1673 Albertus Montanus copperplate from the German edition of his Dutch \The New World\". A strange creature being pursued by colonials in the jungles
1673 Albertus Montanus copperplate from the German edition of his Dutch \The New World\". A strange creature being pursued by colonials in the jungles of Brazil. The features of the animal are unusual and do not match anything in the jungle today. Possibly a tamandua or giant anteater, or could this be a representation of the cryptozoologists \"mapingui\" or \"mapinguari\"? - supposedly a late surviving representative of the ground sloth Mylodon genus. The long toes/claws, strange leg-form and long tongued snout are nearly right as scientists now imagine them. However the animal is also rather like the 'simivulpa' that Gessner described using first hand accounts from voyagers to the New World in 1551. He described Simivulpa as a pouched animal, so it has often been assumed to have been an opposum. If that is the case this creature may well be just an imagined opposum drawn too large."
Size: 5120px × 3413px
Photo credit: © PAUL D STEWART/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 17th, animal, artwork, century, collector, collectors, cryptid, cryptozoology, extinct, extinction, ground, illustration, mapinguari, mapingui, monster, montanus, mylodon, myth, mythical, naturalist, opposum, simivulpa, sloth
