Case file · Cryptid
Mapinguari
A foul-smelling, hairy, one-eyed giant of Brazilian Amazon folklore, with backward feet and a mouth in its belly.
1928 CE · -9.05, -70.53 · status: legend
The account
The name comes from Tupi-Guarani words for 'the thing with the twisted foot', and the Karitiana people call it 'laughing beast'. Rubber tappers in Pará, Amazonas and Acre told of it into the 20th century, including a 1928 account.
The sceptical view
No specimen or physical evidence of a living animal exists; its screaming may be recent lore, as it appears in rubber tappers' stories but not in colonial literature.