![]() ![]() Pat suggested stories among the natives of the Mapinguari may be legends passed down from actual encounters their ancestors made with this animal thousands of years ago. If it exists, it is probably a mylodon species of sloth related to Harlan’s ground sloth which used to inhabit southeastern North America during the Pleistocene. The sloths also have an odor that is said to be incapacitating, making for an additional defense mechanism besides their size, armor, and claws. Fruits and leaves brought down by the sloths when they tear trees apart may be a convenient source of food for the peccaries as well. Perhaps, they forage on the same plant species and mutually attack predators for the Indians claim the sloth is the peccary’s protector. Apparently, giant ground sloths move together with herds of the vicious white lipped peccary. If the locals are telling the truth though, some interesting characteristics of giant ground sloths have come to light that we could never gain from just their skeletal remains. Without positive physical evidence I remain doubtful that it is still extant even in the Amazon rain forest. Harlan’s ground sloth was the species of mylodon sloth that lived during the Pleistocene in southeastern North America. ![]() The creatures the natives in Brazil describe sounds like a mylodon type of giant ground sloth. Illustration of Harlan’s ground sloth from google images. A poor Indian would surely understand the value of an unusual animal, particularly the monetary reward he could get by selling it to science. However, he didn’t save any part of the animal because supposedly it smelled horrific, making his story doubtful in my opinion. Pat showed the hunter pictures of various mammals, and the hunter pointed out an illustration of a giant ground sloth as the animal he killed. ![]() This makes sense (if it actually happened) because ground sloths had armor, like their close relatives the armadilloes, under thick fur that could perhaps protect them from bullets to the body. The hunter reported that his gun shots to the body had no effect, but eventually he killed it with a shot to its head. Pat Spain of the National Geographic Series, The Beastmaster, interviewed a man who even claims to have shot and killed one, and his description of the event is consistent with what one would expect from an encounter with a ground sloth. They say it is large, has long arms, red fur, long claws, and leaves foot prints with 3 toes. The locals description of an animal they refer to as Mapinguari sounds just like a 3-toed giant ground sloth. I’m skeptical that a large mammal is yet to be discovered here, but it’s much more plausible than the existence of Bigfoot in the Pacific northwest. The Amazon rain forest is so vast there is a remote possiblity that a large mammal species unknown to science may still live here. However, the same can’t be said for parts of the Amazon jungle where there are still whole Indian tribes yet to be contacted by Western civilization. There may be a great deal of wilderness left in the Pacific northwest but it’s not so remote that a population of a gigantic species of ape could survive undetected following expedition after expedition. ![]() Still, Bigfoot believers (like Christian fundamentalists who believe in a literal translation of the bible despite the facts) refuse to accept that the film is a fake. The stuntman, Bob Heironimus, took a lie detector test on a television talk show, and the test showed he was telling the truth when he confessed to being the man filmed in the ape costume. The famous film footage shot in the 1960’s is not of some unknown species of ape, but rather of a Hollywood stuntman in an ape costume. I’m not impressed with the science credentials and logic of most cryptozoologists such as Loren Coleman. ![]()
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