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.

Identifying the... Milne

Slightly oversized Arctotherium reconstruction.
Image credit Carnivora Forums.

A fairly obscure cryptid, the Milne is a large black bear known from only one sighting. Allegedly, in 1946, explorer Leonard Clark was floating down the Ucayali River in eastern Peru when he discovered large footprints on the bank, like those of a giant man. The next day, his canoe passed a huge black bear on the bank, clawing apart a rotted tree infested with ants. One of his crew accidentally provoked the bear, and it leaped into the water and swam towards the canoe, prompting Clark's entire crew to leap overboard and flee. Clark shot it dead, but without his crew, he was unable to retrieve it and it was devoured by piranhas (Heuvelmans, 1986; Shuker, 1997).

Juan Acavar's Sabre-Toothed Cat

Smilodon recreated in Walking with Beasts.
Image credit BBC.

Perhaps since the first colonisations of South America, reports of giant cats have come from deep in the jungles of the Amazon.

One very interesting case occurred in Paraguay as recently as 1975. A group of locals, perhaps native Indians, shot a large "mutant jaguar", which was examined by a zoologist named Juan Acavar. Acavar, after examining the body, determined that the animal was a living specimen of Smilodon fatalis. He determined its teeth as being twelve inches long, and it's weight as being one-hundred ans sixty pounds.

To avoid causing paranoia and mass hysteria, Acavar stuck with the mutant jaguar identification.

Recently, there has been speculation that the animal may have instead been Thylacosmilus, a marsupial analogue to Smilodon. However, this animal (supposedly) went extinct in the Early Pliocene, and had highly distinctive flanges on its lower jaw, something which Acavar presumably would have commented upon.

The cadaver, unfortunately, was apparently not preserved, as nothing of it or Acavar has been heard since the shooting. It is entirely possible that the animal was, in fact, a mutant jaguar - though it seems Acavar, an experienced zoologist, would have been able to work this out should it have been the case.

Read more about sabre-toothed cats in the Amazon.

Notes and references

• Shuker, Karl (1989) Mystery Cats of the World. ISBN 978-0709037064