Living Dinosaurs
The continent of South America, though the same attention has not been paid to them as of similar stories from Africa, reputedly plays host to a creature not unlike that continent's famed mokele-mbembe. The South American relative, however, is just as problematic as is that creature, if not even more so. In short, we have a collection of reports of these creatures and no idea whether such reports are even describing the same type of creature.
The earliest report, an 1883 account of "an extraordinary saurian" killed along the Rio Beni in what is now Bolivia can be safely discounted as farcical despite its appearance in such a prestigious publication as Scientific American. The account describes a tri-headed monster nearly 40 feet in length -- clearly the creature is too fabulous as to be taken seriously as a cryptid.
The next account comes from Franz Hermann Schmidt, a German traveller in South America. In 1907, Schmidt was travelling along the Solimoes River in Colombia along with Captain Rudolph Pfleng. Pfleng and Schmidt encountered some huge tracks along the shores of a small lake. Nearby trees were stripped to a height of 14 feet. The following day, Schmidt, Pfleng and their Indian guides saw a dark shape among the trees on the shore. A large tapir-like head was suspended on a snakelike neck more than 10 feet above the ground. The creature advanced towards the party but did not seem agitated. It was some 8 or 9 feet tall, with clawed flippers in place of legs. The explorers opened fire on the beast and it dove back into the water.
Karl Shuker mentions an account of an Iguanodon encountered along the Magdalena River in Colombia, but no details are available. In 1931, Harald Westin saw a creature comparable to the African nguma-monene along Brazil's Rio Marmore -- a 20-foot long creature which resembled a legged boa constrictor.
Of a more Mokele-Mbembe-like nature are the creatures described by Leonard Clark. He reported that he heard tales when travelling up the Rio Perene in Brazil he was told of herbivorous creatures which sounded much like prehistoric sauropods. Finally, in 1975, a Swiss businessman was told by an elderly guide, Simon Bastos, of a creature like that reported by Pfleng and Clark. The long-necked creature had destroyed Bastos' canoe after he had landed along a riverbank. Bastos was later told that such long-necked creatures frequented deep waterholes, and rarely came out on land.
No discussion of South America's supposed "dinosaurs," though, would be complete without discussion of the Argentine lake monster Nahuelito, reputed to dwell in and around Lake Nahuel Huapi. Several reports originate from zoologist Clementi Onelli. In 1897, a Chilean farmer in Patagonia reported hearing the sounds of something heavy being dragged along the pebble beach near White Lake. Sometimes, at night, he said, he could see a long-necked form in the water. A man named Vaag discovered animal remains and spoor along the banks of the Rio Tamanga. Onelli was convinced that the traces Vaag found were those of a plesiosaur. Onelli revealed a third sighting in 1913, when he said that a similar report surfaced from the Santa Cruz area.
In 1922, a fourth report was brought to Onelli's attention. A prospector named Martin Sheffield encountered a similar monster in the hilly Chubut Province of Patagonia. Sheffield's creature had a swanlike neck and moved like a crocodile. Onelli mounted an expedition to find Sheffield's monster, but it failed.
It is perhaps significant that South America and Africa were joined in the past, and it is possible, if not probable, that the South American "dinosaurs" may be merely of the same species as the Mokele-Mbembe, and were merely trapped on this side of the Atlantic when the continents seperated.
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MACKAL, Roy P.
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SHUKER, Dr. Karl P.N.
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