Succarath

The Súccarath, or Sú, is a bizarre, presumably extinct cryptid reported by the first European explorers who arrived in Patagonia. The Súccarath is described as a somewhat large animal, with a lion-like body, short hair, long tail similar to squirrels which it uses to protect its young that cling to its back, and an ugly, flat, almost human-like face, with a noticeable “beard."

In the early 18th century, Jesuit priest Pedro Lozano claimed Súccaraths were usually found around rivers. The native people would hunt them by digging a deep hole and covering it with a fragile layer of sticks and leaves, which it would then fall into. They then killed the animal with their arrows and used its pelt for clothing. They were thought to be aggressive, fast-moving hunters. They were featured commonly in encyclopedias and the journals of explorers but stopped being reported in the mid-1700s.

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Some have speculated the Súccarath is a misidentified unusually far south population of anteaters, which do carry their young on their back and have a bushy, squirrel-like tail. Anteaters also have large claws, which an explorer unfamiliar with the wildlife could assume meant it was a predator. Although this doesn’t explain its alleged predatory behaviour and flat face which anteaters quite obviously don’t have. 

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Another theory is that the Súccarath is a jaguar, hence the flatter face, carnivorous diet and slim, lion-like body, although they do not have bushy tails, nor do they carry their young. Of course, another likely option is that Súccaraths never existed, and were either distorted second-hand reports of wildlife mistranslated, a chimera of multiple known animals, or entirely fabricated.