Approximately two years later, in or round 1557, Lerius and two other members of the company were trekking through a forest in the interior of Brazil with some local Tupinamba Indian guides but armed only with swords or bows and arrows when, while passing through a deep valley there, they abruptly encountered at a distance of only thirty paces or so a very large reptilian creature of extremely distinctive appearance, squatting on top of a hill in the heat of noon, with one of its forefeet raised.
Lerius described it as a lizard bigger than the body of a man,
measuring 5-6 ft long, yet its most eyecatching feature was not its size but
rather its extraordinary tegument. For according to Lerius, this unfamiliar
animal was entirely covered in rough white scales that resembled oyster shells
(and presumably, therefore, were opalescent, or nacreous, i.e. resembling
mother of pearl?).
The astonished, petrified group of men and this albino-like reptilian apparition stared at one another for around 15 minutes, all remaining totally immobile despite being directly exposed to the extreme heat of the mid-day sun, until the creature suddenly let forth a very loud groaning sound before turning away and swiftly vanishing from sight through the foliage covering the hill. Needless to say, the men made no attempt to follow the monster, making their way instead along their original course, leading them far away from that hill and its dreadful denizen.
The fact that this sizeable lizard was resting on top of a hill during the extreme mid-day heat clearly suggests that like lizards so often do, it was sunbathing, absorbing the sun's radiant heat for thermoregulatory purposes. This is because lizards are ectothermic, i.e. poikilotherms, which are unable to regulate their body temperature via internal homoiothermic mechanisms in the manner that endothermic mammals and birds do.
What is far less clear, conversely, is this reptile's precise taxonomic identity, as no lizard of that size and pallid appearance is known from Brazil or, indeed, from anywhere else, today. Might it have been albinistic, as I tentatively labelled it a little earlier here, or possibly leucistic? Leucistic American alligators Alligator mississipiensis with shiny white scales but black eyes are well known, for example, as are other reptile specimens of similar form, as well as true albino specimens with pink eyes. Perhaps it was a leucistic or an albinistic iguana, whose size had been over-estimated by an evidently shocked Lerius. Or might Lerius have been incorrect in labeling it a lizard – could it have actually been a white alligator?
I know of no other reports alluding to this singularly distinctive reptile, so the riddle of what it was seems destined to remain forever unsolved – like so many others in the fascinating if frustrating chronicles of cryptozoology.
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Another good one Karl, the early history of European colonialism is full of accounts of weird one-of-a-kind African/American/Asian animals. I don't know how much is the result of colonists not being able to recognise common animals in the area or those species later being driven to (near-)extinction before scientists got a good chance to document them, but it's a fascinating topic nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteA large tegu, maybe. Argentine black-and-whites are known from mostly the southeast of Brazil but there seem to be reports of them from the center, too, and nose-to-tail they can be 5 ft long. As the name suggests they are striped black and white, but some have more white than others and in bright sun look lighter due to the sheen of their scales throwing light off of them. (There are solid white animals in captivity, but I doubt any have ever roamed wild- it takes a few mutations to make a white tegu.) All that really throws me is the rough scales as they're smooth. Natives would be familiar with them, but as tegu have massive jaws and the bite force you'd expect to go with them, I can see locals not wanting to tangle with a large specimen.
ReplyDeleteI think I know this story from only one other place, a book called "Strange Secrets of the Loch Ness Monster" by Warren Smith. Which may be a sort of "lurid" title, but the book itself is very good. So it's nice to see it mentioned someplace else.
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