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.

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... Mapinguary

Megatherium reconstruction.
Image credit Sloth Sanctuary.

Given the evidence and general consensus amongst cryptozoologists, it seems unthinkable to characterise the Mapinguary as anything other than a relict ground sloth. Even so, there are theories that it is actually a type of large primate - and even it it isn't, there are still dozens of different ground sloths. The Mapinguary, if a sloth, can only be a descendant of one.

TrueAuthority.com's "Quest for the Giant Sloth": An Analysis, part II: Expedition, the Sloth, and DNA Evidence

Preserved Shasta ground sloth dung.
Image credit cindysbeentrippin.com.

This post is a continuation of a previous entry.

Now, we'll move on to examining the main attraction, is it were: the first actual link on the page (I wanted to get the minor links out of the way in that first post), "The Expedition".