Nahuelito is a cryptid

lake monster A lake monster is a lake-dwelling entity in folklore. The most famous example is the Loch Ness Monster. Depictions of lake monsters are often similar to those of sea monsters. In the ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature'', entities classified as "lak ...

purported to live in

Nahuel Huapi Lake Nahuel Huapi Lake ( es, Lago Nahuel Huapí) is a lake in the lake region of northern Patagonia between the provinces of Río Negro and Neuquén, in Argentina. The tourist center of Bariloche is on the southern shore of the lake. The June 2 ...

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. Like Nessie, the

Loch Ness Monster The Loch Ness Monster ( gd, Uilebheist Loch Nis), affectionately known as Nessie, is a creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large, long-necked, and with one or mor ...

, the Argentine creature is named after the lake it supposedly resides in and has been described as a giant serpent or a huge hump, as well as a plesiosaur. Nahuelito has been allegedly shown through photos showing a hump, or a serpentine body.

History

Its name means yaguarete, which is a large felid species from the Americas. The origin of the current legend is believed to go back to indigenous stories prior to the period of the conquest of America. The first colonizers obtained from the native population stories about the occasional encounters with aquatic monsters. In 1897, Dr. Clemente Onelli, director of the Buenos Aires Zoo, began to receive sporadic reports about a possible strange creature inhabiting the Patagonian lakes. In 1910, George Garret worked at a company located near the Nahuel Huapi. After navigating the lake and about to disembark, he could see a creature about away, the visible part of which was between long and protruded about above the water. Commenting on his experience with local people, Garret learned of similar stories told by the indigenous people. But Garret's sighting in 1910 was only made public in 1922, when he recounted it to the Toronto Globe newspaper and echoed in the international press, thus motivating himself to organize the first expedition to search for Nahuelito. The

Buenos Aires Zoo The Buenos Aires Eco Park ( es, Ecoparque de Buenos Aires) is an park in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The former zoo, opened in 1888, contained 89 species of mammals, 49 species of reptiles and 175 species of birds, with a tot ...

has been attempting to collect evidence of a plesiosaur in Argentina's Patagonian lakes since 1922, under the patronage of , but no consequential evidence has been found. The small lake where the presence of the creature was claimed is known today as ''Laguna del Plesiosaurio'' (Plesiosaur's lagoon). More recently, in 1960, the Argentine Navy was said to have chased an unidentified underwater object in the lake for 18 days, without being able to identify it, which some people related to this alleged creature. In 1988, photos of the Nahuelito were published in a magazine of the Río Negro newspaper. These were taken at a short distance with an analog camera, in which the object was near the coast of Bariloche. "It is not a log of whimsical shapes. It is not a wave. El Nahuelito showed his face" said a man, who did not reveal his name, in a letter he left with the photos.

References

Argentine folklore Water monsters Spanish-language South American legendary creatures {{Argentina-myth-stub