Scientific American on the "Plesiosaur" of Patagonia

The July 1922 issue of Scientific American (Vol. 127 issue 1) included an article on page 21 titled "An Antediluvian Monster - Is the Argentine Plesiosaurus a Fake or a Scientific Marvel", by Leonard Matters.

Below is an image with the article.

An Antediluvian Monster. Scientific American

Below I quote it fully, just for the record, of course outlines the case and gives us the impression that Onelli's story was a indeed fake:

"Whatever may be the opinion in scientific circles —and it is one of scornful skepticism—the fact remains that the report of the existence in Argentina of a living specimen of a race of mammoth reptiles, supposed to have been extinct for millions of years, has excited intense interest. Every scientist of note has scoffed at the idea, but, headed by Dr. Clement Onelli, Director of the Zoological Gardens at Buenos Aires, there is a large body of Argentine public opinion strongly of opinion that a member of the plesiosaurus family will be discovered, alive or dead.
Dr. Onelli has disclosed to the press in Buenos Aires the fact that some time ago he received a letter from a American mining man down in Patagonia, reporting the existence of some monster, of a type well known to palentologists through fossil remains, but unknown to modern zoology. The American, a Mr. Sheffield, has been prospecting for gold along the Andes in the Tertitory of Chubut for many years, and Dr. Onelli says he knows him to be perfectly reliable. Mr. Sheffield wrote to the doctor stating that he had come across some enormous tracks near a lake. Bushes and undergrowth were trodden into the ground, and so deep were the tracks that they could only have been made by some living thing of ponderous weight. Continuing his account, Mr. Sheffield said: “I saw in the middle of the lake an animal with a huge neck like that of a swan, and the movement in the water made me suppose the least to have a body like that of a crocodile.”
Dr. Onelli has pointed out that Mr. Sheffield has given, for a layman, a remarkably accurate outline of the plesiosaurus, one of the mammoth reptiles that lived countiess years before the ice-age, and became extinct during that geological epoch in the world's history. Moreover, the report recalls more than one similar story of the existence in Patagonia of some strange feature, never yet clearly identified. Patagonia was undoubtedly at some time the habitat of mammoth beasts, and prehistoric man. Extensive fossil beds have been located, and scientific knowledge has been Widely enriched by the discovery of many kinds of extinct mammals and reptiles. Professor Frederic B. Loomis conducted an expedition through the Territory of Chubut in 1911, on behalf of Amherst College, and was successful in unearthing a petrified forest and, among other interesting fossils, the skull of a pyrotherium, an extinct elephantine creature.
There has long existed a romantic sort of idea that in the comparatively uninhabited parts of Patagonia, where certain forms of vertebrates are believed to have originated, a discovery would yet be made, of a nature that would stagger science—the finding of-the “missing link,” for instance, or more probably the capture of an actual living specimen of some supposedly extinct creature of antediluvian antiquity.
Palentologists and scientists in general have never been associated with such a belief, but nevertheless it has been a popular fancy, and has not lacked some degree of support among men whose opinion carries weight. In announcing the latest report to the public Dr. Onelli has recalled this interesting speculation. He was personally first attracted by the idea 25 years ago when he was down in Patagonia. On the shores of White Lake there then lived a Chilean farmer who declared that often at night a strange noise could be heard, as though a cart were being dragged over the pebbly shore. It was asserted that on moonlight nights a huge beast could be seen in the lake. It had a long reptilian neck which rose high above the water, but when disturbed it would at once dive and disappear in the depths.
Ten years after hearing of the apparition in White Lake, Dr. Onelli heard of the discovery made by a Norwegian engineer named Vaag, who was a member of the commission of demarcation of the boundary between Argentina and Chile. Mr. Vaag gave the name of River Tamango to a waterway flowing from the Andes, on whose banks he found the remains of some great beast, and the tracks of a creature that probably resembled the plesiosaurus. Later on, in a cavern, further south at Ultima Esperanza (Last Hope) there were found the remains of a hide and many bones of a great quadruped. The condition of the hide and the fact that the bones were conserved in a gelatinous condition, gave rise to the belief that it might be possible to find a similar beast alive. These interesting discoveries led to a number of expeditions, to which popular imagination at least attracted the objective of looking for a surviving specimen of the mammoth age, even if the scientists themselves had no such belief in the idea. These expeditions worked in different parts of Patagonia, and made interesting discoveries, though credence in the they found nothing to warrant any popular theory supposing the existence of zoological phenomena.
This, in brief, is the history behind the most recent report made on the authority of Dr. Onelli. Science in general utterly discredits the suggestion that a plesicsaurus, or anything like the extinct reptile, is still alive, and the many scornful comments on Dr. Onelli’s report leaves it doubtful whether scientists admit even the possibility of there being in Patagonia some unknown animal of large proportions. It has been hinted that the creature with the long swan-like neck is in the sume class as the sea-serpent, and is really born in a bottle. However, the refusal of scientists to take Mr. Sheffield’s story and Dr. Onelli’s theory as credible, has not prevented the doctor and the Argentine people getting deeply interested in a proposal to fit out an expedition for the capture of the creature, alive or dead.
So seriously has the idea been taken up that a rather amusing development has followed. Dr. Albarrin, President of the Society for the Protection of Animals, has demanded that the Minister for the Interior shall stop the expedition, under Law No. 2,786, which prohibits the hunting and destruction of rare animals. Dr. Albarrin urges that if there should still exist a plesiosaurus, then Argentina possesses a scientific marvel of immense value, and it should neither be killed nor captured, but should be allowed to enjoy to the full the liberty it has had over millions of years. The worthy doctor claims that it would be more humane and creditable to Argentine culture to leave the creature where it is and let it reproduce its species."

You can Read it online and see what this magazine looked like over 103 years ago.

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

Not a Plesiosaur - 1922 articles about Onelli's "strange animal"

Not all were fooled by the media's preposterous claim that there was a living plesiosaur in some Patagonian lake. There were many articles published that refuted his claim. One, published by the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club is copied below. It appeared in The Canadian field-naturalist, published in May 1922 (Vol. 36, No. 5, p. 97) by

Notice the incorrect dating used at the time (3 million years for the Cretaceous vs. at least 65 Ma as we now know). You can read it online, below we transcribe the article:

Not a Plesiosaur. — The newspapers of late have had a great deal to say about the strange animal which has been seen in Patagonia, and in nearly every case it is spoken of as a plesiosaur. What the strange animal will prove to be, the writer would not attempt to guess, but a few remarks about plesiosaurs will show that there is little chance of Prof. Onelli capturing a live plesiosaur.
The plesiosaur lived from Triassic to Cretaceous times, but not a bone of any genus of the order has been found in rocks of more recent age than Cretaceous. This means that plesiosaur has been extinct for more than three million years. The Patagonian monster is reported as being very huge, so heavily armoured that a bullet could not penetrate to the vital organs, and as having made a great path through the forest. Some plesiosaurs were very large, though many were of moderate length, some being less than ten feet long, and none were covered with a bony dermal armour. The fore and hind limbs both constituted flippers or paddles similar to those of a whale and were not adapted for walking but were purely swimming organs. Most genera of the order Plesiosauria had long snake-like necks and small heads with sharp conical teeth suitable for catching living fish, which were probably their main diet Smooth pebbles, which it is thought were used to aid digestion, have been found in the stomach. The paddles were the main means of propulsion, the short tail probably serving as a rudder.
— CM. Sternberg.

Not a Plesiosaur. 1922 article in a Canadian magazine.

Onelli didn't believe it was a Plesiosaur

The Pathfinder, published in Washington DC, in its April 22, 1922 (No. 1477) has a lengthy article about the animal, it cites Onelli, is critical and considers it to be a yarn, tale, show. It does mention Onelli as stating that the creature is not a reptile, but an edentate (megafaunal animal) that survived extinction in the past 10,000 years. This of course was far more feasible than a surviving reptile from the Cretaceous. Below is an image from the article which you can read online.

" Prof. Onelli believes that if one such animal exists there must be two or more. He comments that “Martin Shetfield, who wrote that he saw the animal in a lake in the Esquel region, is my friend and is trustworthy. He is not a scientist, but I have not the least doubt that he saw a large and strange aniamal with a swan-like neck swimming the lake as he asserts. Sheffield is American who has been prospecting and hunting in that region for years. I have received a report that a similar beast was seen in 1913 by an Emglishman in a lake in Santa Cruz further south. These reports tend to confirm the previous rumors of the existence in Patagonia and other unexplored places: of animals unknown to moderns. Plesiosaurus is a pseudonym the newspers have given it,” he corrects. “! believe it is a huge animal of the edentate family, of which ancient remain -not fossils— were found in Patagonia 1897, and one of which was fired upon and hit by the explorer Ramon Lista in 1890 without hurting it. He says that from 1890 to the present time there ha been 12 places in Patagonia alone, between latitudes 38 and 52, where the mysterious creature has been reported alive and well.”
Prof. Onelli thinks they constitute a few surviving descendants of the armored glyptodon or the megatherium that lived in the pleistocene period. If you can imagine a creature resembling the armadillo, with strong limbs an short, broad feet and of the size of an ox you have some idea of the glyptodon, while the megatherium was a more or less gigantic toothless sloth about 20 feet in length which, with its short neck, heavy body and powerful tail, lumbered over the landscape, and with its strong prehensile tongue tore away leaves and twigs for food."

So, to be fair, it seems that the media named the animal a "plesiosaur" while Onelli insisted that it was an surviving megafaunal creature, in line with the Mylodon of 1898-1901.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-202 5by Austin Whittall © 

The 1922 Plesiosaur Expedition

Caras y Caretas magazine in its issue 1224 of March 17, 1922 published two articles about the "Plesiosaur". One was written by Clemente Onelli ("Lo del Animal Misterioso" - "About the Mysterious Animal"), he was the Director of the Buenos Aires Zoo (see article here), and it included the famous letter written to him by Martin Sheffield, telling him about the plesiosaur he saw at a lake beside his hunting cabin.

About the mysterious animal by Clemente Onelli. From Caras y Caretas No. 1224.

The second article was titled "En Busca del Plesiosaurio" - "In Search of the Plesiosaur" (see the page here), can be seen in the image shown below, that included a cartoon of the expedition with the long-necked animal in the distance, captioned "how the author of Sarrasqueta sees the expedition that Mr. Onelli is organizing". There is a photograph of Dr. Vaccari, and the text says that Doctor Augusto Vaccari representing Caras y Caretas will go on this "risky and worthy exploring commission that will go to Patagonia in search of the plesiosaur, the famous animal of prehistoric origin whose fantastic appearance in a southern lake has stirred intense emotions in all social and scientific circles around the world. Whatever outcome the expeditionaries reach it is undoubtable that the risk of hunting it or not hunting it will duplicate the pictouresque value of the great adventure."

Vaccari and the cartoon. Caras y Caretas

Our next posts will look into this extravagant expedition chasing a non-existent plesiosaur

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

The 1922 Plesiosaur was probably a Turtle or Crocodile

Back in 1922, while the expedition was searching for the Plesiosaur that Sheffield had said he'd seen in a tiny lagoon close to his home near the Epuyen River, many looked on with a skeptic attitude.

Below is the text from an article published in the New York Times (HINT 'PLESIOSAURUS' WAS A HUGH TURTLE; Dr. Lucas and Washington Scientists Scoff at Tale of Finding Monster in Patagonia) published on March 8, 1922, mocking the expedition.

"Dr. F. A. Lucas, director of the Museum of Natural History, does not credit the report that a plesiosaurus, an amphibian of the Mesozoic period, generally believed to exist only in fossil form, has been seen alive in Patagonia.
'It is very unlikely that a plesiosaurus has been seen,' said Dr. Lucas yesterday. 'It is possible that something has been seen, but not a plėsiosaurus. It has been my experience that the nearer one goes to the source of such reports the less people seem to know about them. Nobody seems to know just how these wild reports start. Not long ago a report was circulated that a glyptodon, a genus of large extinct mammals of the order of edentata, related to the armadillos, had been seen in New Zealand.'
'As nearly as I can recall, no fossil remains of plesiosauri have been found in South America, but I know of no reason why they should not exist there. The most recent remains found in this country date from the Cretaceous period. It is barely possible that the animal seen was a large fresh-water turtle or a crocodile, though Patagonia is far south for a crocodile.'
WASHINGTON, March 7. - Professor Gilmore of the National Museum and N. Hollister of the National Zoological Park said today that they were of the opinion that such animals as plesiosauri vanished from the earth long ago.
'The last positive evidence of such creatures running at large,' said Professor Gilmore, dates back some 10,000,000 years. So far as scientists are aware, no such animal has been seen since that period. I would not hesitate in advising that the subject be dismissed.'"

Scientists

These men were authorities, and they made a good point.

Frederic Augustus Lucas, (1852-1929) was a naturalist, director of the American Museum of Natural History from 1911 to 1924, and honorary director until his death. He was an authority on vertebrate anatomy.

Charles Whitney Gilmore (1874–1945) was an renown paleontologist who worked with dinosarus during his career at what then was the United States National Museum (now the National Museum of Natural History).

Ned Hollister (1876-1924) was a naturalist, and between 1910 and 1916 served as Assistant Curator in the Division of Mammals, United States National Museum. Then he became the Superintendent of the National Zoological Park in Washington, where he worked until his death.

Comments

The New Zealand glyptodon is an interesting story, since there were no native mammals in the islands because it split from Gondwana before the first mammals appeared. It only had birds and reptiles, but no mammals. It is the first time I have read about it, but I have not been able to find any references to this sighting.

The suggestion that if there is an animal, it may be "a large fresh-water turtle or a crocodile" is reasonable. Nevertheless, Lucas points out that there are no known crocs in Patagonia. I agree with this possibility.

Plesiosaur from an article published in Buenos Aires in 1912.

The image above was published in 1912 ( Fray Mocho: semanario festivo, literario, artístico y de actualidades. (1912). En Busca de un Nuevo Monstruo. Argentina. Año 1, N° 11.) and its caption reads: "A plesiosaur, a species who mister König believes the mysterious inhabitant of Lake Pueyrredón belongs to."

This sighting at Lake Pueyrredón took place ten years before Sheffield's sighting.

Of course, Plesiosaurs died out 65 million years ago. The creatures, if real, were not plesiosaurs.

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

Garrett: The first sighting of "Nahuelito"

The first reference about Nahuelito, was published in 1922, during the media uproar following the news about a live plesiosaur in Patagonia. Which of course turned out to be unfounded (these reptiles died out with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.)

Mr. George Garret

There are countless references on the Internet about a Mr. Garrett who lived or worked in a ranch or a company in the area and who saw the monster back in 1910. I have also mentioned him in my book. However I have asked myself if he really existed.

The story is that he was working for a company by Lake Nahuel Huapi in 1910. At that time the town of San Carlos de Bariloche was a small village, 15-years-old, and there were no roads in the region, mostly trails. It took four days to ride the 120 km (75 mi) between Villa la Angostura and Bariloche. No wonder most goods, lumber, cattle, horses and people moved by boat across the lake.

George Garret is quoted as saying the following:

...we were beating windward up an inlet called 'Pass Coytrue,' which bounded the peninsula. This inlet was about five miles in length, a mile or so in width, and of an unfathomable depth. Just as we were near the rocky shore of the peninsula, before tacking, I happened to look astern towards the centre of the inlet, and, to my great surprise, I saw about a quarter of a mile to leeward, an object which appeared to be 15 or 20 feet in diameter, and perhaps six feet above the water. After a few minutes, the monster disappeared. On mentioning my experience to my neighbours... they said the Indians often spoke of immense water animals they had seen from time to time."

The quote above is said to have come from an article in the Toronto Globe, published on April 6, 1922, twelve years after this sighting took place (source). I have never been able to see the original article in the newspaper.

Pass Coytrue, does not exist, but the inlet mentioned is no other than the Huemul arm of the lake, at the base of the arm, is Paso Coihue. So it is the right spot! Below is an aerial view of the Huemul Arm, looking towards the SW (north is to the left).

Huemul Arm, lake Nahuel Huap

Paso Coihue is at the base of the arm, in the distance. Below is a map I prepared, showing the same view:

There are references to a Garrett family settling in this area:

• "the inhabitants of the Huemul Peninsula area and to the east, up to the Limay River, mostly English speakers like the Bell, Newbery, Garrett, Jones and Neil families". Source
• "Some writings report that well-known settlers around the lake had their own sailing vessels, for example: Millaqueo, Tauscheck, Eggers, Garrett, Potthoff, Macías, Nahuelquín, used mainly for transport and transfers.". Source
• "Easton Garrett, having sold it. E. Garrett, settler and associated with the "La Península" Estancia [Ranch] (later Huemul), owned by the Livestock and Settlement Company." Source (see comments).

So this estancia, is where Garrett worked. Was he a settler at the Colony by Lake Nahuel Huapi? An area which was opened to homesteaders in 1902, along the shores of the lake.

It was created by an Executive Decree in 1902 based on the Homestead Act, and it granted lots of up to 655 ha (~1,600 acres). There were 133 lots, and over 230 people who had applied. They had to live on the property for 5 years, invest pesos 250 (a horse cost around 25 pesos), cultivate 10 ha. and plant 200 trees, after which they obtained the deed for the land. Or, they could buy it for pesos 500. In 1902, one U.S. Dollar was worth 2.35 Pesos (papel) Argentinos, so the property would cost 1,175 USD of those days, equivalent nowadays to 44,133 USD. Very cheap!

Below is a map of the Colony (source), notice that the area where Paso Coihue is located (red dot) was not included. The land east and south of it, along the shore of the lake and on Huemul Peninsula was already occupied by the estancias of Rodolfo Harrington, Jarred Jones, and Marcos M. Zorrilla, Anchorena owned Victoria Island, and on the south side of the lake, Estancia El Cóndor, and Sinforoso Medina had their estancias. These were large estates which had been granted before the homestead decree. The government had handed over vast stretches of fiscal land to the families that ruled Argentina (the Desert Campaign to eliminate the Indians in Patagonia had been financed with a bond, based on the sale of the fiscal land that would be added to the nation). The soldiers, and officers received land, but they mostly sold it at bargain prices to the aristocracy who formed vast ranches. Foreigners also bought land, like the Livestock and Settlement Company. Maybe Garret was an employee of this company.

In 1923 a National Park was created in this area, and all these homesteads and estancias were included within it. They gradually vanished over the course of the years. The park was organized in 1937 and many homesteads were revoked after being reviewed.

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

1923 Plesiosaur images

The media furor that resulted from the reported sighting of a live plesiosaur in Patagonia in early 1922 led to a massive coverage of the expedition sent to hunt it.

Of course, the creature didn't exist (at least not as a gigantic reptile), and the party sent to capture it returned to Buenos Aires empty handed.

Magazine cover with the Patagonian plesiosaur.

Caras y Caretas and an article (March 1922).

But a local tycoon, Don Primo Modesto Capraro (1873-1932), who had migrated from Belluno, Italy, to Argentina and settled in Bariloche, decided to have some fun with the episode.

For the 1923 carnival parade in Bariloche he built a float in the shape of a plesiosaur, using a wooden frame covered with painted burpap. He mounted the enormous structure on a truck and paraded down Mitre Street to the amusement of the locals. Capraro rode on a horse, dressed as the gaucho Martín Fierro, heading the parade. A group of people wearing costumes parodying the expedition members marched beside the float.

He promoted the parade with a mocking telegram sent to the media on February 19, 2023 that announced: "The plesiosaur was finally captured. Since yesterday it is blocked so it can't escape from the Bariloche beach. It was caught thanks to the "dry law" [prohibition of alcohol."

Carnival Float in Bariloche, 1923.

The animal's neck and tail were mobile, thanks to an internal mechanism in the float. The neck had stood upwards but was lowered so that it could pass under the lighting cables that crossed the street.

Capraro had made a fortune with his sawmill and had built most of the buildings in Bariloche. But the Great Depression of 1930 left him bankrupt. He committed sucide in 1932.

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

Setting the Stingray Hypothesis straight

 Rewritten on 14 Dec. 2011.

Ever since I was nine, I have been terrified of freshwater stingrays. I read a fable by Horacio Quiroga, "El paso del Yabebirí".

Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937), a Uruguaya author, wrote several books about his life in Argentina's Northeastern province of Misiones. A land covered with jungles, and where the marvelous Iguazú falls are set.

In this story a man, wounded by a "tiger" (the name given to the South American jaguar), was saved by the timely action of the stingrays who "stung" the jaguars as they tried to cross the river to kill the man. He had protected the rays in the past so they helped him. The river's name means "river of stingrays".

Stingrays have always been on my mind, when I swam in the brown silty waters of the Paraná River delta and the River Plate during my youth I always wondered if a ray would sting me when I stood in the muddy river bed.

I posted about them and included them in my book... and today, came across a strange online article:

An online article

It was published in an site (The Anomalist [*]) , and mentioned the Patagonian Cuero. I quote it below (Bold font is mine):

December 3

Capture of the Cuero Frontiers of Zoology
Dale Drinnon features an article about television fisherman Jeremy Wade of "River Monsters" capturing a 280-lb giant freshwater stingray in the waters of Argentina's Parana River near Buenos Aires. Photos of the fisherman and his catch are included, and Drinnon takes the catch further to reveal what it has to do with cryptozoology.
It turns out Drinnon had identified freshwater stingrays as the origin of tales of plesiosaurs in the freshwater lakes and rivers of Patagonia. Drinnon's original report on the Patagonian cryptid is included along with some excellent comments from other cryptozoology bloggers, including Austin Whittall of Patagonian Monsters whose comments had sparked Drinnon's stingray identification.

Some reviewers should get their facts straight

You can imagine my surprise, I believe that the story should actually record that it was a Catholic priest, Father Molina in the late 1700s wrote about manta rays as the explanation for Chilean Cuero myth. While researching my book, I came across his work, and I mention it in my book and in a post written Over two years ago, in my September 30, 2009 post on El Cuero - Nahuelito I jotted down that:

...The ray theory is the most reasonable explanation, in fact the shape and size of the cuero are similar those of fresh water stingrays.

However these apparently do not live in the Patagonian lakes or rivers, their habitat is in the Tropical to Temperate regions of eastern South America....
South America is home to the only exclusively freshwater stingrays in the world, the family Potamotrygonidae. The closest to Patagonia live in the Paraná River basin. These rays have a sharp spike on the rear of their tail which they use for self-defense and, interestingly, their disk can be covered with small denticles, small to large thorns which are thooth-like in structure, and covered with a tough enamel.

For those interested, my Jan 20, 2010 post on the Cuero goes into plenty details and even includes a map on South American freshwater stingrays and mentioned the Paraná River stingrays:

There are only on family of freshwater stingrays in the whole world, these are the Potamotrygonidae and they live in South America, but the closest that they get to Patagonia is over 1.600 km (1,000 mi.) to the north in the Paraná River basin...

What Molina wrote was that the Cuero was:

“a monstrous type of Manta ray”, or perhaps a squid with cat-like nails; the 'Seppia unguiculata'" (its Latin name means “clawed” Seppia)

As there are no known freshwater rays in Patagonia, this is a possible explanation for them being there (If and when they are found there)

But there is another intriguing option: Potamotrygonidae are related to the Dasyatid rays who often venture into fresh water in several parts of the world; one of these species can be found off the Chilean Patagonian coast. Maybe these Dasyatids swam up the rivers into the Andean lakes and their denticles were taken for claws.

However let me make it clear that my tirade is not against Dale Drinnon who is an honest researcher and writer, who gets his facts straight before publishing them. It is an outburst born from my surprise at how "reviewers" can sometimes distort facts!.

[*] Note: The Anomalist is a daily online review of world news on maverick science, unexplained mysteries among other subjects.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Sexton Blake and the Plesiosaur

 
During the first half of the 20th century, a now relatively unknown comic book detective, Sexton Blake was a very popular fictional character. Blake (who was modeled on Sherlock Holmes) ran until 1978 in different comic books, radio shows and movies.

In one printed episode: New series · Issue 988 · 16/9/1922 by Amalgamated Press, Blake goes off to Patagonia in "SEXTON BLAKE IN SOUTH AMERICA". The illustration below is from its cover (Fred Bennet) and in this story, which takes place in Patagonia, Sexton with Sir Richard Losely and Lobangu hunt the Plesiosaur at laguna Negra.

This goes to show the media coverage that the "plesiosaur incident" got back in 1922. The image is quite interesting, Blake is shooting at the monster which is quite unlike a plesiosaur, and is emerging from a very "tropical" lake (not at all like the temperate Andean forest setting of the real lake).

Book Cover:

Detective Sexton Blake taking a shot at the Patagonian Plesiosaur.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Phoenician symbol at Lake Puelo, Chubut, Argentina

 
An unusual symbol ⵣ (Yaz) found in Patagonia. A link to Phoenicians?
 
See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.
 

Phoenician symbol found at Lake Puelo, Chubut, Patagonia.
Adapted by Austin Whittall from [3]

The location of Lake Puelo is shown in the following map:

Map of Lake Puelo showing possible location of the Phoenician rock carving.
Copyright © 2011 by Austin Whittall

In previous posts I pointed out a symbol that appeared in several stones supposedly carved by “Phoenicians”, which were found in the Patagonian province of Chubut in the early 1900s.

The symbol is the following: ⵣ.

Although it looks like a drawing of a person (anthropomorphic), it is actually a letter, known as "YAZ", which sounds like our letter "Z", and belongs to the ancient Tifinagh alphabet of North Africa.

It appears in Patagonia, as can be seen in the following composite image:

"Yaz" symbol of North African Punic origin, depicted at several Patagonian locations. Copyright © 2011 by Austin Whittall

The images [a], [b] and [e] are part of some strange "Tehuelche" sculptures said to have a Phoenician style or influence.
Image [c] was painted on a rock wall in Neuqueén province, probably Tehuelche or Mapuche. [2]
Image [d] is from the Museo Etnográfico UNBA, it is a small Leather bag painted red and blue (I omitted the crosses that are in between the Yaz symbol.

Phoenician not ET

While browsing the Internet I came upon a website (Reference [3] below) that deals with the paranormal (UFOs and that sort of stuff), something that I am definitively not into. However, something caught my eye, the YAZ symbol.

The book deals with some strange extraterrestrials, the Ummites. If you are into the extravagantly unusual paranormal junk, check out this site Ummo, Ummite physics and metaphysics it is, literally (ha, ha) "out of this world". It is decorated with the ⵣ symbol as its favicon (the one that appears in the browser tab).

Among all the concocted fantasies in the book [3], the image appeared, in relation to Patagonian rock art. Which naturally drew my attention.

The text does not mention a word, but the photograph's caption says the following: "sign engraved in granite. Stone found close to Lake Puelo, in Argentina. The relief may have been sculpted by the native Indians of the area (Mapuches, Tehuelches, Araucanos) [Araucano and Mapuche are the same people! so much for accuracy]..." [3]

It attributes the image to Sergio Oscar Rinaldi's work published (?) in 1984. No references given so I can't trace the source. The image gives some details which I included above: it was found in 1906 some 6 leagues (30 km roughly 18 miles) south of the lake by a local farm hand.

On where the stone was found, in what circumstances, where it is now, no information is given.

Trivia

This is the region where the "plesiosaur lake" is located.

Further reading on the ⵣ "yaz" symbol and more here on "yaz"!

Sources.

[1] Image from fig. 30. of Los Cueros pintados Tehuelches.
[2] Image Source.
[3] Planeta Benitez, excerpt from the book: Benitez, J. J., El hombre que susurraba a los Ummitas. pp. 218.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Teddy Roosevelt and the lake monster hunt

 

Detail of the original NY Times article. From [1]

Former US President Teddy Roosevelt was approached by the American gold prospector Martin Sheffield in 1903, who suggested that he organize an expedition to hunt a mysterious huge lizard-like monster with a curved neck-.

This information surfaced in a New York Times article published on March 31, 1922:

ROOSEVELT WANTED TO HUNT MONSTER; Ex-President Thought of Patagonia Expedition When He Went to South America. KEEN OVER TALE ... John Barrett Gave Him in 1903 an Explorer's Account of Strange Amphibian.

The newspaper heard about it from Mr. John Barrett, late Director of the Pan American Union and Minister to Argentina during President Roosevelt’s administrations during the famous 1922 plesiosaur expedition (sent to hunt a plesiosaur close to Lake Epuyen).

According to Barret, Sheffield "had reported that he had seen what appeared to be a plesiosaurian monster, or huge amphibian, swimming in the waters of a Southern Andean jungle lake, I recalled that nearly twenty years ago, in November, 1903, ". [1]

Apparently Sheffield had fought in Cuba during the 1898 Spanish-American war, and has somehow met Roosevelt there.

Interesting and verifiable

This is indeed interesting. Because it could be verifiable:

• We could check when Sheffield arrived in Argentina (before or after 1898).
• We know that in 1903 he had met Clemente Onelli then working with the Argentine Border Committee marking out the frontier with Chile. Onelli later (1922) organized the Plesiosaur expedition. Could he have been in Buenos Aires at the same time?
• Why did he wait for 19 years (from 1903 to 1922) before reporting the "lizard" again? Did he tell Onelli in 1903? And was ignored by him?
• Can the details mentioned by Barrett be tracked and proven? Did any of those mentioned in the article record the event?
• What about the handwritten letter by Roosevelt himself? Did Roosevelt write memoirs?
  

Anyway, it may all be a lie, made up by Barrett. It may be true, and if so, Sheffield saw something in 1903 and then saw it again in 1922. An active and long living monster (or perhaps its offspring). Enjoy the full text at the NY Times site. See reference [1] below.

Sources.

[1] Roosevelt wanted to hunt monster New York Times, NY. 31.03.1923.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

The "real" Plesiosaur lake at Epuyen

 

View of Lake Chulta y Plesiosaur Lagoon(?). From Google Earth

The Plesiosar Lagoon is located in the Epuyén River Valley, Chubut. And according to several sources, it is set on the western shore of the Epuyén River. It is barely larger than a pond and there is a bog between it and the river. It is closed in on the west by Mount Pirque. The lagoon is close to where the Pedregoso Creek joins the Epuyén River.

In the map above, I marked it with a red circle.

Today I read an article [1] about the area's geology and in it found the following:

Lagoon de las Mercedes (also named Chulta, Shulten, or of the Plesiosaur).[1]

Chulta Lagoon is the Plesiosaur Lagoon?. Copyright © 2010 by Austin Whittall

The Plesiosaur

I have already posted about the Plesiosaur at Epuyen so I will just summarize the story below:

An American gold prospector and otter hunter named Martin Sheffield wrote a letter in 1922 to the Director of Buenos Aires' Zoo, Clemente Onelli. He wrote that he had seen an enormous animal with the head of a swan and a crocodile body in "the lagoon where I have set up my hunting place".

Sheffield had met Onelli when he worked for him on the Argentine-Chilean Border Committee in the early 1900s.

Onelli told the press and caused a media uproar, an expedition was quickly organized and sent. After scouring the area it found nothing.

Sheffield's family's home was apparently built close to the Plesiosaur Lagoon (red circle above), but, could Sheffield's hunting shack be located at Chulta Lagoon?

Lake (or Lagoon) Chulta or Las Mercedes

This Las Mercedes or (de las Mercedes according to another source) Lagoon laguna de las Mercedes is located close to the village of Epuyén: from there you should take National Highway 40 north towards El Hoyo, and take a right turn on the junction with Provincial Highway 70 taking the climb towards El Maiten. The road is set on the slope of Mount coihue and after 8.5 km (5 mi.) you should take the road that branches to the left. 3 km (2 mi.) ahead is the Las Mercedes or Chulta Lagoon. Which is private property.

It is a small lake of the "Precordillera" at 580 m (1,900 ft) above sea level and it has a surface area of 80 ha (197 acres). It drains into the Las Minas creek and from there through the Epuyén River, Lake Puelo and Puelo River into the Pacific Ocean.

Local historian Casamiquela called it “Lake Chalta” [2] and supposed that its name came from the Tehuelche word Chaltén whose meaning is not quite clear (some say it means "mountain or hill that smokes" in an erroneous allusion to its alleged volcanic origin or, perhaps due to the clouds that snag against its summit). It is a sacred place because the demigod hero of the Tehuelche, Elal was taken there by a swan that set him on the mountain's peak. [3]

It was mentioned for the first time by the Spanish explorer Antonio de Viedma in his diary (1782), who spotted the mountain after discovering the lake that now bears his name. Viedma said it was called Chaltel because that was the name the natives gave it [4]:



Chaltén is an impressive peak 3,405 m (11,164 ft.) high, located in the Southwestern corner of Santa Cruz province in the Los Glaciares national park, on the border between Chile and Argentina. It is also known as Fitz Roy. It is very far from Epuyén and Chubut province, which makes me doubt Casamiquela's comment regarding the lake's name.

Plesiosar Lagoon

The official tourism websites on Epuyén on the other hand say that the Plesiosaur Lake is another one (which I had enclosed in a red circle in my map), and they treat it as a different entity to Lake Chulta or Las Mercedes.[5]

Which is the real and genuine lagoon?

Where did the mix up come from? A mystery indeed. I will continue my research on this matter.

Bibliography

[1] Miro, Roberto, (1967). Geología glaciaria y pre-glaciaria del Valle de Epuyén Revista de la Asociación Geológica Argentina. Tomo XXII, No. 3, Jul. Sept. 1967. pp. 183.
[2] Casamiquela, Rodolfo. (1987). Toponimia indígena del Chubut. Gobierno de la Provincia del Chubut, pp. 52
[3] Runa : archivo para las ciencias del hombre, Vol. 3. Ed. El Instituto, 1950. pp 193 y 198
[4] Pedro de Angelis [Ed.] (1837). Colección de obras y documentos relativos a la historia antigua y .... Vol. 6. pp. 56.
[5] Sitio web del Gobierno de la provincia del Chubut.Laguna del Plesiosaurio y Epuyén

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Freshwater Plesiosaurs

 

Leptocleidus capensis. Online From [5]

In my previous post I said that Plesiosaurs would have had to adapt to the freshwater conditions of Patagonian lakes, which is not a simple feat for an animal that lived in the salty sea waters.

Salt water – Freshwater adaptation

In all aquatic creatures, the outer or external environment is separated from the creature’s cells by a membrane through which different substances move.

These membranes are of two kinds, one, at a cellular level, the other at an organism’s level (its skin).

Solutes (salts, minerals, etc.) are diluted in the solvent (water) in different concentrations. If a membrane separates them, the solutes will migrate across it from the area with higher concentration to the area with lower concentration.

So, salt water animals whose bodies have less salt diluted in their organisms in comparison to the sea water in which they live, must avoid dehydration (due to intake of salt from the environment). They tend to lose water and gain salt.

Freshwater fish on the other hand must avoid loss of salts (their blood and cells have a higher concentration than the surrounding freshwater).

Adapting to a freshwater environment

This is known as osmoregulation. If a marine animal moves into a freswater habitat, its regulating system would have to be reversed, a virtually impossible feat.
Look at sharks. They remove excess salt from their blood through their kidneys. They uptake water from the sea and eliminate the salt via urine. If they move into freshwater, they will absorb too much water and die.

Reptiles

Marine vertebrates evolved on land and their blood has a lower concentration than seawater. As these animals breathe air from the atmosphere their respiratory surfaces (unlike fish, whose gills are submerged in water) are not in contact with seawater. This, plus their “waterproof” skins, reduces the surface through which water loss can occur.

Yet they still lose water when excreting uric acid (reptiles do this, mammals excrete urea), and while breathing. They absorb salts through food or by drinking sea water. So they must solve the problem of losing water and up-taking too much salts.

Marine reptiles such as turtles, crocodiles, sea snakes, iguanas (and probably plesiosaurs) must drink seawater to keep alive. However they can not produce concentrated urine like fish do. To compensate, they must secrete salt and are equipped with special glands that do just that; they pump out the Chlorine ions from the animal’s bodies (the sodium ions follow suit).

Reptiles have difficulties in osmoregulating in freshwater because their skin is relatively impermeable it hampers the influx of water and the excretion of salts across it. Therefore they must produce dilute urine and reabsorb the salts in its urinary tract.

Freshwater plesiosaurs

However, it seems that there were freshwater plesiosaurs after all as some remains have been found in Australia[1], Canada[2] and South Africa [3] in non-marine strata.

The remains are mostly juvenile specimens, which suggests that these animals may have entered river mouths or coastal lagoons to escape from their predators. So their environment may have been marine and some died in a brackish/non-marine depositional environment.

Among these freshwater plesiosaurs is the Leptocleidus ( Greek for "thin clavicle"). This is an Early Cretaceous animal and is similar to more archaic reptiles. Some authors believe that it retained primitive features and that this was " a consequence of the freshwater, probably fluviatile, habitat of this Plesiosaur, which resulted in its leading a life sheltered from the great competition among the marine Plesiosaurs".[4] Leptocleidus was similar to a modern seal in size.

So, there is a very faint chance that some plesiosaur could have lived in freshwater and having survived until now, live in modern lakes. (Faint and I would like to add, virtually zero probability).

Sources.

[1] Kear, Benjamin (2006). Plesiosaur remains from Cretaceous high-latitude non-marine deposits in Southeastern Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 26, 196–199
[2] Vandermark, D., J. A. Tarduno, and D. B. Brinkman. (2006). Late Cretaceous Plesiosaur Teeth from Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut, Canada. Arctic. 59, no. 1: 79-82.
[3] Cruikshank, A. R. I. (1997). A lower Cretaceous Pliosauroid from South Africa. Annals of the South African Museum 105: 206-226.
[4] Andrews, C,W,. (1922). Description of a new plesiosaur from the Weald Clay of Berwick (Sussex). Quarterly Journal of tlte Geological Society of London 78: 285-298.
[5] Online

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Plesiosaurs and Pliosaurs

 

A Maresaurus (pliosaur) attacking a Chacaicosaurus (ictiosaur) in Neuquen 170 million years ago.(Original painting by Agustín Viñas). From [2]

During the Upper or Later Cretaceous (roughly spanning the period from 100 to 65 Million years ago) most of what is now Patagonia was covered by a shallow sea, part of the Atlantic Ocean. Southern South America was a group of islands, which comprised the current Somuncurá plateau and the Puerto Deseado massif (see map below).
At this time, the Andean volcanic ring began forming along the western edge of this sea closing off its connection with the South Pacific Ocean.

Sea covering Northern Patagonia during the Upper Cretaceous. Adapted From [3]

In this sea, lived plesiosaurs such as the short-necked plesiosaur (Plesiosauroidea, Polycotylidae)[1], though most of the regional fossils belong to Elasmosauridae plesiosaurs, which were long-necked.

The difference is that short-necked Plesiosaurs had 13 vertebrae in their necks while the Elasmosaurs with their long necks had up to 76 vertebrae. However some believe that short-necked plesiosaurs should be classified as Pliosaurs.

These had a short neck with a long head and strong jaws (they were carnivorous) and could grow up to 15 m (45 ft.) long. They can be seen at the Olsacher Museum in Zapala, Neuquén province, Argentina, which holds the remains of several pliosaurs found in northern Patagonia.

Extant pliosaurs and plesiosaurs

If the alleged sightings of lake monsters are true, it is highly unlikely that they are one of these reptiles (pliosaurs or plesiosaurs). The reasons are quite simple:

- Time frame: they would have had to survive over 65 Million years. Outliving all other reptiles of their time.
- Adaptation: they would have had to mutate, adapting to a freshwater environment because they were sea creatures. This is not a simple feat and requires biochemical changes. Though, there is some evidence of freshwater plesiosaurs.
- Size: they were giants, and as such required a lot of food. Being carnivores they would quickly deplete the fish from Patagonian lakes. And for them to have survived for so long, a reasonable sized population in the same geographic region would be required. This would add strains to the food chain.

Patagonian lake mosnters are not reptiles that survived the massive extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous.

Further Reading
The Plesiosaur Directory

Sources.

[1] Salgado Leonardo, Parras Ana, Gasparini Zulma. Un plesiosaurio de cuello corto (Plesiosauroidea, Polycotylidae) del Cretácico Superior del norte de Patagonia. Ameghiniana [revista en la Internet]. 2007 Jun [citado 2010 Sep 21] ; 44(2): 349-358.
[2] Fernández, Marta, (2002). En los Mares de la Araucania Ciencia Hoy, vol. 12,Oct.-Nov. 2002 No.71 pp.22-29.
[3] Aguirre-Urreta M. Beatriz, Casadío Silvio, Cichowolski Marcela, Lazo Darío G., Rodríguez Débora L.. (2008)Afinidades paleobiogeográficas de los invertebrados cretácicos de la Cuenca Neuquina. Ameghiniana [revista en la Internet]. 2008 Sep [citado 2010 Sep 21] ; 45(3): 591-611.

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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 © 

Another Paleo-Lake (Puelo)

 

Paleo Lake ca. 1000 BP. By Barzi, A. [1]

When I posted on Vanishing Rivers I mentioned a great Paleo-lake that had formed at the end of the last Ice Age in northern Patagonia. In other posts, I had mentioned also mentioned deglaciation and the formation of the current Patagonian eco regions.

Today I came across a very interesting map by Mr. Alejandro Brazi, at his website which deals with the geography of the small village of El Hoyo and its surrounding areas.[1] It shows how the area that is now occupied by lakes Puelo, Epuyén and the valleys of the rivers Epuyén and Azul, were flooded during the end of the last Ice Age producing a very large paleo-lake.

The lake drained just as it does in the present, to the west, into the Pacific Ocean through a narrow pass in the Andean mountains.

The interesting part of this is that the Patagonian Plesiosaur was said to have been sighted in the Puelo-Epuyén rivers basin in the early 1920s. (see my map showing the current lakes and compare it with the one shown above.

Did the receding waters capture some megafaunal beast and restrict it, keeping it captive in the now smaller lakes?
Dit it originally swim up the Puelo River from the South Pacific Ocean, during the days when Puelo and Epuyén lakes were merged in the giant paleo-lake?

By the way, there have been reports of "monsters" in the Puelo River.

We will never know (neither can we know if there is -or was- a cryptid lake creature here or if it was really sighted in 1922.)

Bibliography.

Barzi, A. Descripcion de El Hoyo. Geografia Fisica

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Vanishing rivers and Plesiosaurs

 
I previous posts (List of my plesiosaur entries) I have discussed Nahuelito the "reptilian" cryptid that is said to live in Lake Nahuel Huapi. I have dismissed the possibility that the creature (if it exists) is an extant Mesozoic reptile, but I never gave a detailed explanation or proof to support my position. Until now.

Today we will look into the origin and evolution of Lake Nahuel Huapi and the mystery of a "lost" river in Patagonia. Both of which may shed some light on the plesiosaur business.

First there was fire

The mighty Andes are a mountain range that span the entire west coast of South America. They are being pushed upwards by the subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the westward moving South American Plate. This is the longest subduction zone in the whole world and is over 7,000 km (4,350 mi.) long. This mighty collision shortens and crumples the South American Plate and forces the Andes constantly upwards.

The subduction process began during the late Mesozoic and early Cenozoic eras (at about the same time or shortly after the dinosaurs disappeared) and has continued since then. In the Patagonian Andes, which extend from roughly 39°S to 52°S, the uplift began during the Miocene period (23 to 5 Million years ago).

It was in this period that the area where modern Lake Nahuel Huapi lies was folded and driven upwards. Mighty mountain ranges were formed. These run with a North to South orientation and this conditioned regional drainage. Massive volcanos were also formed, and are still the highest mountains in the area (i.e Mount Tronador and Mount Lanin, both over 3,500 m – 11,500 ft.). These new mountains were much higher than they are nowadays, erosion had not yet worn them down. They had steep slopes and sharp "V" shaped valleys separated them.

Then there was ice

Regular snow melt in summer and rain began the erosive process that created the first streams and rivers, which ran eastwards towards the Atlantic on the oriental side of the Andes, and west into the Pacific ocean on the occidental side. The continental water divide rested on the highest summits.

A proto-drainage system was formed. After several millions of years, a gradual cooling began, and the mountain tops began gathering more and more snow, which turned to ice and formed glaciers which then flowed downhill from these steep mountains into the valleys that separated them.

The glaciers, like gigantic bulldozers crunched the rock with their tremendous weight and abraded the valley floor and mountain slopes, making them wider and deeper and giving them the characteristic “U” shape of glacial valleys.

Ice age chronology at Nahuel Huapi

The first recorded Ice Age is the Pichileufu Glaciation named after the Pichileufu River which runs some 20 km south east of Bariloche city in a northern direction towards Limay River.

Remains of glacial drift (drift is any kind of rock transported by a glacier) have been found 350 to 500 meters above modern Lake Nahuel Huapi (up to 1,200 m above sea level – 3,900 ft.).

These glaciers were probably ice “lobes” that extended beyond the mountain range into the steppe, they were not very thick.[3]

This glaciation was followed by a long interglacial period during which the recently hewn glacial valleys were eroded by rainfall and rivers resulting in deeper and wider trenches. These would later serve as conduits for the glaciers during the following Ice Ages.[3]

The Andes in the meantime kept on pushing higher (1 – 0.8 million years ago) causing more ice to accumulate and defining the gradient along which ice would flow.

At about that time, the second glacial period (El Cóndor began. It reached eastwards towards the Atlantic Ocean, along the steppe and west right up to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Warming caused the glaciers to melt and retreat once more.

The final ice age or Nahuel Huapi glaciation began some 75,000 years ago; the ice sheets reached their maximum coverage some 20,000 years ago, when once again warming caused the ice to melt. Sporadic “Tardiglacial” advances some 10,000 years ago (during the period known as Younger Dryas in the Northern Hemisphere) puncutated the ice’s retreat.

Since then, the global warming trend has melted the valley glaciers in this area and permanent ice coverage can only be found on Mount Tronador (with several glaciers) and on the summits of other high mountains.[3]

Map showing extent of glacier coverage at Lake Nahuel Huapi. Copyright © 2007 by Austin Whittall. Adapted From [1].

Then there was water

It is not easy to imagine extensive sheets of ice at least 2 km (1.25 mi.) thick moving slowly downhill towards what is now the edge of the Patagonian steppe, some 100 km (60 mi.) from the Continental Divide. These were massive glaciers whose flow was guided by the valleys formed during previous glaciations and the blocking effect of transversal (north-south) mountain ranges.

The west – east slope down which the glaciers moved was blocked by these north-south ranges. In some places such as the current basin of Lake Nahuel Huapi (like most Patagonian lakes it has an east-west orientation) the ice managed to leave the Andes behind and push outwards along the steppe.

Glacial Ice melt helped to form the paleo-valleys of most modern rivers draining towards the Atlantic, such as the Colorado, Negro, Neuquén and Limay rivers. These flowed along pre-existing faults (such as the Negro river along the Huincul fault) or along the proto-rivers that drained the area before the Ice Ages.

Towards the end of the last Ice Age some 16,000 to 18,000 years ago, ice melt generated huge quantities of water that were dammed in by the former glacier’s terminal moraine.

Moraines are crescent shaped mounds or accumulations of rocks that can be found at glacier’s tips and sides (frontal and lateral moraines), they are the rocks “bulldozed” by the advancing ice and act as dams to the melting glacial ice.

Water accumulated in the great depression that the glaciers had excavated, flooding the whole basin and forming a lake, which is known as Elpalafquen (derived from the language of the local Mapuche natives: Elpa = the beginning and Lafquen = lake), the “lake of the beginning”.

Elpalafquen's water level was much higher than that of modern day Lake Nahuel Huapi and therefore this paleo-lake and covered a larger area than the current Lake Nahuel Huapi (which has a surface area of 550 km² or 212 sq.mi.).

It extended across current low-lying areas and meadows beyond what are now its shores, encompasing other lower lying lakes that now flow into Nahuel Huapi such as Lake Correntoso, Lake Espejo, Lake Moreno, Lakes Gutierrez and Mascardi among others.

Its eastern terminus was blocked by the natural dam of its terminal moraine. The excess water (melting snow on the surrounding mountains and rain) flowed over this moraine into what now is the Limay River and from there into the Negro River and on towards the Atlantic Ocean.

To the west, straddling the main Andean range, the melting ice cap still blocked the valleys that led to the Pacific Ocean. Later, a western outflow appeared along a paleo-River, the Lower Manso, which now drains part of this basin into the Pacific (the low lying Manso Pass, at 400 m above sea level [1,300 ft.] - 41º30’S, 71º50’W).

Breach and flood

About 13,200 years ago, melting was accelerated during the Late Pleistocene period and probably a sudden volcanic or tectonic event created a cataclysmic breach of the eastern moraine. The dam broke and vast quantities of water poured downstream along the Limay paleo-River valley. [4]

The western end also lost its ice “plug” at the same time and contributed to drastically drop Elpalafquen's level.

The outflow had several consequences:

1. The paleo-lake split up into several smaller ones (that we can still see nowadays).
2. Nahuel Huapi, the largest among them continued flowing into the Atlantic. Lakes Gutierrez, Moreno and Correntoso -among others- flowed downstream into the Nahuel Huapi.
3. Other lakes (Mascardi, Guillermo, Steffen, Hess, Fonck, etc. changed their drainage westwards into the Pacific Ocean. The continental divide had moved east far from the highest mountains, an anomaly that would later create tension between Argentina and Chile when they defined their mutual border in the late 1800s.
4. Devastation along the Limay and Negro river valleys which may have contributed to give them their current shape.

Shorter route for the "Plesiosaur"

Before this cataclysmic event it is very likely that Elpalafquen spilled east into the steppe, and that occasional large floods of glacial melt origin swept through that region. Perhaps it had a small outlet flowing due east with a constant flow.

There is an elevated region, with several ridges running north to south to the east of Lake Nahuel Huapi, these are the sources of several rivers, some that drain north into the Limay basin (Comallo and Pichi Leufu rivers), others south towards the Chubut basin and others west into Nahuel Huapi.

They are not to high (roughly 1,000 m – 3,300 ft.) so a flooded Elpalafquen could well have overflowed and washed across them draining into the lower lands that lie to the east and that currently drains into a closed basin (see my posts on this area's Lake Carrilafquen, home to a "cuero" monster).

This idea was put forward by Casamiquela [2], who wrote about the geology of the Huahuel Niyeo River valley, which, according to him [2] is “one of the stretches of the 'ancient Limay River Valley'”. He adds that this Limay paleo-river, instead of following its current SW-NE course, may drained eastwards and carried Andean rocks and gravel (“rodados tehuelches”) into the area, during a “great deglaciation”.

The gravel trail

These Patagonian gravels (known in Spanish as “rodados patagónicos” or “rodados tehuelches” cover most of the surface of Patagonia, it is a layer of gravel which can reach a thickness of tens of meters (hundreds of feet) composed of boulders and pebbles of a wide range of sizes.

which was first mentioned by Charles Darwin who was intrigued by them as he had seen them in northern Patagonia (by the Negro and Colorado rivers) and again in the south at Deseado and Santa Cruz rivers. He wrote:

By whatever means the gravel formation of Patagonia may have been distributed, the vastness of its area, its thickness, its superficial position, its recent origin, and the great degree of similarity in the nature of its pebbles all appear to me well deserving the attention of geologists, in relation to the origin of the wide-spread beds of conglomerate belonging to past epochs [5]

Darwin believed that in ancient times erosion (ice, water) had deposited vast amounts of pebbles at the foot of the Andes which were then spread out across Patagonia by the sea (wave action), which he believed covered most of Patagonia. As the continent rose, the gravel came above sea level.

Darwin's theory is not favored nowadays, but even today the origin of this gravel is debated. The general consensus is that they originated during the Pleistocene epoch, during the glaciations, which eroded and worked the rocks and boulders into these egg shaped stones. Water from ice melt (rivers, streams and floods) later dragged them across Patagonia.

As the following map shows, these gravels are found virtually everywhere and mostly following the courses of current rivers (the middle course of Chubut River as well as Limay and Neuquén rivers are exceptions. Why?). They are also found along the sea shore (perhaps due to oceanic dispersion of gravel washed into the ocean by the rivers).

Distribution of Patagonian Gravel and the hypothetical Elpalafquen river. Copyright © 2010 by Austin Whittall. Adapted from [7].

Did Eplalafquen drain eastwards along the northern foot of Somuncurá plateau in a broad arch through what are now closed basins fed streams that flowed north from the plateau? Could it have reached what is now the bay of San Antonio in the Gulf of San Matías?

The distribution of Patagonian gravel in the map shows that it may be possible (note the curved red line of the hypothetical river that drained Elpalafquen – shown as a red circle), furthermore it explains the gravel spread to the southeast of Elpalafquen.

There are some areas along the river's course that lack gravel (i.e. San Antonio on the Atlantic.) but here, marine transgression has placed sediment above the gravel.

The course of this river would roughly coincide with National Highway No. 23 and the Railroad that connects Bariloche with San Antonio Oeste. This is quite obvious as both road and tracks run along the lower lying areas north of Somuncurá plateau, which is where the river would have been in post-glacial times.

Somuncurá is home to a strange relict fish, the naked minnow.

If so, this hypothetical river would have followed the course shown in red in the following map. I have also shown (red circle) the approximate area that the paleo-lake would have occupied and its southwestern drainage through the Manso River into Chile.

Elpalafquen's river draining towards the Atlantic. Copyright © 2010 by Austin Whittall

This river would have been very short lived (decades? centuries?) and when the Limay plug broke, the lower water level at Nahuel Huapi maked its end. Perhaps intermitent flow from Carilafquen paleo-lake could have kept it flowing for longer, but the link with the Andean lakes would have been severed.

Proof. The native myths.

The native myth mentioned by Clemente Onelli in his 1903 book (he got it from first hand sources before the local natives traditions became lost forever). I will quote him fully:

I descended into a fertile and wide canyon that extends till it is out of sight towards the east and whose other tip, on the lake is now blocked by glacier hills; the native tradition says that, in very old times, along this gully a river flowed, it exited the lake [Nahuel Huapi] and reached the sea in front of the gulf of San Antonio [Gulf of San Matías]. [6]

Ancient maps offer additional proof, I will post on them in my next entry. By the way, there are several "missing" or "lost" rivers in Patagonia, I will post on them too.

The sea monster

Having said all this, it could be reaonably possible this direct route along a hypothetical Elpalafquen drainage river would join the Ocean to the Andes. It would also be a far shorter than that of the Negro and Limay rivers. This is, I believe an interesting option and has some reasonable proof in its favor.

Now the "low probability" events:

If so, this Elpalafquen river could also have allowed some mysterious sea creature to swim upstream to the newborn glacial paleo-lake and make it its abode.

This would require an extant plesiosaur that somehow managed to survive extinction, reproduce and live in the oceans some 65 million years and then, during the small temporal window of this river's existence, find it and swim upstream to paleo-Lake Nahuel Huapi an adapt to a freshwater environment. Perhaps an impregnated female would suffice or to keep the species alive, a male and female couple would be required.

Yes, the chances of this happening are virtually nil.

Bibliography.

[1] Kodama, K., Rabassas, J., Evenson, E., Clinch, M.(1986). Paleomagnetismo y edad relativa del drift Pichileufu en su area tipo, San Carlos de Bariloche, Rio Negro. Asociación Geológica Argentina, Revista. XLI (1-2): 165-178. Fig. 1. pp. 167.
[2] Casamiquela, R., (1969). Historia Geologica del Valle de Huahuel Niyeo Area Extraandina del Suroeste de la Provincia de Rio Negro, República Argentina (Con énfasis en el Pleistoceno). Asociación Geológica Argentina, Revista. Jul-Sep. pp. 287+
[3] Planas, F. (2009)Las glaciaciones en el norte de la Patagonia Desde la Patagonia difundiendo saberes. V. 6 - Nº 9. Online.
[4] Del Valle, R., Tatur, A., Rinaldi, C. (2007) 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.
[5] Darwin, C., (1851). Geological observations on coral reefs, volcanic islands and on South America: being the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, during the years 1833 to 1836. Smith, Elder & Co., pp. 25.
[6] Onelli, C., (2007). Trepando los Andes (1903. Buenos Aires: Ed. Continente. pp. 33
[7] Martinez, O., Rabassa, J., Coronato A., (2009). Charles Darwin and the first scientific observations on the patagonian shingle formation (Rodados Patagónicos). Rev. Asoc. Geol. Argent. v.64 n.1 Buenos Aires abr. 2009

Further reading

Caldenius, C. 1932. Las glaciaciones cuaternarias en la Patagonia y T. del Fuego. Dir. Gral. Minas y Geología, Publ. 95, 150 pp., Buenos Aires
Feruglio, E. 1949-1950. Descripcion geologica de la Patagonia. T.3, YPF, Buenos Aires
Fidalgo, F., 1982. Glaciaciones en la Patagonia. INQUA Comm. Litol. & Genesis Quat. Depos., South Amer. Reg. Meet. Excursión Fieldbook, p. 9-29, J. Rabassa, de., Departamento de Geografia, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Neuqu´n.
Rabassa, J. 1974. Geologia de la región de Pilcaniyeu-Comallo, Pcia. de Río Negro, Argentina. Tesis doctoral N. 331, Facultad de Cienc. Nat. y Museo, Univ. Nac de La Plata y Publ. N. 17, Depto. Rec. Nat. Energia, Fundacion Bariloche: 128, San Carlos de Bariloche.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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