Feral cattle – wild bulls & lake creatures

 

Cows and horses[*] were unknown to the native Americans until the Spaniards introduced them during the conquest; they had never been seen by the natives before and the fear or surprise that these beasts caused could have deeply impressed them, inspiring the many myths involving bulls and magic Calimayo horses.

[*] See our post on the possible survival of supposedly extinct pre-Hispanic horses.

Cattle frequently ran wild because they escaped from their enclosures and returned to their natural untamed ways in the Andean forests. Their mythical charm may have been heightened by their ferocious character: wild cattle are bad, mean and dangerous beasts.

Patagonian Creole Bull. "The father of the Herd". From [2].

English explorer Musters (in 1869/70) had a nasty experience in what is now Chubut province, at the fork where Huemul and Carrenleufu rivers merge. He took part of an ill fated wild cattle hunt in which a bull killed a horse, dismounted its Indian rider and trampled Musters breaking two of his ribs.[1]

The wide range of “bull-like” creatures reported at several Patagonian lakes (see our posts on these Lake Bulls, could actually be a real bull or cow inside a lake.

Feral (i.e. wild) cattle have often been seen in Patagonia close to the water, frolicking in the lakes; Prichard at Lake Argentino (1901) saw an “old yellow bull knee-deep in the lake, drinking”.[2]


How did these wild European cows get into Patagonia?

There were no cows in America when the Spaniards arrived, all were brought from Spain. The first cattle were introduced into Argentina in 1549, they reached the Pampas in the 1580s and found a very favorable habitat for expansion. They moved southwards towards Patagonia where natural selection and tough environmental constraints shaped them into a new variety, the “Creole” breed.

Cattle was taken into Patagonia in 1781 to the town of Floridablanca, at San Julián (49°18’ S, 67°42’ W), which was soon abandoned.[3]

Cattle was also taken to a Spanish settlement at Valdés Peninsula (42°28’ S, 64°28’ W), from where they moved westwards towards the Andes after the Tehuelche and Mapuche raided and destroyed the colony in 1810.[4]

The Spanish towns in Chile’s Arauco region, razed in the first wars with the Mapuche (1598-1641) and the abandoned Jesuit Missions in northern Patagonia also had cattle which ran wild in the Andean forests.

All of these stray cows and bulls were the founders of the Patagonian breed of Creole cattle that still survives in some isolated spots of Patagonia in a wild state.

Amazing wild Patagonian cows

One of these spots where wild Creole cows can be found is the “Los Glaciares” National Park in southwestern Santa Cruz Province where they live in the mountains between Lake Argentino’s fjords and the Southern Continental Ice Field.

This population of wild cows is unique because it has adapted extremely well to the tough cold climate by the glaciers where it freezes to below -10°C in winter (14°F). They are the only group of cows in the world with this ability to resist the cold.

However, being exotic animals, Creole cows harm the environment; they trample and eat the saplings and young sprouts of the local trees and feed on the lichens that grow on the rocks. They also compete against the huemul and guanaco displacing them in their foraging activities.

They have been studied by a team from an Argentine University (Universidad Nacional de Lomas de Zamora) who noted that in less than a century, the short tough hair of the Argentine Creole cattle evolved into a thick fur that can measure up to 10 cm (4 in.) in winter, shortening to 2 cm (0.8 in.) in summer.[5] This shaggy coat gives them a yak-like look and protects them from the cold.

Patagonian Creole Bull. Online source unknown

Prichard, who hunted wild cows in this same area, said that the “As a rule, wild cattle avoid open ground” seeking the protection of the woods.[4] It is in the forests that they can be formidable and dangerous opponents; they are fearsome creatures whose long horns are similar to those of the ancient European uro.

Bagual cattle

Though they were hunted to extinction in Chile they still exist in northern Chilean Patagonian folk tales; at Osorno, there is a Laguna del Toro (Bull’s Lagoon), with the legend of a “bagual” bull that threw himself into its waters preferring suicide to death at the hands of its hunters.

Bagual is a word used in Chile and Argentina referring to wild Patagonian cows and horses. They were also known as “animales lobos” or “wolf animals”, an intriguing name as, “officially” there are no wolves in the whole of South America; however, at our post on Patagonian wolves, there may have been wolves in Patagonia. And these could have inspired the name. Alternatively, there is a strange wolfish bovine, the lobo-toro or wolf-bull, which we will mention in our next post.

Bibliography

[1] Musters, G. Op. Cit. pp. 146 - 148.
[2] Prichard, H. Op. Cit. pp. 239. Plate facing pp. 230.
[3] Martínez, R., et al., (2000). El ganado bovino criollo en Argentina. Archivos de zootecnia v. 49, N° 187:354. 09-2000.
[4] Prichard, H. Op. Cit. pp. 233 and 244.
[5] Bavera, G., (2006). El pelaje del bovino y su importancia en la producción. Chap VII:8.

Check out Prichard's book online! our quotes can be found on pp. 229 and 234:





Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

Pudu Pudu - World's smallest deer

 

Pudu pudu (Pudu Puda)

The world’s smallest deer lives in the Patagonian forests. It stands only 38 cm (15 in.) high at the shoulder and 85 cm (2.8 ft.) long ; it weighs about 10 kg (22 lb.). Males have small antlers barely 10 cm (4 in.) long.

Pudu is a very vulnerable species and only a few thousand of them survive in the open.

They are also unique because they can go a long time without drinking water, getting the needed moisture from plants.

Pudu Pudu. By Eduardo Ramilo.

Further reading:

Cites. Pudu Pudu (English)
Ecología y conservación del Pudú Pudu (Pudu Puda, Molina 1782). (Spanish).


Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

"Patagonian Dragon" the Andiperla willinki

 

Andiperla willinki is a very rate insect belonging to the order of Plecoptera, commonly known as stoneflies. Its common name is "Patagonian Dragon" (I do not know why).

They are widely distributed around the world and over 1,500 species have been recorded. They are winged insects and belong to one of the most primitive groups of this kind of insect.

Andiperla willinki "Patagonian Dragon". From [6]

Today we are posting about one of these, belonging to the Gripopterygiidae family, the Andiperla willinki or Patagonian Dragon was first described in 1956 by French biologist Aubert Willink, based on a specimen found at the Upsala Glacier in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina.[1] (More on Patagonian glaciers Here.)

This creature is indeed incredible because, unlike the other members of the order, (which are winged insects), this one is wholly apterous (has no wings), it does not need them as it is well adapted to its very special environment.[2]

Furthermore it also lacks ocelli (tiny eyes) but it has well developed eyes (large) which help it see in the dimly lit habitat that it has adapted to.[2]

Though it can be found under stones in the Southern Patagonian Andes up to a height of 1,000 m (3,300 ft.), [2] its most incredible environment is the Southern Ice fields in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Recently it has also been found in other lakes and glaciers close by such as Moreno and Viedma and in Paine, Chile.

Andiperla willinki "Patagonian Dragon". From [4]

This tiny insect barely 20 mm long (0.8 in.) it lives its whole life within the ice of the Glaciers of the Souhtern Ice Field. It eats the tiny algae that live in the ice.

To avoid freezing, its body has a natural anti-freeze based on glycerol (similar to what is used in our car’s cooling systems to avoid it bursting when temperatures drop below freezing point).

They have the peculiarity of lacking empodia (tiny claws at the tip of their legs), a feature found only in one other stonefly species in the whole world, the R. nudipes. This may be due to the fact that both species live in cold mountainous areas and the lack of empodia may help them conserve heat in their frigid habitat.[5]

A French documentary team found it in the icy water at the Chilean National Park of Torres del Paine, 40 m (130 ft.) below the surface in a crevasse filled with freezing water.[3]

Little is known of them, and further study is necessary.

Bibliography.

[1] Willink, Aubert (1956). Plécoptére nouveau des Andes de Patagonie. Mitteilungen der Schweizerischen Entomologischen Gesellschaft 29 pp. 229-252.
[2] Mani, S., (1968). Ecology and biogeography of high altitude insects. Springer. v.4. pp.401.
[3] Documental filmado en patagonia chilena logra doble reconocimiento. 09.11.2005.
[4] Khoshima Laboratory.
[5] McLellan, I., D. Rakiuraperla nudipes McLellan 1977.
[6] Heckman, C., (2003). Encyclopedia of South American aquatic insects: Plecoptera. Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dodrecht. pp.232


Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

Real Creatures - Pouched Lamprey

 

Another strange but real animal that can be found in Patagonia is the Pouched Lamprey or Geotria australis Gray, shown in the image below.

Pouched Lamprey (Geotria australis). From [1].

This lamprey lives only in the Southern Hemisphere, in Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina (just like the Nothofagus trees, it is a relict of the ancient continent of Gondwana).

It is an anadromic species, that is, it breeds in fresh water and then migrates to the sea where it lives and matures.

This lamprey can be found in Patagonia, both in Chile and Argentina and its average length is about 50 cm (20 inches).

They swim upstream to breed (like salmons) and sometimes they exit the water by wriggling up the bank to bypass obstacles to migration. During their brief life as adults in freshwater, they stop feeding and die shortly after spawning.[3][4]

It is vulnerable to the salmonids (brown, rainbow, brook trout and salmon) that were introduced into Patagonia in the early 1900s.

Argentine Explorer Ramón Lista, was the first to report them in Lake Argentino, Lake Nahuel Huapi in the 1880s.[2]

Bibliography.

[1] Photograph in an Online Gallery Here, the original source is: Pez Raro del Limay - Novedades, see it Here.
[2] Berg, C.,(1895) Sobre peces de agua dulce nuevos ó poco conocidos de la República Argentine. Anales del Museo Nacional de Buenos Aires. B. Aires: Imprenta Juan Alsina. Vol. IV. pp. 5.
[3] Geotria Australis
[4] Geotria Australis Gray 1851



Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

The enigmatic Malvinas (Falklands) fox-wolf or warrah

 

The Malvinas (Falkland) Islands fox-wolf, was unique, it lived cut-off from the world on a remote group of islands.

Charles Darwin surprised by its isolation, wrote that “as far as I am aware, there is no other instance in any part of the world, of so small a mass of broken land, distant from a continent, possessing so large a quadruped peculiar to itself”. [1]

It also holds the sad distinction of being the only species of canid to have become extinct in modern times (Canidae are a family that includes wolves, jackals, foxes, the domestic dog and the coyote).

Warrah. A 1838 engraving from Darwin's Zoology of the Beagle. From [7].

Known as warrah or guará (Dusicyon australis) the fox-wolf of the Malvinas (Falkland Islands) belonged to the same genus as the domestic dog, the wolf and the coyote.

A veritable Patagonian wolf, it probably evolved from a now extinct South American wolf taxa, the Theriodictis and Protocyon.[2]

Though slightly smaller than a wolf, it was much larger than the Patagonian fox, measuring 1,2 to 1,6 m (4 to 5 ft.) from the tip of its snout to the tip of its tail. Its legs were also shorter than those of a wolf, measuring 60 cm [24 in.] at the shoulder. It had a large wolfish head and thick fur to protect it from the islands’ harsh cold weather; it barked just like a dog.

It was named by the Argentine gauchos who lived on the islands until they were forcefully occupied by the British in 1833. They found it similar to northern Argentina’s Maned wolf or aguará guazú (Chrysocyon brachyurus), an unrelated canid species. The name was later corrupted into its Spanish (guará) and English names (warrah).

Their isolation was, in the end, their downfall. Being the only predator on the islands, and lacking human contact, they were fearless and curious. Their scientific name Dusicyon australis reflects this, as it means in Latin “foolish dog of the south”, alluding to its lack of fear of man, who first arrived at the islands in the early 1600s.

Captain FitzRoy who visited the islands in the 1830s remarked about their daring “all who have seen these animals alive have been struck by their eager ferocity and disregard of man's power”, as did Byron (of Wager Island fame) “four creatures of great fierceness, resembling wolves, ran up to their bellies in the water to attack the boat!”.[3]

Darwin’s prophetic words “Within a very few years […] this fox will be classed with the dodo, as an animal which has perished from the face of the earth”,[1] were fulfilled in less than half a century.

The warrah was hunted to extinction by the island’s shepherd settlers who considered it a predator of their herds of sheep. The last one is said to have died in 1873.[4]

All that remains of them are a couple of jaws, eleven skulls, six stuffed furs and two embalmed foxes stored in different museums around the world.

Its origin. Unsolved mystery.

A mystifying point is how a large wolf-like predator could have evolved on the small and isolated Malvinas Islands more than 450 km (280 mi.) from the Patagonian mainland, completely surrounded by the icy and windswept waters of the South Atlantic Ocean.

Several theories have been put forward.

One proposes that its ancestors somehow drifted across the ocean on icebergs from the Patagonian ice fields.

A second theory suggests that it is the only survivor of the well-stocked pre-glacial forests that once covered the islands. At that time, about 2 million years ago, during the Pleistocene, when the islands were joined to the mainland by a land bridge, because the sea level was lower, the Warrah’s ancestors could have simply walked across. This does not explain why other animals (ñandú, guanaco or puma), or even humans did not also cross to the islands. Though, perhaps they did and died out.

A more likely option is that a group of Paleo-Indians that would later evolve into the Fuegians, who had domesticated these Patagonian foxes, took them on their canoes to the Islands. Some of these fox-dogs may have stayed behind after their masters departed or died out, and somehow adapted and survived there. However there is no evidence of the Patagonian boat people having visited these islands.

Their origin is still debated though recent DNA studies have found that its closest relative is the coyote and that it is quite distant genetically from the other South American foxes and the Aguará guazú.[5]

Read my post on Patagonian wolves.

Extinct?

An unreferenced Online source[6] mentions “news notices” during the 1982 Malvinas (Falklands) war between Argentina and Britain that spoke of a living canid that attacked the islands’ sheep.

So it may be barely possible that some of the warrah’s genes have survived through interbreeding between the last of the fox-wolves and the Border Collie type of sheep dogs brought to the islands by the Scottish shepherds.

UPDATE - Sept. 20, 2010.

Today I posted on some recent findings regarding the warrah's origin and a possible tie to the Maned Wolf and the Dusicyon avus.

Bibliography

[1] Darwin, C., (1987). The Voyage of the Beagle. Ware: Woodsworth Editions. pp. 185.
[2] Berta, A., (1987). Origin, diversification, and zoogeography of the South American Canidae. Fieldiana: Zoology 39, 455-471.
[3] FitzRoy, R. Op. Cit. vii. pp. 251.
[4] Skottsberg, C., (1911). The wilds of Patagonia; a narrative of the Swedish expedition to Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands in 1907-1909. New York: Mac Millan. pp. 13.
[5] Serpell, J., (1995). The domestic dog: its evolution, behaviour, and interactions with people. Cambridge University.Press. pp. 13.
[6] Drinnon, D., (2007). Honshu Wolf Survival? (Comments). Cryptomundo.com. Online.
[7] Darwin, C., ed. (1838). Mammalia. The zoology of the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle... Part 2 No. 1. Plate depicting the: Falkland wolf (Dusicyon australis). Original description: Canis antarcticus.


Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

The Fuegian “dog”

 

Another incredible and real creature was the Fuegian or Yagán “dog”. It was a small fox-sized “dog”, which is now extinct but, and this is the only case in the whole world, this “dog” resulted from the domesticaton of the culpeo; a type of South American fox (Pseudalopex culpaeus).

All other dogs around the world descend from domesticated wolves dating back several thousand years ago, the Fuegian case is different, they descend not from wolves but from foxes.

Lucas Bridges described them as “a very stunted cross between an Alsatian police dog and a wolf”.[1]

In the words of French Captain Marital who headed the 1883 scientific expedition to Cape Horn, it was “ugly, with long tawny hair and a sharp snout, it looks quite like the fox […] mainly when hunting otters is where this dog is very useful to its master”.[2]

They were big dogs, and weighed up to 35kg (77 lb).[3]

Stuffed Fuegian dog. At the Museo Mayorino Borgatello, Punta Arenas, Chile.[6]

Julius Popper –infamous for his massacres of Selk’nam people (at that time known as Ona), said that it had upright ears and thick tail, looking quite like the fox, although its color is sometimes totally white”.[4]

He pointed out its lack of loyalty to men “I never saw them, no matter how large their number, take an aggressive attitude or defend their masters when these were in danger”.[4]

He also noted that they were useless to hunt guanaco. Yet, he thought that he had found their usefulness:

the dogs placed themselves in a group around the small Onas, taking the shape of a kind of wrapping […] my opinion is that the fuegian dogs are only useful to complete the defective garment of the Indian, or better, as the Ona’s heating furniture.[4]

When Salesian father Gusinde began visiting the Yagans in 1919 their dogs had disappeared, they had been exterminated because they “were dangerous to men and cattle”.[5]

Their fierce nature had also been noticed by Reverend Thomas Bridges in the 1880s, who wrote that they attacked his Mission’s goats.[5]

Bibliography.

[1] Bridges, L., (2008). Op. Cit. pp.97.
[2] Martial, L., (2005). Mision al Cabo de Hornos, la expedición científica francesa en la Romanche Julio de 1882 a setiembre de 1883. Ushuaia: Zaguier & Urruty Publications . pp. 225.
[3] Emperaire, J., and Oyarzún, L., (2002). Los nomades del mar. Santiago: Lom Ediciones. pp. 195
[4] Popper, J., (1887). Expedición Popper. [Conferencia]. Instituto Geográfico Militar. 05.03.1887. Museo del Fin del Mundo, Biblioteca Virtual.
[5] Orquera, L. and Piana, E. (1999). La vida material y social de los Yámana. B. Aires: EUDEBA. pp 178-180.
[6] El diario de Camilongo. Online.

Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

The "Naked Minnow" or scaleless characid

 

One characteristic of fish is having scales; however, not all fish have them, some, like Patagonia’s “naked minnow” lost them to adapt to its very peculiar habitat.

Though not a cryptid this creature is so strange and unique that I have decided to include it here among the weird creatures of Patagonia. I will post about other real Patagonian animals (some regrettably extinct) like the warrah or the Fuegian dog.

The naked minnow was discovered by Carlos Berg in the late 1800s and described by Fritz Steindachner in 1903, who named it Gymnocharacinus bergii.

The naked minnnow (in Spanish Mojarra desnuda) is a stenothermic teleost fish, a relict of bygone times, whose habitat is restricted to the headwaters of Valcheta Stream.

Stenothermic: organisms that can only live within a narrow range of temperatures. Teleosts: one of the three major groups of bony fish, most of which have scales.

Naked minnow (Gymnocharacinus bergii) or scaleless characid.
By Fritz Steindachner (1903).[2]

Valcheta is a short brook which has its sources on the northern slopes of Somuncurá plateau in the Argentine province of Rio Negro. It flows only 75 km (47 mi.) before draining into a salt flat known as Laguna Curicó, in the Great Valcheta depression. Its flow is intermittent and temporary along most of its course and its discharge averages only 1,5 m³/sec (52 cu. ft./sec.).

See its location on this map, where it can be seen running diagonally above the word "Negro".

Its basin is closed (endorheic) and has no connection whatsoever with other rivers or the sea. It is fed by the little rain and snow that fall on the Somuncurá Plateau, a 25,000 km² (9,650 sq. mi.) volcanic tableland that stands about 700 m (2,300 ft.) above the surrounding Patagonian steppe.

(See my post on a hypothetical river that may have connected Lake Nahuel Huapi region with Somuncuráa and the Atlantic Ocean in post-glacial times).

The plateau was isolated during the Ice Ages from the warmer regions to the north, and like “Noah’s Ark” it safeguarded a small group of animals -like the naked minnow- that then evolved separately from their main populations.

The minnows are small, measuring only 10 cm [4 in.] long. When young they have very tiny, soft and delicate scales which, during adulthood are reabsorbed by their skin, which acquires a spongy appearance. This loss of scales is an adaptation to the lack of predators in their habitat; they don’t need the scales to protect them.

It is a relict species from the warmer tropical climate that prevailed in Patagonia until the Andes rose and it is closely related to Tropical fish such as the piranha. It managed to survive the cold Patagonian weather thanks to Valcheta stream’s unique conditions.[1]

The stream’s sources are warm thermal springs, with a constant year round temperature of about 26°C [79°F]. The minnow lives there, in the warm headwaters and is not found downstream or, anywhere else in the world.

It is endangered and only a few thousands of them live in the stream. Salmonids (brook trout and rainbow trout) introduced into Valcheta in 1941 as well as human use of water for irrigation, are a serious threat for them. Declared a National Monument in 1994, it is being actively protected and recently nets have been set up to keep the trout out of the minnow’s habitat.

Bibliography.

[1] Menni, R., and Gómez, S., (1995). On the habitat and isolation of Gymnocharacinus bergi (Osteichthyes: Characidae). Environmental Biology of Fishes. v.42-No.1 / 01-1995: 15-23. DOI 10.1007/BF00002346.
[2] López, H. L., Mantinian, J. E. and Ponte Gómez, J., (2008). Peces continentales de la Argentina: Iconografía. Gymnocharacinus bergii. ProBiota, FCNyM, UNLP, Serie Técnica-Didactica, La Plata, Argentina, 12: 1-19. ISSN 1515-9329.

Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters