The Lake Titicaca monster is a lake monster reported from Bolivia and Peru's Lake Titicaca, regarded as either a manatee or a freshwater seal.[1][2][3] According to Adolph Bandelier, who felt that the animal resembled a manatee, it had been reported by Native Americans and European settlers several times as of 1910, and was generally described as a 12' long creature with a bear-like head, a moderately-long tuft of hair, and short and smooth coffee-brown hair covering the body. It was amphibious, and was frequently seen, alone or in numbers, sunning themselves on beaches near sheltered coves near Tiquina, Copacavana, and Santiago Huata. Miguel Garcés owned a tooth supposedly taken from a dead individual found on the beach near Copacavana.[4] Geographer Millicent Todd Bingham also reported in 1914 that sea-cows inhabited Lake Titicaca, where they frequented grottoes along the shore, and were sometimes seen resting on remote beaches.[5]
Similar cryptids[]
Similar cryptids from around the world include the auli and the ambize, while the St Helena manatee has also sometimes been regarded as a seal. A freshwater seahorse is also reported from Lake Titicaca.
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Eberhart, George M. (2002) Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, ABC-CLIO, Inc., ISBN 1576072835
- ↑ Shuker, Karl ShukerNature: SOUTH AMERICAN MYSTERY BEASTS – Part 2 karlshuker.blogspot.com (5 May 2009) [Accessed 23 May 2019]
- ↑ Heuvelmans, Bernard "Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals With Which Cryptozoology Is Concerned", Cryptozoology, No. 5 (1986)
- ↑ Bandelier, Adolph Francis Alphonse (1910) The Islands of Titicaca and Koati
- ↑ Bingham, Millicent Todd (1914) Peru, a Land of Contrasts