Rainbow Jaguars and the Ahuizotl Connection

An artistic recreation of the rainbow jaguar.
Image credit Karl Shuker.

Perhaps the most well-known of the Central American Atzec myths - Quetzalcoatl notwithstanding - the Ahuizotl was described in the Florentine Codex as a real animal, a small aquatic predator with smooth hair and primate-like hands. Native Americans in the USA have myths about a very similar animal. If it was based on a real animal, it is today widely believed to have been a new species of otter or other mustelid.

In the field of more strictly Amazonian cryptozoology, there are a number of cryptids similar to the Ahuizotl, but larger.

The first is the bizarre rainbow jaguar, rainbow tiger, or Tshenkutshen. Reported from Ecuador, it is said to look just like a regular black jaguar, but with a fatty hump, a rainbow pattern on its chest, and - notably - simian-like hands, just like the Ahuizotl. Unlike the more northern beast of Aztec myth, the rainbow jaguar is said to far from aquatic: reports indicate it to be arboreal, leaping from tree to tree with ease.

The only report of this animal, outside of native myth, is from a Macas settler named Policarpio Rivadeneira (Shuker, 1989; Shuker, 2012). In 1959, he was allegedly trekking through the rainforest of Cerro Kilamo, when he saw a jaguar-like animal leaping from tree to tree. Fearing for his life, he shot and killed it. Upon examining it, he found it to have a humped back, ape-like hands, and a rainbow patterned chest. What he did with the cadaver is unclear.

Whilst this is the only physical sighting of the animal by any non-native individual, Spanish cryptozoologist Angel Morant Forés has gathered information on it from the native Indians (Shuker, 2009).

Whilst the rainbow jaguar partially fits the bill as far as physical traits go, the other cryptid is like the Ahuizotl in behaviour. This is the similarly-named water jaguar, almost universally believed to be an example of either a relict sabre-toothed cat, of which there are many examples in South America and Africa, or a relict Thylacosmilus, a marsupial analogue to the placental sabre-tooths (Heuvelmans, 1958; Shuker, 1989). Although some reports describe them as fully terrestrial, other reports describe them as semi-aquatic. One Spanish military report from Chad, Africa, actually caims that a water jaguar leapt out of the water whilst the unit was crossing a swamp in boats, and killed some of the men (Le Noel, unknown).

Read more about the rainbow jaguar.
Read more about sabre-toothed cats in the Amazon.