Case file · Cryptid
Minhocão at Lages
In 1877 the German zoologist Fritz Müller, then living in Santa Catarina, published reports that about eight years earlier a minhocão had dug great trenches near Lages, uprooting trees and diverting a stream.
1870 CE · -27.82, -50.33 · status: legend
The account
Müller wrote in the journal 'Der Zoologische Garten', relying on local informants, and a German merchant at Lages was said to have seen the trenches. Popular Science Monthly summarised the article in 1878.
The sceptical view
The 'trenches' fit landslides or erosion gullies, and no specimen was ever produced.