Iemisch

Iemisch Category River and lake monster Proposed scientific names Other names Chimchimen, Colhuehuapito, gemyx, hymché, jemechim, jemisch, nirufilu, Patagonian plesiosaur, yem'chen, yemische Country reported Argentina First reported 1899 Prominent investigators • Florentino Ameghino • Clemente Onelli • Bernard Heuvelmans • Roy P. Mackal • Austin Whittall

The iemisch (Tehuelche: "water tiger") was a cryptid reported from Patagonia, described as a ferocious and aggressive aquatic animal. It has been speculated to be a giant otter; its connection with true, long-fanged water tigers such as the yaquaru is unclear and confused. Its involvement in the saga of the Patagonian ground sloth, beginning when Florentino Ameghino dubiously suggested that it was a living ground sloth which he had dubbed Neomylodon, has also caused much confusion.

Description

According to the description of the Ameghino brothers, the iemisch is larger than the puma (Puma concolor), but with a wider body, shorter legs, and a long, flat, prehensile tail; and is covered in short, stiff, bay (reddish brown or brown)-coloured hair. Its head is said to be short, with large fangs and no or rudimentary external ears, while its paws are described as plantigrade, with three webbed digits on the forepaws and four on the hindpaws, each one armed with a formidable claw. Nocturnal and amphibious, it was allegedly greatly feared, and was said to be powerful enough to seize horses with its claws and drag them into the water. It supposedly lives in caves and other protected areas along the shorelines of lakes and rivers.

Carlos Ameghino wrote that he had been told the iemisch once ranged as far north as the Rio Negro, living "in all the lakes of the oriental foothills of the Andes up to the very Strait of Magellan". However, by 1898, it was said to be restricted to central Patagonia, specifically Lakes Colhué Huapí, Fontana, and Buenos Aires, and the Rivers Senguerr, Aysen, and Huemules.

Sightings

~1848

According to Carlos Ameghino, around half a century before 1898, i.e. around 1848, a iemisch swam down the Santa Cruz River from the Andean lakes, and was seen by the Tehuelche on the northern shore of the river, near Isla Pavón. Terrified of the powerful monster the Tehuelche all fled inland, and as of 1898, that region of the river was allegedly still called Iemisch-Aiken ("place of the iemisch").

1897

See also Neomylodon§1897

Florentino Ameghino claimed to have acquired his Neomylodon hide from an animal killed very recently, which he said had been called a iemisch by the Tehuelche. According to a letter from his brother Carlos which he published, Carlos acquired the hide from a Tehuelche who owned it. Carlos also interviewed a Tehuelche named Hompen, who claimed that...

“

[...] while going by Senguer in Santa Cruz, [he] met a Iemisch on the road, which closed his way, and he fought with it, killing it by hitting it with his bolas.

”

However, according to the Argentine surveyor and politician Florencio de Basaldúa, who had previously interviewed Ameghino, the specimens were flayed from an animal killed by Hompen himself, on the shores of Lake Colhué Huapí," which is fed by the Senguerr River. The true provenance of Ameghino's hide is unknown, and it has been suggested that Ameghino made the story of the killing up when rivals began to suspect that the specimens were from the Cueva del Milodon.

1900

The French palaeontologist André Tournouër claimed to have seen a very similar animal, called by his guide hymché, in an unidentified river, during his second Patagonian expedition (September 1899—June 1900).

“

Lying in wait one evening on the bank of a river in the interior, beside which I had pitched my camp, I saw emerge in the middle of the stream the head of an animal the size of a large puma. I fired, the animal dived and did not reappear. As far as I could see in the dusk, its round head had dark brown fur, its eyes were encircled with light yellow hair, stretched in a thin line to the ear hole. There was no external ear. I described it to the Indian who acted as my guide; he seemed very frightened and assured me I had seen the mysterious hymché.

”

~1921

Shortly before 1922, the family of Epuyén-based American Martin Sheffield had a number of encounters with a iemisch-like animal later characterised as a plesiosaur. The encounters began when Sheffield's daughter Juana and two others discovered tracks like those of a cart in a boggy region near a small lake, surrounded by broken plants. Juana believed the trackway had been made by a long-bodied animal with short legs, which had squashed the plants with its torso as it passed. Later, Juana and her younger brother Conde were sent to retrieve a horse, which they tracked to a reed-choked lake, where their dog became distressed.

“

Then I looked and saw the trail that was below us and that had gotten into that pool and came out the other side. It was there that I saw something that was half red, half yellowish, nearly the color of leather sole. The animal’s fur was like hairs or feathers. They looked like hairs. We did not see its tail or head. We saw the part of its torso. It was lying there, sleeping in the sun.

”

Juana and Conde quickly fled the scene. Juana later recalled that the trackway had passed over a dead cow, indicating that this animal was not carnivorous. Some days later, she heard a bellowing or roaring similar to that of a two-year-old calf emanating from a backwater of the Epuyén River. She and another went to investigate, and saw the beast in the water, with the fish boiling above it.

Martin Sheffield subsequently contacted zoologist Clemente Onelli, who put together an expedition to search for the animal (which he believed to be Neomylodon listai), but by the time they searched the local waterways, all evidence was gone, as was the alleged animal itself. Onelli deliberately put out exaggerated and misplaced stories describing long-necked plesiosaur-like animals, in order to throw off any rival expeditions.

~1980s to ~1990s

Some fifteen years prior to 2002, a Sarmiento fisherman named Eloy Hutnik claimed to have seen a strange animal in Lake Colhué Huapí, giving a description which matched that of a later eyewitness, Elías Gerez. Gerez's son Nemesio also claimed to have seen "some very large beasts swimming in the lake" around 1995.

2001

Farmer Elías Gérez, worker Albino Cárdenas, and another unidentified worker claimed to have seen a bulky animal in Lake Colhué Huapí on 14 December 2001, from the farm of cattle rancher Octavio González. The sighting occurred at 9:00 AM, in broad daylight, when the men were around six hundred yards from the lake. They caught sight of "something big and strange moving in the lake," but could not make it out due to the distance. Using a glass, Gérez was able to get a better view.

“

Then I spotted something, very similar to a horse but seen from behind, because its head, if it had one, I did not see it. Of course, I observed that it had a very big and thick body, like that of an elephant. [The animal's back] was large, thick, round, and suddenly it was lost from sight in a muddy and shallow part of the lake.

”

The animal disappeared among the reeds and grasses, but after "about three or four minutes, that thing reappeared again on the surface". In reference to Nahuelito, the Nahuel Huapí monster, the citizens of Sarmiento nicknamed Lake Colhué Huapí's monster Colhuehuapito.

~2013 or 2014

In 2014, a correspondent of Austin Whittall claimed to have recently seen a iemisch while driving to Puerto Natales, in Chile. It crossed the road in front of the man and his wife, forcing them to brake their car suddenly, then went on its way as if oblivious to their presence. The correspondent felt that the animal had looked almost identical to Whittall's illustration of the iemisch, but had appeared more heavyset, as if it were pregnant.

Theories

Florentino Ameghino's theory that the iemisch was a ground sloth is highly controversial, although one sloth species, Lestodon armatus, is thought to have been amphibious (Daniel Boh).

A more likely explanation is a Patagonian relative of the giant river otter (Pteronura brasiliensis). (Source).

Some confusion with the jaguar (Panthera onca) has been suggested (Source).

A wandering spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus) has been suggested as an explanation for Tournouër's sighting (Source).

Florentino Ameghino, and later Clemente Onelli, believed that the iemisch corresponded to Ameghino's hypothetical extant mylodontid ground sloth Neomylodon listai, leading Ameghino to suggest that the sloth, already described as a burrower, was also aquatic. Ameghino's theory came under attack even at the time, and he later defended himself in a letter to Herman von Ihering, dated 4 April 1901, writing that "the references to Jemisch are exploited in ill faith. I have [...] simply referred the descriptions of a large mammal that inhabits the Patagonian lakes [...] if these descriptions are not reliable, the blame is not mine [...] Probably there is not only one mysterious mammal living in Patagonia, but several". Ameghino's rival Francisco Moreno argued that the iemisch may be a giant rodent similar to a capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) or the Cueva del Milodon's supposed Megamys, which was described based on fragmentary remains now recognised as the femur of a camelid. Some later scientists and travellers were more critical of the iemisch's existence in any form - palaeontologist George Gaylord Simpson considered that stories of the iemisch, "if not invented to amuse the stupid white men, were simply myths with no foundation in reality".

Heuvelmans wrote that Ameghino had probably gone "completely astray" in accepting the theory that the iemisch was a ground sloth, arguing that its aggressive, horse-killing behaviour, amphibious lifestyle, and canine teeth were at odds with a herbivorous, terrestrial ground sloth, a member of a clade which frequently lacks canines. Furthermore, it is reported that Ameghino later altered details, such as the iemisch's number of digits, to better fit a ground sloth. However, one Late Pleistocene ground sloth of South America, the hippopotamus-like Lestodon armatus of northern Argentina, is now sometimes argued to have been semi-aquatic, and certainly had prominent but sexually-dimorphic, tusk-like caniniform teeth. Furthermore, based on isotopic evidence published in 2021, Mylodon itself occasionally consumed meat, possibly as an opportunistic scavenger.

A more likely theory is that of an otter. Mylodon hunter Hesketh Prichard, who saw a very large otter in the Senguerr River, suggested in 1902 that "there seems to be little reason to doubt" that the iemisch was a giant otter, which he connected with Patagonian stories of water tigers, and André Tournouër eventually came to the same conclusion. Bernard Heuvelmans noted that most of the names applied to the iemisch are used to describe a sort of otter, which Robert Lehmann-Nitsche identified as the marine otter (Lontra felina), although Ramón Lista believed that the Tehuelche otter was a species unique to southern Patagonia. For instance, the Tehuelche term for "otter" is jemechin, with yem'chen for "nutria". Similar names were used for seals: the Aonikenk term for "sea wolf" was iu'mchun, and the southern Patagonian name for the southern elephant seal was yabich. The iemisch's amphibious lifestyle, short head, lack of ears, long flat tail, and low-slung body are all in agreement with such an identity.

Lehmann-Nitsche suggested that the iemisch itself was not feared, but had been confused with the jaguar (Panthera onca), which once had a greater range, in terms of both habitat and geography, than at present, extending as far south as the Straits of Magellan. A larger subspecies which inhabited open habitats, the Pleistocene Magellanic or Patagonian jaguar (Panthera onca mesembrina), also lived as far south as Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego off southern Patagonia, and has sometimes been identified with Patagonian cave paintings dated to ~9,000 years ago. Ameghino's contemporary Santiago Roth believed that a Pleistocene big cat, the remains of which he had discovered in the Cueva del Milodon, might explain the iemisch, leading him to christen the fossil felid Iemisch listai⁠ in honour of Ramón Lista's alleged Neomylodon sighting. These bones, once suggested to actually represent the short-faced bear Arctotherium, are now believed to have belonged to Panthera onca mesembrina.

Heuvelmans found Lehmann-Nitsche's argument of an otter-jaguar confusion convincing, although neither rejected the possibility that a larger species of otter could explain the iemisch. Similarly, Roy P. Mackal, while agreeing that an otter was likely behind the iemisch, rejected the theory that the animal's size and ferocity resulted from confusion with the jaguar, suggesting instead that the iemisch was an unknown species of giant, aggressive otter closely related to the giant river otter (Pteronura brasiliensis) of the Amazon and the Pantanal, a theory first proposed by Prichard himself. The giant river otter, known from as far south as Uruguay and northern Argentina, officially grows to between 5' and 6', but lengths of 12' or even 20' have been reported, and a ferocious "giant giant river otter" is also reported from the Ecuadorean Amazon. Karl Shuker also considers it likely that the iemisch is a giant otter, either an isolated population of Pteronura brasiliensis, or an unknown related species endemic to Patagonia. Mackal admitted that the iemisch's number of toes - three on the forefeet, four on the hindfeet - was at variance with an otter, which all have five digits, but suggested that some anatomical peculiarity could give the impression of fewer digits. Shuker also questions whether a giant otter would be as feared as the iemisch, given that the Amazonian giant river otter is a shy animal, leading him to modify Lehmann-Nitsche's argument, suggesting that the iemisch was confused with the yaquaru (considered by him to be a possible aquatic Smilodon), which in turn was confused with the jaguar. Philippe Coudray also groups the iemisch with the Smilodon-like water tigers, such as the yaquaru, popoké, aypa, and entzaeia-yawá. While Smilodon populator did range as far south as southern Patagonia during the Late Pleistocene, Austin Whittall rejects such an identity for the iemisch itself on account of the iemisch's long tail, which is unlike the bob-tail of Smilodon.

Whittall alternatively suggests a link with a species of long-necked seal or long-necked sea lion, which had been reported from both coasts of Patagonia, and was on one occasion described as "otter-headed". While admitting that the long-necked seal would have neither a long tail nor clawed paws, he notes similarities in its size, lack of ears, and long neck. Like several cryptozoologists who draw connections between sea serpents and lake monsters, Whittall suggests that the marine long-necked seal could have adapted to fresh water, migrating upstream into the Patagonian lakes.

Tournouër believed the animal he saw was a carnivore, and was certain that it was not Neomylodon due to the presence of canine teeth. Whittall, in light of the yellowish rings around the animal's eyes, suggests that it could have been a spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus). Spectacled bears are not known from Patagonia, officially ranging only as far south as the most northernly point of Argentina, although stray southern individuals may explain the ucumar. They would probably be unable to reach Patagonia in the present day due to the natural barrier of deserts, but Whittall theorises that a population could have migrated to the region during the Pleistocene (the short-faced bear Arctotherium reached southern Patagonia, and was also reported to still exist in the 19^th Century), and survived in the temperate Valdivian forests. Whittall also suggests that such a bear might have been incorporated into the Tehuelche descriptions of the iemisch.

Whittall proposes a number of alternative identities for the iemisch allegedly seen in 2014, including an introduced beaver (Castor canadensis) or American mink (Neovison vison), a coypu (Myocastor coypus), an otter such as the marine (Lontra felina) or Patagonian (Lontra provocax), or even a sāapaim.