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The tshenkutshen, also spelt tsenkutsen and tsenkutsenku (both names are sometimes given the suffix "-yawá," together meaning "seven ribbons [rainbow] tiger") or howler monkey tiger is a cryptid reported from Ecuador,[2] specifically the cloud forests of Sangay National Park and the Cordillera de Cutucú,[3] and the Amazon Rainforest in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve.[1] Described as an arboreal marsupial or feline, it was investigated by Ángel Morant.[4][5]
Attestations[]
In 1998, travel writer Joe Kane reported the supposed existence, in the Zabalo River region of Ecuador's Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve–home of the Cofan Indians, near the frontier with Colombia and Peru–of a marsupial "howler monkey tiger" with human-like hands.[1] Spanish cryptozoologist Ángel Morant collected accounts of the tshenkutshen in the region of Macas, in central Ecuador, the following year.[5]
Description[]
The tshenkutshen has the size and basic appearance of a jaguar (Panthera onca), which it is sometimes said to be slightly smaller than, but with a several major deviations. Most famously, the cat's chest is patterned with multicoloured stripes of red, yellow and white, compared in one source to the colours of the toucan. Other than these stripes, its pelage is described as being either black, or very similar to that of another Ecuadorian cryptid, the speckled jaguar shiashia-yawá, which is described as "a spotted cat white in colour". Other unusual features include flat-palmed hands that are remarkably monkey-like, but armed with claws instead of nails, powerfully muscled arms, and a large hump on its forequarters. One informant claimed that its canines are longer than those of a jaguar.[6]
The tshenkutshen is described as largely arboreal, and extremely aggressive. It can leap from tree to tree with astonishing ease, is considered by the Shuar Indians to be the most dangerous of all the jungle animals,[3] and appears in traditional Shuar poetry as a proverbial measure of ferocity.[7] In folklore, it is said to live in trees near rivers, and sometimes to hunt in pairs. Some stories exaggerate its arboreal behaviour, claiming that "it jumps from one tree to another and does not walk on land," while others describe it as occasionally walking on the ground.[8]
Sightings[]
1959[]
An animal matching the description of the tshenkutshen was allegedly shot and killed in 1959 by Policarpio Rivadeneira, a Macas settler, who had been walking through the forest of Cerro Kilamo or Cerro el Quilamo, near the Abanico River, just beyond Macas. The animal leapt through the trees towards him, and, fearing for his life, Rivadeneira shot it in the head. Upon examining it, he discovered it to be a spotted, mainly white jaguar-sized animal, with a hump, a rainbow-coloured chest, muscular arms, and monkey-like hands with flat palms.[3][2]
Theories[]
The margay (Leopardus wiedii) is perhaps the most skilled climber of all the South American cats (CC BY-SA 3.0).
The tshenkutshen is distinguished from other cats mainly by its highly arboreal habits, its monkey-like paws, and its rainbow-striped chest. Rosa García Perea, a felid expert from the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales consulted by Morant, was perplexed by the description of the tshenkutshen, but did not rule out the possibility of a new species of felid. One known South American species, the margay (Leopardus wiedii), is particularly noted for its arboreal lifestyle and agile climbing behaviour, which are made possible by unusual flexibility in its limb joints. The margay itself is too small to explain the tshenkutshen, and lacks most of the cryptid's physical features, so Morant suggests that the tshenkutshen could potentially be a larger relative of the margay.[6]
On the other hand, Joe Kane referred to the howler monkey tiger as a marsupial,[1] and Morant observes that the monkey-like "hands" of the tshenkutshen are suggestive of a marsupial such as the Australian marsupial lion (Thylacoleo carnifex). Similar carnivores, sparassodonts, inhabited South America from the Palaeocene until the Pliocene (~58–3 MYA), apparently going extinct shortly before the Great American Interchange.[6] Although all of the best-known sparassodonts (thylacosmilids, borhyaenids, and proborhyaenids) were terrestrial animals, most sparassodonts, particularly earlier species, were arboreal.
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Kane, Joe "The Rebels of the Rain Forest," Condé Nast's Traveler, Vol. 33 (December 1998)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Shuker, Karl P. N. (2020) Mystery Cats of the World Revisited: Blue Tigers, King Cheetahs, Black Cougars, Spotted Lions, and More, Anomalist Books, ISBN 978-1949501179
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Morant Forés, Ángel Virtual Institute of Cryptozoology "An Investigation Into Some Unidentified Ecuadorian Mammals" cryptozoo.pagesperso-orange.fr (12 October 1999) [Accessed 10 September 2018] — Wayback Machine
- ↑ Eberhart, George M. (2002) Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, ABC-CLIO, Inc., ISBN 1576072835
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Shuker, Karl P. N. (2010) Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times, CFZ Press, ISBN 978-1-905723-62-1
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Morant Forés, Ángel "Investigacion en Torno a Algunos Mamiferos no Identificados del Ecuador" criptozoologia.org (July 2003) [Accessed 3 February 2021] — Wayback Machine
- ↑ Vírhuez, Ricardo (1993) Letras Indígenas en la Amazonía Peruana
- ↑ Rueda, Marco Vinicio (1983) Setenta Mitos Shuar