Review: Man V. Monster: Amazon River Beast

Richard holding the green anaconda.
Image credit National Geographic.

In the fifth episode of Man V. Monster, Richard Terry travels to the Amazon Rainforest in search of a creature responsible for a series of violent attacks. This is the second episode dealing with the Amazon: the first covered giant spiders, and the already-reviewed Mapinguary episode was the third and final. Like with that review, this is constructed entirely from memory.

Happy International Sloth Day

Bit creepy.
Image credit aiunau.org.

Today is International Sloth Day, apparently (Sloth Day is on the 19th, not, as NatGeo would have you believe, the 20th), so in honour of the occasion, here are abridged versions of four lesser-known (and one very famous) cryptozoological exploits through history relating to ground sloths. As we will see, ground sloths have had a very important place in palaeontological history. Most of these will eventually get their own blog entries.

Identifying the... Amazonian Death Worm

An illustration of a caecillan Minhocão.
Image credit user Kryptid of Wikipedia.

One of the most well known of all cryptids, ranking among the likes of Nessie and Bigfoot, is the Mongolian death worm. However, the death worm is often misinterpreted amongst non-cryptozoologists as a giant, supremely aggressive and dangerous animal, akin to the wyrms of heraldry.

In actuality, the death worm is usually described as a fairly small, fat burrowing creature, which only attacks when disturbed, fighting back with acid and electric shocks.

Giants in Patagonia

Image credit www.naturalheightgrowth.com.

The word "Patagonia" - which is, in case anyone was unaware, a South American region near Chile and Argentina - actually comes from the name of a (sort-of) cryptid.

Identifying the... Sachamama

Mata mata head.
Image credit Wikipedia.

 Perhaps one of the least well known of all Amazonian cryptids is the Sachamama. Although it is described by local peoples as a giant snake with a shell, its appearance and behaviour suggest a very different identity.

Video: Holy Shit!

In the above video, a very large Anaconda startles some people on a boat, in what I must assume to be the Amazon. The brave guy on the boat decides, for some reason, to grab it by its tail, showing part of it to the camera. The snake then swims off, looking very much like a sea serpent.

Although it appears to be strangely large and thick, it seems that the part we can see is only large because the snake is currently digesting something, perhaps a tapir or peccary. But if other eyewitness accounts are to be believed, there certainly are bigger fish out there.