Ancient beasts roaming in America

 Cases of possible giant sloths in historical times.

   When we talk about extinct megafauna in the American continent we cannot help but think by default of the representatives of the Folivora sub-order, This order being composed of the ground sloths, those enormous animals related to the small tree sloth that roamed throughout America until thousands of years ago.

Ranging in sizes and shapes from as small as dogs to as large as an elephant, these enormous beasts were an important part of early American civilization being represented by its cave paintings, its generational myths, and even some of its parts such as claws were used as hunting tools; These strong and magnificent beasts disappeared a few thousand years ago due to changes in the environment and changes in the geography of the forests that supported them.

But, from centuries ago to the modern era, references are made to possible adjacent and surviving populations of these powerful mammals being able to give the hypothesis that this sub-genre remained alive until a few centuries ago or that it could actually continue until the modern era, come with me.

Stories from the colonial era.

   During the colonial era there were two almost contemporary cases of possible live sloths, in insular America and Patagonia, let's look at these:

Yeho of insular America

  El primero de ellos es el caso de una criatura which the Kambarib called Yeho, (translated as devil), is a creature reported in several regions of insular America, this being Cuba,  The Bahamas, Hispaniola, Trinidad and Puerto Rico, and specifically in Fresh Creek on Andros Island and Long Island, both in the Bahamas.

Described as the strange combined appearance of a monkey and a bear, about the size of a monkey, with enormous claws and feet in opposite directions, as well as a wild character and the habit of living in caves and only go out at night or live in the forests where their howls could be heard.

Among the theories to explain this is that these animals are nothing more than a memory of African gorillas, specifically lowland gorillas as remembered in the popular memory of Bahamians of African slave origin, although some anthropologists such as Dale A. Drinnon, noting that primates do not have claws, suggests that they are surviving ground sloths, which were smaller than ground sloths but this theory is strange with the only existing evidence, being, as demonstrated in Walker's Mammals of the World, several unidentified bones, found in the so-called "European garbage dumps", along with the remains of other animals, so it is theorized that they lived until the colonial era.

Who knows, but this case leaves a lot to think about, although the next case becomes stranger.

The mysterious succarath of Patagonia.

   On the other hand, in southern Patagonia, the succarath, a mysterious beast mentioned in the book Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique (Singularities of France Antarctica) of 1557 by André Thevet, a French Franciscan friar who joined a 1555 expedition to the French Protestant colony of France Antarctica in present-day Rio de Janeiro.

His manuscripts and wood engravings, attributed to the artist Jean Cousin, depict, with varying degrees of precision, the flora, fauna and people of Brazil, showing us in an unprecedented way animals such as the toucan, the hammerhead shark and the tree sloth, but the one that stands out the most is the succarath, later being reported by naturalists in southern Patagonia, during the conquest and colonial times.

It is described as an animal with the head of a lion, somewhat long matted hair, a long and hairy tail, with which it covered its young, which it carried on its back, In addition to having a prominent maned coat, this one apparently had the characteristic that when hunted, the only thing it did was kill its young, tearing them apart in a savage manner, giving terrifying roars to scare away their captors, something curious that the chronicles let us know is that they There was physical evidence such as skins and coats, made with the skins of these animals, since their fur protected them from the cold, which is why the natives hunted them, perhaps causing their extinction.

Because many of the animals it was mentioned turned out to be real, it is considered that this creature existed, but that later became extinct due to hunting and also due to their own fault, due to all their characteristics, They are considered the last remnants of ground sloths, which according to some findings, may have completely disappeared in the 16th century.

The stories of live sloths still did not stop, and there are even stories that have happened in modern times.

Cases of modernity

Some of these modern cases of possible live sloths are:

Central American cave cow 

  An animal that has been mentioned since the time of the ancient Mayans until the present day.

Reported in Central America, but with a greater number of reports in Belize, described by the Mayans as a lizard-shaped animal covered in hair, measuring 10 feet long, having caves as its natural habitat, although today its existence is more related to ground sloths.

One of the most explicit evidence of its existence comes from the French naturalist François "Frank" Blancaneaux and his servant in 1890, they had a fatal encounter with this animal, since according to the story, it was resting on a part of the sheet with its servant, shortly before leaving the country, when he saw something in the distance, a swaying palm tree, but soon he heard his servant shout, and then found him mutilated, after following the trail of the person responsible for days he found footprints like those of a primate, almost exactly like the thumb and first two fingers of a gigantic human hand, each digit armed with a large claw, which led to a series of caves, although I tried to search for something, I couldn't because it was full of caves.

On the other hand, in 1932 on an expedition to the Azul River, a tributary of the Hondo River, which forms the border between the Mexican state of Quintana Roo and Belize, a large animal with shaggy black fur and a white mane obscuring its face was seen running through a swampy region on all fours like a monkey, if this creature is real it is very likely that it was a sloth.

Mapinguari of the Amazon.

  One of the heavyweights of cryptozoology, although as we clarify we do not take it into account here.

It is described as a huge being similar to a gorilla or ape, covered in thick hair, with only one eye on its face and a mouth on its stomach, from which a nauseating smell comes out, as its skin is also hard and protects it from spears and bullets, According to legends, this arose when an old shaman found the secret of immortality and was cursed.

According to some researchers, this being could be a representation of the extinct sloths and well, its history is long, but there was physical evidence of this beast, being pieces of skin and claws of this animal found by zoologists, likewise, going further back and even more shocking, around 1700, a skeleton presumably of one of these animals, It was sent to the king of Spain, who offered a reward for a live animal, but it was never found, although it could have been a fossil, and in 2020, a recording appeared on the internet where there was an audio record of the animal, although it is now lost media.

Maybe this beast exists, or who knows, but it is the most likely to exist.

Final analysis.

   Well, now reaching conclusions, knowing how diverse and adaptable the Folivora family was, it would not be surprising that some species could have lived up to not long ago and being present with our ancestors, it would only be a matter of going and looking for the evidence and hopefully one day it can be achieved.

As an extra: Charles Darwin also analyzed similar cases of enormous sloth-like beasts in South America, saying that if they were not real they asked to be gestated by giant sloths.

[Reading links] 

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/02/west-indian-devils-yahus.html?m=1

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/strange-nature-first-printed-illustration-sloth-180970944/

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/07/more-mapinguaris-and-ground-sloths.html?m=1

https://cryptidarchives.fandom.com/wiki/Cave_cow

https://cryptidarchives.fandom.com/wiki/Gran_bestia