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This is a beast found around Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela and is supposedly at least seven feet tall.  So, it’s really big and appears to be similar to a Sasquatch and Yeti.  Really that’s only because it’s big and has a lot of fur.  It moves silently through the jungles too.  Makes it a really curious addition to the month.

Mapinguari descriptions can be all over the map.  It tends to be big with fur and a foul stench, but then descriptions go in various directions.  The more fantastical version gives them a single eye and a second mouth in their stomach, which either releases the bad smell or a terrifying roar.  More mundane various give them a monkey’s face, a burrow’s snout, anteater-like claws, backwards feet, humped backs, tortoise necks, and/or hairless chests.  They are also known to be arrow and bulletproof in some stories with the exception of the eyes, mouth, bellybutton, and the rest of the head.  This could mean that they have armored skin beneath the fur.

These animals can walk on four or two feet, but they aren’t very graceful as bipeds.  Then again, other stories have them as being agile.  Mapinguari tend to be nocturnal in the stories.  Their diets depend on where you hear about them though.  Some areas say they eat vegetation and use their claws to tear pieces off trees.  Others say they slaughter cows to eat their tongues.  I couldn’t find anything about them going after people, so I guess that’s a plus.

Of course, people said to have seen them and also killed them.  You know scientists got curious at one point and went searching.  They found nothing.  One theory is that people mistook some tracks of a real animal as a fictional one because they were disfigured for some reason.  Another theory is that there are giant sloths in the jungle even after all of these centuries.  That wouldn’t explain having one eye and a stomach mouth, but it would work with the less horrifying versions that eat plants.  A third possibility is people were scared by a spectacled bear, which wasn’t entirely in view, and went running before getting a clear look.

There is some folklore around the Mapinguari.  First, villages would move if they found the tracks or heard the roar of one.  They didn’t want to go near it.  Part of the reason may have been the smell, which resulted in the creature being surrounded by flies.  They were sometimes described as being followed by peccaries (wild pigs) and having a relationship with the animals.  This connects to a version that is a spirit who punishes hunters that kill more than they need to survive.  Makes sense because a lot of cultures have spirits and creatures designed to stop people from overhunting.

A possible origin story from Brazil says that the Mapinguari was a shaman who found the secret to immortality.  This was thousands of years ago.  Of course, he angered the gods and was turned into a monstrous beast.  He lived forever, but was cursed to do so as a this creature.  Poor guy.