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.

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