PALEO GROUP

ALIVE? AND WHERE?

One of our interests at Paleo Group are anomalies of any kind reported by reliable sources. The following is from the prestigious organization "The Nature Conservancy". They are a group totally dedicated to preserving unique habitats for future generations. Among their board of directors is Norman Schwartzkopf, former hero of the Gulf War in 1991. The article from their periodical is quoted in its entirety for your benefit.  

The Pacific Northwest has its Sasquatch, the Himalayas harbor the Yeti, and now, from darkest Amazonia, come the legendary Mapinguari.

A huge, upright creature cloaked in reddish fur, with a paralyzing stare, a knockout stench and a house shaking howl has been terrorizing rubber tappers of rural outposts in the western Amazon basin.  So they say.

And so believes David Oren, a biologist with the Goeldi Natural History Museum in Belem, Brazil, who has set out to bring a Mapinguari back for all to see. After nine years interviewing Mapinguari acquaintances, Oren believes he is on the trail of the giant ground sloth, which supposedly fell extinct thousands of years ago.  

Despite admitted skepticism from his colleagues, Oren remains intrigued with the consistency in the Amazonians stories; the booming voice, the ghastly smell, the knuckled tracks, and the shotgun proof hide.  

Reports of Mapinguari blithely ignoring multiple blasts suggests armor plating, says Oren, noting that certain ground sloths bore bony plates beneath their fur. 

Oren, who has helped the Conservancy identify hotspots of biodiversity in the amazon, sees his quest for Mapinguari as more than a glamorous monster hunt. "If South America's largest terrestrial mammal has been hidden to science until 1994, what else does the Amazon have in terms of biodiversity that's new to us?