Angel's Cryptids of Ecuador

In 1999, Spanish cryptozoologist Angel Morant Forés travelled to the Ecuadorian Amazon for a few months. There, the native people told him of a number of animals which seem unknown to the civilised world. The most well-known of his discoveries must be the rainbow jaguar and the mysterious animal he photographed in a shop, but he was actually told of a stunning ten unidentified mammals inhabiting the region.

According to Forés, the local Shuar Indians assigned no mystical qualities to the animals, and were very sober in their descriptions. They told him that all the animals could still be found in the area.
The most famous of the animals reported by Forés was actually discovered by him, not reported to him by the Indians. This is, of course, the yapock-like taxidermy animal he photographed in a Macas shop.

Forés' photograph of the specimen.
Image credit Virtual Institute of Cryptozoology.

Dr. Forés found the stuffed specimen in a small taxidermy shop in the Macas region, but neglected to buy it because he believed Spanish authorities would not allow it into the country - according to him, this is his biggest regret. Through his contact in Macas, Carlos Tovar, Forés has attempted to buy the specimen numerous times, but the shop owner refused to sell it.

Despite consensus from a number of zoologists that the animal was a new species, some people believed that it was merely a yapock, a water opossum. However, this animal has a proboscis, no pouch, and differences in the feet. Forés admits, however, the possibility that it could be a cleverly manipulated yapock corpse, made to look unique by a skilled taxidermist.

And, according to Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo, he might be right. Apparently the specimen was purchased by Ecuadorian biologist Didier Sanchez, who claims that it is, in fact, a manipulated yapock. He said he would be examining it more thoroughly, but nothing more has come to light, and it's been a decade since he purchased it. Oddly, this does not explain the opinions of the Shuar Indians, who say that the animal is common in local rivers. If the specimen is a hoax, the Indians must be mistaking ordinary yapocks for something more unusual - or perhaps they knew the specimen was a yapock from the beginning.

Cats were the most numerous animals reported to Forés - mostly large ones. The most famous of these is arguably the rainbow jaguar, a big black animal with monkey-like hands and large claws, a hump, and a rainbow-patterned chest. The Indians say that it's the most dangerous animal in the rainforest. Sightings occur in Trans-Cutucú region, Sierra de Cutucú and the Sangay region.

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

There does seem to be some discrepency over the colour of the jaguar's coat, however. Forés stated in his report that it is said to be a black cat, yet further down the page he says it's "pelage is very similar to that of a shiashia" - the shiashia is, as we shall see later, a white animal with spots.

Regardless of this detail, a rainbow jaguar may have been killed in 1959 by Policarpio Rivadeneira, who shot a big cat in the trees. Upon examination, he found it had a hump, monkey-like paws, a rainbow chest - and hair colour just like the shiashia. This oddity could be explained by melanism - regular jaguars, usually tawny yellow with black spots, appear totally black when affected by melanism. However, this is extremely rare, and it seems like the rainbow stripes would also be affected by melanism.

Interestingly, the Shuar names for all of the cats, known and unknown, all end with yawá. I don't speak their language, but this would lead me to assume that the word means cat - which implies they do not believe the rainbow jaguar is a cat, since they call it tshenkutshen.

Similar to the rainbow jaguar is the pamá-yawá, tapir tiger. It is described as being large and grey, the size of a Brazilian tapir, with extremely large paws. It's name comes from the fact that it is said to hunt tapirs, and is apparently the only cat to do so. In 1969, Juan Bautista Rivadeneira claimed to have seen one of these cats emerge from a river. Pedro Anan Churuwia claimed to have found footprints of the tapir tiger which were as large as both of his hands put together.

A Brazilian tapir, allegedly the favoured prey of the tapir tiger.
Image credit Wikipedia.

 The shiashia-yawá, as mentioned above, is a smaller cat, with white fur and tightly-packed black spots. Forés believes it may be an albino jaguar, but the Shuar say it is smaller than a regular jaguar.

Finally, Forés was told about the infamous water tiger, which the Indians described having very otter-like tracks. According to the Indians, who call it the entzaeia-yawá, they ambush people from the water, are nocturnal, have a wide range of colour morphs, and have bushy tails - there is no mention of sabre teeth. Juan Rivadeneira, whose family was by now having a frankly ridiculous run of luck, claimed to have seen one of these animals in 1989, at the mouth of the Jurumbaino River. Forés does not believe these sightings are misidentifications of giant river otters.

According to Carlos Pichama, a water tiger stalked and killed his cousin's wife. She went missing in the rainforest, and he found tracks on the bank of a nearby lake which he claims belonged to a water tiger. The next day, a number of men exploded several charges of dynamite in the lake, and eventually saw the corpse of a large, red-haired animal floating on the surface.

Not all of the animals Forés heard about were big cats. The tsere-yawá was described as a small, brown semiaquatic cat which hunts in groups of up to ten individuals. I would like to note that bush dogs are vicious pack predators, are brown, small, and are adapted for swimming, so they fit this description well. However, the Shuar would likely not confuse a bush dog for a cat.

The Indians told Forés of a number of other animals: a bear-like creature called ujea, which he thinks sounds similar to a ground sloth, a cat known as jiukam-yawá which allegedly hunts in packs, and a maned "lion". However, he could find no first-hand reports of them. One non-feline animal which he could find reports of is the esakar-paki, which the Shuar identify as the only peccary species to attack without provocation. It is said to be the smallest peccary species, and the Indians identified Forés image of a juvenile collared peccary as an esakar-paki.

Forés intends to return to the Ecuadorian Amazon to do more fieldwork someday, as he is convinced that some of these animals are certainly genuine new species.