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The takuma was a cryptid reported from the Southland Region of New Zealand's South Island. It is one of a handful of small, allegedly mammalian creatures reported from New Zealand, alongside the better-known waitoreke.[1]
The Katimamoe Maori elder Tuture te Kene told ethnologist and historian Herries Beattie (1881 – 1972) that the takuma was an animal with a "hard-shell-back," which lived in crevices in the rocks of riverbanks. From the Maori accounts he received, Beattie felt that the takuma resembled a pangolin more than any other animal. However, he noted that others believed it to be an alligator, and crocodilian or reptilian cryptids such as the taniwha, kawekaweau, kumi, and ngarara have been reported from New Zealand.[1]