Creature Feature: Mapinguari
If you’ve been lucky enough to visit the National History Museum in London, then you’ve likely seen the hulking skeleton of the giant ground sloth. At a height of six metres, and a maximum weight of four tonnes, the Megatherium was a creature not to be messed with. Scientists believe the creature became extinct around 10,000 BP due to human hunting habits, but recent descriptions of a creature called the Mapinguari suggest otherwise.
Folklore has it that the Mapinguari has long claws, reversed feet, a single eye and crocodilian skin, and modern sightings have described it as humanlike, or similar to a massive hairy ape. Other accounts describe it as having an additional mouth on its belly, and it can move about the forest floor on both two and four legs. It’s skin is incredibly tough - and many hunters have claimed to fire on the Mapinguari, only for the bullets to bounce off of it. This armoured skin is covered in matted fur, and its arm are said to be powerful enough to take down trees in one swipe.
It’s a remarkably stealthy creature for its size, making it extremely dangerous in the dense Amazonian rainforest - but it’s also very slow, and has an aversion to water. Encounters with the Mapinguari have been sparse, but some continue to search the rainforest for evidence of its existence. They believe the creature could be a descendent of the giant sloth, pushed deep into the rainforest by human expansion.