|
De Loys Ape |
 In 1920, Swiss geologist Francois deLoys had been on an expedition to the jungles on the borders of Colombia and Venezuela for almost three years. When he and his group finally emerged from the forest, they had a rather amazing story to tell -- a story that spark a debate that has, even 81 years later, not been resolved. One day, while trekking through the wilderness, they stumbled upon a pair of apes walking through the jungle. Now, there are many types of monkey throughout South America, but there are no apes of any sort in the Western Hemisphere. Try telling that to deLoys -- and the natives of the area, who were apparently aware of the creature's existence. Apparently feeling threatened by the presence of the humans, the apes advanced in a "threatening manner." In self defense, deLoys and his group shot one of the attacking apes, but the remaining individual fled before it too could be killed. The skull of the dead ape was removed, to be taken back as proof of their encounter, but it unfortunately broke apart on the subsequent journey and the pieces were lost by the time the expedition reached civilization. As Daniel Cohen says in his book The Encyclopedia of Monsters, this is a pretty typical monster story -- a beast is encountered in a remote location and the evidence is lost, so all we have is one more unsubstantiated sighting that may or may not have actually happened. But in this case, ALL evidence was not lost. In the tradition of trophy hunters, deLoys had the dead animal propped up on a fuel crate, with a stick under its chin to pose for a photograph. The resulting photo is not an elusive glimpse of fur, it is not a blurry image, it is not another "Where's Waldo"-like picture... it's a clear photo of some kind of unknown primate. Or is it? In May of 1929, Dr. George Montadon seemed to think so, and he published a report about Ameranthropoides loysi (deLoys's American anthropoid). However, other scientists were more cautious, wanting more than just a story and one photograph as proof. Some have suggested that the "ape" is just a large spider monkey, though spider monkeys at their largest would be less than four feet tall, whereas deLoys's ape was just under five feet. - entry provided by Jim Harnock
|