Rainbow Jaguar

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

The rainbow jaguar or rainbow tiger, also known by its native name of Tshenkutshen, is an arboreal feline cryptid said to exist in the deepest Ecuador regions of the Amazon.

Physical appearance and biology

The rainbow jaguar is said to have the size and basic appearance of a regular black jaguar, or panther, with a few major deviances. The animals back is said to support a large, fatty hump, and its hands are said to be more like a primates than a felines. These hands perhaps aide it in its arboreal habits, just as they would a monkey or orangutan.

Most notably, the animal is said to posses an extravagant rainbow patterning all down its chest, from the head to the forelimbs.

 

Behaviour and traits

Reports indicate that the jaguar is an extremely aggressive animal: the native Indians in Ecuador greatly fear it, and the one individual known from a firsthand eyewitness account was attacking the eyewitness.

By all accounts, the rainbow jaguar is an almost fully arboreal animal, perhaps using its primate-like hands to be a more effective climber and leaper. If it is a real animal, and this is the use of its hands, this undoubtedly would be why it evolved the hands in the first place.

 

Sightings and other encounters

   Undated sightings
South American cryptozoologist Angel Morant Forés has gathered reports of this animal from natives in Ecuador. No specific reports could be found at time of writing.

   1959
In 1959, a Macas settler named Policarpio Rivadeneira was in the region of Cerro Kilamo when he sighted a black feline animal leaping through the trees. Worried it might attack him, he fatally shot it. When he examined it, he discovered it looked like a black jaguar, but had ape-like hands, a hump, and a rainbow-patterned chest. This fits the description of the Tshenkutshen given by the natives. What Rivadeneira did with the cadaver is not clear.

 

Notes and references

• Shuker, Karl (1989) Mystery Cats of the World. Robert Hale Ltd. ISBN 978-0709037064
• Shuker, Karl (2012) Cats of Magic, Mythology and Mystery. CFZ Press. ISBN 978-1938398056
• ANGEL AND HIS AMAZING TECHNICOLOUR DREAM CAT

 

Related blog entries 

• Rainbow Jaguars and the Ahuizotl Connection