Ellengassen:Unknown Sloth-like mammal of South America.
Etymology:
Tehuelche (Chon) word.
Variant names:
Lobo-toro (Spanish equivalent of Araucanian word meaning “wolf bull”), Lofo-toro.
Physical description:
The size of a bull. Long hair.
Behaviour:
Roars or howls like a wolf. Herbivore. Makes its den in a cave.
Tracks:
Like a wooden shoe with two cleats across the sole, according to a lone report from 1898.
Distribution:
Patagonia, especially in Lago Buenos Aires area of Santa Cruz Province, Argentina; southern Mendoza Province, Argentina.
Present status:
Probably extinct.
Possible explanations:
(1) May represent a recently surviving Patagonian cave-dwelling sloth (Mylodon darwinii), subfossil remains of which are known from the Cueva del MilodĂłn in southern Chile. Manuel Palacios told Bruce Chatwin there was a rock painting of a Mylodon in the Monumento Natural los Bosques Petrificados, Santa Cruz Province, Patagonia.
(2) Muddled Indian legends of Jaguars (Panthera onca) and feral oxen.
Sources:
- Francisco P. Moreno, Viaje á la Patagonia austral, emprendido bajo los auspicios del gobierno nacional, 1876–1877 (Buenos Aires: La Nación, 1879), p. 395;
- Santiago Roth, “DescripciĂłn de los restos encontrados en la Caverna de Ultima Esperanza,” in “El mamĂfero misterioso de la Patagonia, II,” Revista del Museo de La Plata 9 (1899): 421–453;
- H. Hesketh Prichard, Through the Heart of Patagonia (New York: D. Appleton, 1902);
- Robert and Katharine Barrett, A Yankee in Patagonia: Edward Chace (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), p. 30;
- Carlos Rusconi, “La supuesta existencia de Milodontes en la Patagonia Austral (Milodon listai),” Revista del Museo de Historia Natural de Mendoza 3 (1949): 252–264;
- Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia (New York: Summit, 1977), p. 72
SEE ALSO:
SOURCE:
Mysterious Creatures – A Guide to Cryptozoology written by George M. Eberhart – Copyright © 2002 by George M. Eberhart