Mono Grande

Occasional reports of large monkey-like creatures have been made from South America. Sometimes called Mono Grande (or “Large Monkey”), such creatures are reported as being much larger than the commonly accepted new world monkeys. These accounts have received rather little publicity, and typically generated little or no interest from mainstream experts, but have received some notice in cryptozoology.

Perhaps the first formal record of such creatures comes from 1533, when Pedro de Cieza de Leon reported sightings from natives and from one Spanish settler. In his writings, Sir Walter Raleigh made brief note of reports of large monkey-like creatures in South America. He did not see such a creature himself, but deemed them credible, noting the ubiquity and consistency of reports.

The so-called Loys Ape was photographed in 1920; some argue it was simply a spider monkey, others think it could be an unknown creature.

There have been reports from more recent decades: In 1968, explorer Pino Turolla saw Loys’ photograph, and set out to investigate. Turolla claimed two brief sightings of similar creatures: spotting two large bipeds in the area near where Loys asserted he’d encountered and photographed the creature, and a second brief sighting in eastern Ecuador.

In 1987, Gary Samuels (a mycologist studying under a grant from the New York Botanical Garden) was studying fungi in Guyana. Hearing footsteps nearby, he glanced up, expecting to see his Guyanese assistant. Instead, he saw a bipedal ape like creature standing about five feet tall. Samuels said the creature bellowed at him, then ran away.

Sources

• Jerome Clark, ‘’Unexplained! 347 Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences, and Puzzling Physical Phenomena’’, Visible Ink Press, 1993.
• Bernard Heuvelmans, ‘’On The Track Of Unknown Animals’’, Hill and Wang, 1958
• Michael Shoemaker, “The Mystery of Mono Grande”, ‘’Strange Magazine’’, April 1991.
• Pino Turolla, ‘’Beyond The Andes’, Harper and Row, 1980