De Loys monkey
The De Loys' Ape (lat. Ameranthropoides loysi , also known as Loy's Monkey , St. Loy's Ape , Didi , Vasitri , Guayazi or monkey ) to an ape or Affenmenschenart be that in South America could occur whose existence among zoologists but when is not proven and is therefore a cryptid . While descriptions of this creature have been known in the western world for 400 years, it was the Swiss geologist François de Loys ( 1892 - 1935 ) who, according to his own statement, accidentally shot and photographed one of these creatures in 1920 .
Historical
It was Sir Walter Raleigh who first brought reports of South American ape-men to Europe in 1596 after his Guyana expedition . He had been told by the local population that monkey-like creatures lived in the jungle and behaved extremely aggressively; women have already been abducted and men killed. Even Alexander von Humboldt handed down the stories of 200 years later Indians who warned him of man-eating ape-man. He thought these beings were bears, however . In some places locals told of a hairy person whom they called “Didi” because he should utter similar shouts. These and other such reports have been classified as myths and superstitions by Europeans . De Loys' expedition reinvigorated the discussion.
The Loys' Expedition
The Swiss geologist François de Loys set out in 1917 with a force of twenty on a three-year expedition to look for oil in the inhospitable jungle region of Sierra de Perijáa on the border between Colombia and Venezuela . In this area lived the warlike Motilone Indians , who attacked de Loys' expedition several times and decimated the number of its members. Tropical diseases and attacks by wild animals did the rest, and after three years only a handful of the men who had set off were left.
According to de Loys, they were on the banks of the Rio Tarra when suddenly two creatures stormed out of the jungle. At first they were recognized as monkeys, but they were larger than any monkey in the area, walked on their hind legs and had no tails. They acted extremely angry and aggressive, threatened the men with branches that they tore from trees and threw their droppings at them. The men began to shoot the animals, whereupon the monkeys retreated back into the bush. A monkey that stood in front of a second was fatally wounded and was able to be examined by the men.
Appearance
The dead animal, a female, was placed on a box and held upright by a stick. So it could be photographed. If De-Loys is to be believed, the animal was about five feet tall and covered with reddish-brown, shaggy fur. Although it had 32 teeth (South American monkeys have 36 teeth) and was tailless , it had the disproportionately long arms and graspable feet of a spider monkey . Also very noticeable is the huge clitoris , similar to that of a spider monkey , which could easily be mistaken for a male reproductive organ.
Post-history
There is only one photo of the De Loys monkey. According to de Loys, other photos were destroyed when the boat capsized. The photo was later analyzed by a friend of de Loys, the French anthropologist Georges Montand , and classified as a new species . He named the animal Ameranthropoides loysi , which means something like "Loys' American ape ". This was received with great skepticism by the professional world. Further evidence for the existence of the animal has not yet emerged.
Classification attempt
If one assumes - which is often claimed - that François de Loys simply cut off the tail of a local monkey or hid it while taking a photo, it must be - based on the reddish hair color and the huge clitoris - a spider monkey . Also, the entire structure of the skeleton is geared more towards climbing trees than walking upright on the ground.
What speaks against this theory, however, is that the box on which the female was photographed according to de Loys was standardized to 45 cm and the size of the monkey was therefore clearly 1.5 m, a size that a spider monkey can never reach . Many critics believe, however, that the alleged petroleum box was a much smaller ammunition box , making the monkey the same size as a spider monkey.
The fact that a banana tree can be seen in the picture proves that the photo could not have been taken in the wild as claimed, because this plant was first introduced to South America by settlers.
literature
- Harald Gebhardt, Mario Ludwig: Of dragons, yetis and vampires - on the trail of mythical animals . BLV-Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-405-16679-9 .
Web links
- Image of the nature and critical examination of the incident (s)
- De Loys Ape - a mystery of the jungle