 m deep (1,475 ft), the column of water applies a pressure of 45 atm. (approx. 45 bar) to the gas. To escape it must overcome this pressure.

The gas builds up until its pressure is greater than 45 bar, and escapes.

It is possible that methane hydrates may form [7] (the frozen water molecules form a lattice that traps the methane within it). This can happen under certain conditions of high pressure and low temperature which can be found on Nahuel Huapi's bed. Hydrates are even found in some deep lakes such as Baikal in Siberia and perhaps Lake Superior in the U.S.

The gas, upon reaching the adequate pressure, suddenly escapes through the rocsk of the lake's bed(i) as a large bubble (d) dragging small ammounts of oil (E), towards the surface (F) where it surges generating froth, foam and bubbles (G) and a spill of dispersed hydrocarbons (H). These oil residues could account for the dark "animal backs" seen in the foam as mentioned by Carrello and Ehara.

The incicent could create a wake as the foam is dragged away by the waves it produces, as can be seen in the next photograph, taken from a video [8]:

Photograph of Nahuelito at Campanario Fjord. From: [8]

Modelos that have simulated this phenomenon with the use of computers [4] indicate that the bubble does not have to be a spherical ball. It can have the shape of a lens, with a flat bottom face while its upper surface is dome shaped. When it reaches the surface it deforms it into a convex shape and bursts shooting a jet of high speed water that falls inwards, towards the hollow bubble, this could sink and drag under any boat that sailed over it.[4]

Comments and discussion

It is interesting that the dome was mentioned in the first sighting of Nahuelito around 1910, but it was only made public in 1922, coincidentally with the plesiosaur expedition.

The article was published in the Toronto Globe, Canada, April 6, 1922 under the headline “Local man lays claim to having caught sight of gigantic plesiosaur”. The man, named George Garret, said that about 1910 as a manager of company on Lake Nahuel Huapi while sailing in “an inlet called Pass Coytrue” (Paso Coihue on the Huemul Fjord), he saw:

an object which appeared to be 15 or 20 feet [4.5 or 6 m] in diameter, and perhaps six feet above the water [1.8 m]. After a few minutes, the monster disappeared. […] .[5]

It was a circular object that protruded above the water like a dome.

These enormous bubbles can also produce bizarre sounds which have been heard in different parts around the world from Holland, Canada, Italy to Bangladesh, and they are known as mistpouffers.

The gas could also escape forming a large amount of small bubbles instead of one large one. This can be seen in the following image:

"Ebullition" on the surface of a lake due to methane degassing. From: [6]

This is gas escaping at a lake in Alaska, but it is not methane from an oil field but degassing from methane hydrates.[6] The lake is shallow (roughly 2m - 6.5 ft.) so no great volumes of gas can accumulate there.

This smaller bubbles outburst could also sink ships because the water with methane bubbles would have a lower density than usual (1 g/cm³). Even a person with a life jacket would sink like a stone is this less denser water.

Bibliography.

[1] Anónimo, Volvió a aparecer el monstruo del lago Nahuel Huapi: muchos testigos. Clarín, Buenos Aires. 02.02. 1988.
[2] Diario Hoy, (1998). Volvió a aparecer “Nahuelito” en Bariloche. La Plata, Argentina. 11.01.1998
[3] Bariloche 2000 Diario Digital, (2008). Uno ya era bastante. Bariloche, Argentina. 30.04.2008. http://www.bariloche2000.com/archivo/la-ciudad/30100.html
[4] Anna Salleh (2003). Giant bubbles could sink ships, say maths experts. ABC Science. 24.10.2003
[5] Coleman, L. y Huyghe, P., (2003). The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam. pp.120+
[6] Carolyn Ruppel, John Pohlman, and Charles Worley, (2009). Studying the Link Between Arctic Methane Seeps and Degassing Methane Hydrates U.S.G.S., Sound Waves. Oct. 2009.
[7] Departrment of Energy. Necessary Conditions for Methane Hydrate Formation
[8] Signato F. Nahuelito, Bariloche, Buenos Muchachos, Año 93.

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Lea este post en español

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Lake Tar monsters

 
This weekend I read an interesting article [1] on an aquatic monster at Lake Tar, which I had not heard about before and which may throw some light on an incident reported by Clemente Onelli during his 1922 Plesiosaur expedition. Lets take a look at this "sighting":

Lake Tar

This lake (49° 15' S; 72° 0' W) is located on the Patagonian steppe, in the Argentine province of Santa Cruz. It drains west into Lake San Martin and from there into the Pacific Ocean. It is set at 218 m above sea level (714 ft. ) and it has a surface area of 53 km² (20 sq.mi.). Its name, in the native Tehuelche language, means "dirty" due to the murky color of its waters. [2]

The article, from which I will quote extensively as I have not been able to find the original publication.

Argentine historian Manuel Llarás Samitier wrote this story in the now defunct magazine "Argentina Austral" about 50 years ago [*]:

A mysterious halo floated over the region of Lake Tar since before the days of the colonization of the wide mountainous region formed by the Santa Cruz lakes. It is known that the natives entered the neighborhood reluctantly and they did not hide this feeling. They said that they did not like to hunt in the fields close to those lakes because in their waters monstrous animals lived [...] the blurred versions mentioned a very large animal and the local Indians compared it to a big bellied horse that had a long neck without a mane that used to come out [of the lake] to graze on the grassy shores on the nights on which the moon shined" [1]

Llarás Samitier wrote about a very strange incident which happened in 1913, which, is coincidential with an alleged sighting mentioned by Clement Onelli during the plesiosaur expedition of 1922. As usual, it seems that Onelli, mixed up the names and forgot the place. Though he got the date right.

The incident is the following (Llar&aacut;as Samitier's story is in italics and taken from [1]):

The foreman of a sheep ranch close to lake tar asked two of his men, who were from the Argentine province of Corrientes (a sub-tropical province in northeastern Argentina, along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers) to go with a local native Indian guide to search for some lost animals.
They followed the tracks and finally arrived at Lake Tar. As it was a cold and windy afternoon, and the weather was getting worse, they camped behind some shrubs about 100 m (300 ft.) from the lake's shore.
Before dawn, a strange noise woke them up:

despite the whistling of the wind they clearly heard as if one or several animals were splashing in the mud by the [lake's] shore. The moon was shining in the sky so they did not take long to see two gigantic shadows that passed in front of them, and they observed that as they walked, they entertained themselves by biting at the grass, lifting and turning their long necks [...] some times the monsters would lift their heads simultaneously, as if to capture some strange noise, and then they would keep on grazing calmly."

One of the men, named Florencio Almada wanted to get closer to see the better, but his companions did not let him do so. The native said that they were the famous giant horses of Lake Tar.

Almada was not satisfied, and at dawn, when the noises had quieted down, he went to look at the tracks by the shore, and found, well printed in the mud, the foot steps of animals that he later described as similar to those of gigantic yacarés.

Yacaré (Caiman yacare); is a species of caiman -crocodile- native to South America, and which is also found in Corrientes, the place where Almada was born and bred.

He had hunted them in the past and he now wanted to hunt the "monsters" with the help of his companions, they did not do so.

Back at the ranch, Almada became obsessed with the beasts and the other ranch hands did not believe his story. This was worsened by the silence of his two companions, who did not want to talk about the sighting. As the situation worsened, the foreman gave him permission to go back to the lake to hunt his monsters. He left for the lake:

with a pair of lassos, boleadoras [a local weapon], knife and revolver [...] before leaving he threatened his colleagues : if he could not bring the monster back alive, he would have the pleasure of inviting those who had mocked him, to eat the grilled ribs of a giant crocodile

After a couple of days, the foreman became worried when Almada did not return, so he went out to search for him with the Indian and another man:

When the arrived, they found nothing [...] night fell without any news. Before dawn they lit a bonfire to show their position to the missing man. Nothing. With the first lights of sunrise they saw some caranchos [carrion eating birds] flying over the lake's shore. When they got closer they saw Almada's horse floating in the water. The animal seemed to have been dragged more than 100 m [300 ft.] in the mud. On its saddle they found a piece of lasso. But of Almada, not even a miserable "Moon" brand Alpargata [cheap kind of shoe]. They also found the revolver with the six used bullets, evidence that he had shot before using the lasso. [1]

It does not surprise me to notice that the animals are not carnivores, but herbivores, something that I have mentioned before (when addressing the sustainability -i.e. survival- issue): the lake monsters are grass eaters. By the way, Tar was a place where the natives camped, as it had good pasture for their horses [3].

Futhermore, a similar event was reported in 1957 at Lake Viedma which is 42 km (27 mi.) south of Lake Tar. Viedma flows east towards the Atlantic Ocean and is separated from Tar by the continental divide which rises to about 750 m (2.460 ft.) above sea level.


[*] Comments:

I have not been able to find the full article, but Google books has allowed me to identify the original source: Argentina Austral, v. 38, n.os 429-434 - 1967. As the following image shows:



Source: Online, Google Books.

I believe that the article by Samitier is "Realidad y leyenda del mylodon" and it is on page 68 of the above mentioned magazine. Should anyone come across it, please let me know. Thank you.

Bibliography.
[1] Mendoza, Roberto. 2009. Buscando al Plesiosaurio hecho en la Patagonia. Nucleo. Producción y Desarrollo Sustentable. Año 1, N° 6. June 2009. pp. 37+
[2] Gaea. (1946). Geografía de la República Argentina. Vol. 7, No. 2. By Sociedad Argentina de Estudios Geográficos Gaea. Coni. Ed. pp. 588.
[3] Moreno, F., (2007). Exploración de la Patagonia Sur II: el lago Argentino y los Andes meridionales. 1877. B. Aires: Continente.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Lake Esquel creature

 

Lake Esquel is a very small lake barely 1 km² (0.4 sq. mi.) on the dry steppe well to the east of the forests at 750 m altitude (2,460 ft.) (42°53’ S, 71°04’ W).

It is located very close to the town of Esquel, in the Argentine province of Chubut. In 1922 Onelli had mentioned it as the home of the plesiosaur, but only to mislead those who might try to catch the animal before he did.

Even nowadays it is incorrectly mentioned as the plesiosaur's home, which is actually located over 50 km (31 mi.) further north at Epuyén, in the forests and not on the steppe.

In 1956 Buenos Aires daily La Razón published an article reporting that twenty workers had seen a strange animal coming out of its waters. No further details were given.[1]

Below is a map of the area, I posted another map of the area in a previous entry on Lake Rosario, home to a Cuero, mermaid and a "Lake bull".

Esquel and Lake Esquel. Copyright © 2010 by Austin Whittall

The map above shows the area close to Esquel. The Los Alerces National Park can be seen on the left side of the map (shaded green) and the minute lake is marked with a red arrow. Chubut province is shown in orange, and the tiny blue sqare represents the area of the enlarged map. Lake Rosario is at the lower middle part of the map.

Route 40 "the road to adventure" goes right through the area (from north to south).

Much more terrifying than lake monsters

More recently, the lake made the news because apparently a gold mining project at Esquel intended to use the lake as a pool for its liquid effluents (gold mining uses cyanide to process the ore and increase its purity). Cyanide is highly toxic. Contaminated waste waters are usually contained. Seepage into the underground aquifer is a serious problem.[2]

A Canadian mining company (Yamana Gold Inc.) is interested in exploiting a gold mine at Esquel, but has been defeated several times in referendums (up to 80% of the residents voted against the project). Argentine politicians, on the other hand (not the most honest in the world) are keen on promoting this project (I wonder why) against their constituents' will.

Read my post on the serious environmental threats that Patagonia faces (gold mining, dams, etc.)

Bibliography.
[1] Jarré, S. Op. Cit. pp. 42 – 47.
[2] No dirty gold. Esquel Argentina.
[3] An online zipped pdf map of the Province of Chubut.


Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Lake Foitzick "Bull"

 

In the Aisén region, in southern Chile just 7 km [4.4 mi.] from the town of Coihaique (45°38’ S, 72°05’ W), is another cow-like being “The Bull of the Silver horns [that] bellows”.[1]

It lives in a small lake (Foitzick), whose shore is full of rushes and surrounded by swampy ground. It is quite deep and may be an extinct volcanic crater. It lies beyond the forests, in the steppe. The following image gives us an idea of what it looks like:

Lake Foitzick. From [2].

Bibliography.

[1] Mansilla Contreras, J., (2008). Los Compañeros en una Tierra Solitaria. Diario el Divisadero. Coyhaique, Chile. 15.01.2008.
[2] Photograph by Action Datsun. Online: Here.



Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

Habitat for Grazing Herbivore

 

When I mentioned in a previous post (Here) that the sustainability issue (how a massive lake creature feeds in low "food-content" lakes such as the Patagonian ones) could be circumvented if the animals were herbivores and grazed outside of the lake.

I also mentioned that an old lady at Bariloche stated that she had seen one grazing in a field by the lake.

So today I thought that it might be a good idea to show the kind of fields that can be found by the Patagonian lakes. Below is a photograph taken last April by Lake Villarino in the Nahuel Huapi National Park.

See the field in the foreground, the forest to the right and the Andean peaks behind.

Lake Villarino - Neuquén province. Copyright © 2009 by Austin Whittall

You can see the lake on this map Here, in the upper-central part, Lake Villarino flows into Lake Falkner and from there east towards the Atlantic Ocean.



Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

Lake Monsters - The origin of their habitat. Part 1

 

If the Patagonian lakes are home to lake “monsters” and mysterious creatures, we can learn more about these cryptids if we study the lakes themselves and their origin.

Patagonian lakes, both in Argentina and Chile are mostly located along the Andes mountain ranges which run in a north-south direction and are cut on an east-west direction by many valleys, some of which are filled with deep freshwater lakes. A few exceptions are lakes set in the steppe (i.e. Lake Colhue Huapi – which is fed by water from the Andean snow melt) some of which lake drainage and are fed by the scarce rainfall.

These Andean lakes were carved by the glaciers during the Ice Ages.

Ice Ages and the formation of lakes

Sixteen different “Ice Ages” have been recorded in the southern tipo of Patagonian mainland during the last 2 million years, and at least six in Tierra del Fuego Island during the last million years.[1]

The most severe of these was the “GGP” or Gran Glaciación Patagónica (Great Patagonian Glaciation), about 1 million years ago. During this event, the ice sheets reached the Atlantic Ocean at the area of the Strait of Magellan. Later glacier advances extended for several hundred kilometers but did not reach the sea (i.e up to 300 km in Tierra del Fuego). [1]

All of Patagonia is strewn with rounded boulders and pebbles created by the glaciers and their melt waters.

The last glacial event began about 25,000 years ago and most of southern Patagonia was covered with glaciers or a frozen tundra with permafrost. Only on certain warmer spots along the sea shore did the Nothofagus forest survive.[1]

Below are some maps showing the areas that were covered by the ice sheets:

Northern Patagonia. From the Internet [*]
The striped area was covered by glaciers. The dotted red line is the border between Chile and Argentina.

Northern Patagonia coverage, detail. From the Internet [*]
In gray the icefields, in black, current glaciers. Arrows show the direction of the ice sheet flow.

Southern Patagonia Ice coverage- note extant icefields in green. From [3].

Ice starts to melt: paleolakes

After deglaciation, the forests retreated together with the glaciers, their source of water, to occupy their current habitat in the Andes, leaving the now arid Patagonian plateau to shrubs and dwarfish bushes (a dry steppe).

During the ice ages, the glaciers and their moraines formed large natural dams that contained what are known as paleolakes. These large bodies of water had very high water levels and drained towards the Atlantic Ocean. The wide and deep valleys that cross the Patagonian steppe from west to east witness the might of the rivers that drained these lakes. Now most of these valleys hold small rivers (i.e. rivers Chico, Coyle, Gallegos) and some even run dry before reaching the coast (i.e. Deseado River).

During the late Pleistocene epoch (between 13,200 and 7,800 years ago), climate grew warmer and the glaciers began melting. This changed not only the weather and local ecology, but also affected the landscape as the paleolakes fragmented into smaller ones and their water level dropped, in some cases below the eastern terminal moraines, blocking their outflow into the Atlantic Ocean, and causing them to empty westwards into the Pacific Ocean.[2]

These paleo lakes were, from north to south, the following [2]

Elpalafquen 41° S. Was a vast lake system that drained through the Limay River into the Atlantic (which still drains many lakes of the eastern slope of the Andes such as Nahuel Huapi, Espejo, Correntoso, Gutiérrez, Moreno, Traful, etc.) it broke up about 13,200 years ago and some lakes began draining into the South Pacific through the Manso River (such as Mascardi, Steffen, Fonck, Guglielmo, Césares, Hess, etc.).

Caldenius 47-48° S, included current lakes Azara, Belgrano, Mogote, Nansen, Volcán and Burmeister, all of which are now part of the Argentine Perito Moreno National Park. It drained into the Atlantic until ten thousand years ago when it also began to drain through a channel cut through the Andes. Its level was over 100 m (300 ft.) higher than the current water level of Lake Belgrano.

Fuegian paleolake 54-55° S, began melting 7,800 years ago. It comprised lakes Fagnano, Yehuin and Chepelmut as well as the Esperanza bog. Nowadays only Esperanza drains towards the Atlantic through the del Fuego River. The other three lakes drain into the Strait of Magellan.

Remnant glaciers

All that remains of these imposing glaciers that once covered a very large surface of Patagonia are two continental ice sheets covering an area of 21,000 km2 (8,110 sq. mi.). These are the third biggest extensions of continental ice after Antarctica and Greenland. Located roughly 73°W and between 47° and 51°30’ S they are fed by the abundant winter snowfall and maintained by frost most of the year; however, they are now imperiled by climate change as can be seen in the following photographs of Upsala Glacier (Southern Icefield), comparing the same view in 1928 and 2004:

Upsala Glacier (49°50' S, 73°17'W) has a surface area of 870 km² (340 sq.mi.) and a length of about 60 km (37 mi.), making it the third largest Southern Hemisphere glacier outside Antarctica,and South America's longest glacier. It is shrinking rapidly. See Fig. 53 [3] which shows a map with the retreating front of this glacier (1968-1995).

See my photograph of the glacier in my post Here.

Northern Patagonian Icefield (47°00’S, 73°39’W) is about 120 km long (74 mi.) and 40-60 km wide (25 – 37 mi.) and covers an area of 4,200 km² (1,640 sq. mi.), capping the Andes.

Southern Patagonian Icefield (between 48°50’S and 51°30’S is about 40 km wide and covers a larger area (13,200 km², about 5,150 sq.mi.). This is the largest mass of ice outside of the Antarctic.

The remaining glaciers are distributed along the tall Andean peaks in smaller icefields, the larges of them is on Tierra del Fuego Island and has a surface area of about 2,500 km² (975 sq.mi.) it straddles Darwin Cordillera and Mount Sarmiento.

Impact on cryptids

From the above we can see that there were no lakes before the Ice Ages (2 million years ago max.). They must have been excavated in a gradual process, by which each successive glaciation dug deeper trough shaped valleys which during the warmer inter-glacial periods filled with water. And were repeatedly filled up again with ice sheets hundreds of meters thick during each new glacial period.

This must have exterminated any animals attempting to colonize these lakes until the last deglaciation some 10,000 years ago.

The current lakes are the remnants of gigantic paleolakes that broke up and split, shedding their water into both oceans. Their fauna prior to the introduction of salmonids in the 1900s was the local endemic Patagonian species, which hitch-hiked their way from lake to lake perhaps on the feet or feathers of the local water fowl.

This excludes the existence of any large "non-fish" freshwater creatures such as plesiosaurs and so on.

Large tropical mammals could have moved into the now arid Patagonia, but if they were aquatic creatures accustomed to the warmer and more humid conditions prevailing to the north of Patagonia, we must identify how they crossed the dry barren areas that now separate the Patagonian Andean forests from these northern tropical areas.

That is what we will do in our next post Here.

Bibliography.

[1] Coronato, A., Borromei, A., and Rabassa, J. Paleoclimas y Paleoescenarios en la Patagonia Austral y en Tierra del Fuego durante el Cuaternario.
[2] Del Valle, R., Tatur, A., and Rinaldi, C., Cambios en lagos y circulación fluvial vinculados al calentamiento climático del Pleistoceno Tardío-Holoceno Temprano en Patagonia e Isla 25 de Mayo, Islas Shetland del Sur, Antártida. Revista de la Asociación Geológica Argentina 62 (4): 618- 626 (2007)
[3] USGS. Historic Fluctuations of Outlet Glaciers from the Patagonian Ice Fields. Fig. 54.

Further Reading:

Glasser, N., Harrison, S., Winchester, V., and Aniya, M. Late Pleistocene and Holocene palaeoclimate and glacier fluctuations in Patagonia . Global and Planetary Change, Volume 43, Issues 1-2, August 2004, Pages 79-101.



Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters