Manuel Jesús Molina (1905 - 1979) was an Argentine Salesian priest and missionary who worked in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia, where he gathered information on what would later be called cryptids, and other biological mysteries.[1]
Most notably, Molina theorised that the yosi, a hairy South American dwarf of Tierra del Fuego which he gathered information on, was a species of New World ape which he termed the "Fuegian monkey," giving it the scientific name Fuegopithecus paakensis. He identified cave paintings of these animals in the Gualichu cave at Lake Argentino, and believed that they still existed in Tierra del Fuego's forests. He also alleged the existence of cave paintings of the horned toxodont Trigodon (which he believed was the Patagonian unicorn), ground sloths, sabre-toothed cats, and litopterns.[2]
The figure of Father Manuel Palacios, a Salesian priest who appears in Bruce Chatwin's travelogue In Patagonia (1977) and posits several zoological theories identical to those of Molina, may have a fictional character created by Chatwin in order to discuss Molina's ideas.[3]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Whittall, Austin The Fuegian homunculus or “Yosi”- Part 1 | Patagonian monsters patagonianmonsters.blogspot.com [Accessed 30 May 2019]
- ↑ Eberhart, George M. (2002) Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, ABC-CLIO, Inc., ISBN 1576072835
- ↑ Whittall, Austin The Patagonian Unicorns - Part 1 | Patagonian Monsters patagonianmonsters.blogspot.com [Accessed 29 December 2018]