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 Forés Specimen

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

Angel Morant Forés is a Spanish cryptozoologist who is perhaps best known for his work in Amazonian Ecuador, reporting on feline cryptids like water and rainbow jaguars. But his biggest discovery - and from his point of view, biggest mistake - is a photograph of taxidermy specimen of an aquatic animal found in a Macas shop.

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.