Manta rays and sightings in lake Nahuel Huapi

Yesterday's post mentioned the movie "Bajo Superficie" (Under the Surface), which you can see online (full movie, in Spanish). After watching the movie, I looked for some additional information about it, and its director, and I came across an interesting interview, brief but revealing (Source). Below are some highlights:

The film's director, Miguel Ángel Rossi has lived in Bariloche for 35 years, while preparing the documentary, he interviewed many people over four years of research. They shared interesting stories, seldom disclosed in the media. Rossi said:

"What impressed me most during these years of research and gathering testimonies was the sense of awe for the phenomenon. Ninety-nine percent of them spoke to me without fear, wanting to see it again," Rossi said of the experiences he's received from people who claimed to have seen "Nahuelito..."

Two die colliding with the creature

But 1% of those who saw the creature felt fear. Rossi mentioned an incident:

"A woman told me the story of when they went fishing with her husband and son. The lake was flat and suddenly something came out of the lake, like the back of a whale, hit the boat, and they both died. Given that story, what can I say?"

I had never heard about this episode, so I looked it up. There are quite a few reports of small boats sinking in the lake (mostly due to wind, rocks, poorly maintained craft), and one is about a father and his son (online) about two men who drowned in June 2004, Rafael Sánchez (59 años) and his son Rafael Fernando (13), close to Gallinas Island. They had gone in a "precarious boat" with a small 5 HP motor to hunt deer on the north coast of the lake. The man's wife, and mother of the boy, called the local "911" asking for help, when they didn't return (her name is Celina Sánchez). The man's friends said he was an expert in navigating and new the area well, however they could not believe that he had set out in "a craft that was in such bad conditions". Coast Guard said the boat must have had some problem while crossing the lake between San Pedro Peninsula and Gallinas Island heading from the Castilla creek in Neuquén to Bahía Serena. Both men tried to reach the island swimming, but drowned. The bodies were found at a depth of 8 to 11 meters, wearing cloths and boots. The boat must have been overturned by the strong wind and 1 m (3 ft.) high waves. The boat was found on some rocks by the island, without its outboard engine, damaged by the stones, and an oar and three cork (!!) life jackets were found on the beach.

I have been fishing on the lake many times over the years, I remember my Dad have us take of our boots (it is cold in Bariloche, especially in the early hours of the morning, when we went fishing) and kept the lifejackets handy, even if the lake was calm. When the wind blows, it can get quite choppy. And even with a 90 HP outboard, it is rough navigating it. I can't imagine trying to cross the middle of the lake with one-meter-tall waves with a 5 HP outboard. They should have stayed in a sheltered spot. I don't believe they struck Nahuelito. They were caught by the waves, and being dressed, without a lifejacket, they were weighed down. Being June (winter!) the water is cold, and the wind chill-factor made hypothermia a deadly factor. They couldn't reach the shore and drwoned. No lake creature.

Stingrays

As expected, he also heard about the manta ray sighting, he mentioned it during the interview " The Coast Guard [Prefectura Naval] divers reported seeing fish shaped like manta rays" and they refused to get back into the water.

This "stingray" incident is shown in the movie (See movie segment: 1:17:05 in its timeline), reported by a man who was the commander of the Bariloche Gendarmería (Border Patrol) squadron. He mentions the incident involving a plane that crashed in Lake Gutierrez on January 27, 1986. The plane was a "scooper plane" that picked up water in the lake during firefighting missions. It had been leased in Chile, and was a Catalina CC-CCS/34, one of the crew died. The divers were sent to rescue the corpse. And in the movie, the person says they "saw giant manta rays and had to desist in their mission" he heard about this from his colleague, the head of the local Coast Guard division.

The plane that crashed in Jan 1986. Source

The director also mentionded that he had an encounter with the creature: "I'm certain there's something there, and we need to identify it ... One day I saw something shaped like a log, but it moved very quickly, sank, and then came up again. It was between 5 or 6 meters long (15 to 20 ft) and very dark brown.""

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

Freshwater stingray sighted in Lake Nahuel Huapi - or was it a catfish?

I have posted on the "cuero" myth of the Mapuche natives, which is a creature that resembles a stingray (see my posts here). I mentioned some reports of freshwater stingrays in the region (Northern Patagonia) as an explanation for the myth.

However there are no scientific records of freshwater stingrays in Patagonia.

Today I came across a newspaper report published in January 2014 in Bariloche 2000, which mentions a sighting of a ray in lake Nahuel Huapi

"The neighbor René Zuker said he saw a ray in the waters of Lake Nahuel Huapi, in Villa La Angostura. The fisherman shared a photograph with B2000... [see photo below]... 'I think that it it a freshwater stingray and not a manta ray' René stated after verifying the information on the Internet... he reported that he was on the pier at Bahia Mansa and spotted the animal at a depth of 6 meters approximately. 'At first sight I didn't notice it, then I saw that it moved and I took the photograph quickly' he said, and he explained that as he is a photography fan, he carries his camera with him wherever he goes.
[he] told us that it is not the first time that he sees an animal of this kind: 40 years ago, on the shore of the lake, meters from the Limay River [the outlet of Lake Nahuel Huapi] he saw a ray which he described as follows: 'it was the size of my hand, almost just born, and it was being eaten by some bugs, and it drew my attention, it was half rotten".

Ray in Lake Nahuel Huapi. By Rene Zuker

There are no rays, but the lake, and Northern Patagonia is the home to one of the oldest catfish familiess, the Diplomystidae. Not many people know that these fish live in the lakes and rivers of Patagonia. Most are aware of trout, salmon and perch, but not these catfish, pictured below:

They live in Chile and Argentina in the same region where the "Cuero" myth appeared (is that a coincidence?) - see maps below

The map above shows Patagonia in green, the oval is the area where the Cuero myth was popular among the Mapuche natives. In Yellow is the area where you can find freshwater stingrays.

Below is the current distribution of velvet catfish:

Of course a ray and a catfish are different, yet, a fish 6 meters (18 feet) underwater will appear larger than it is due to the refraction of light at the water-air interface (roughly 1.33 times larger than it really is):

The fossil record tells us that catfish have been living in Patagonia since the Eocene, tens of millions of years ago. The Diplomystidae or "velvet catfish" are quite special: they are the basal clade of all catfish, they are the only catfish to have a maxilla (bony jaw) with teeth on it. Furthermore, they are only found in Chile and Argentina.

The only problem with trying to identify the Nahuel Huapi catfish (Diplomystes viedmensis - also known as Olivaichthys viedmensis) with a gigantic freswater stingray is the size. The catfish are barely 30 cm long (one foot). However catfish (sliuridae) can grow into giants: the Siluris glanis can measure 5 meters long (15 feet), and one catfish caught in the Mekong river (source and photo) weighed 646 lbs and measured 8.9 ft long (293 kg - 2.7 m).

Maybe there are some very big catfish in Lake Nahuel Huapi... or who knows, perhaps some yet to be discovered freshwater stingray.

For now all we have is a blurred photo of a dark fish in the lake's clear blue waters.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2019 by Austin Whittall © 

Stingray - El Cuero

Sting Ray at an aquarium. Copyright © 2012 by Austin Whittall

I have posted that the Cuero, a mythical lake creature that is said to inhabit Patagonian lakes is a freshwater stingray.
I got to see one recently during my vacations (not in Patagonia or Argentina by the way), swimming in a salt water aquarium.

I took some photographs, one of them is posted above. It is quite an impressive being, moving slowly, gliding through the water. Notice that it has had its barb cut off to avoid harming the keepers.

It is quite likely that a creature such as this gave rise to the Cuero myth.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia
 Copyright 2009-2012 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 ©