MonsterTalk

The Mapinguari Is Not The Territory

Listen

Description

We've officially hit a decade of MonsterTalk. In this episode we get "old school" and talk about the legendary Mapinguari, and how cryptozoologists have tried to explain the folklore of this massive South American animal by claiming it to be a kind of Bigfoot creature, or even a Giant Ground Sloth. We take a deep dive into what Paleontology can tell us about the real historical records of Giant Ground Sloths (Megatherium) and see how well these creatures line up with the legend of the Mapinguari.Our guest is Uruguayan paleontologist Dr. Richard A. Fariña.
 
Links
Dr. Fariña's Giant Sloth website (English / Spanish)
Paper describing the site of the Arroyo del Vizcaíno site near Sauce, Uruguay
The Shasta Giant Sloth site
David C. Oren's theory of Sloths as possible explanation of Mapinguari has been covered in The New York Times and Discovery Magazine.
Apparently, Behemoth from Godzilla: King of the Monsters 2019 is a Mapinguari! Who knew?
We also discussed a few megafauna in this episode. Here's our Who's Who for those names:
Gomphothere - similar to an elephant or mammoth
Glyptodon - similar to an enormous armadillo
Megatherium - a gigantic ground sloth that is the main paleontological subject of the episode
 
And don't forget the question of Sloths and Avocados! The paper for that research is here.