The Panama Monster Is Not a Monster
A few days ago, a new cryptozoological monster lurched out of a Panamanian cave and into all our hearts. He was naked and slimy and posed quite dramatically, as though he was playing cowboys and indians with his naked slimy friends and was just fake-shot-through-the-heart, spinning around and collapsing with his little tongue lolling out from his mouth. His name was Gollum or the Cerro Azul Monster or the Blue Stream Monster or the Blue Hill Horror or just Baron Von Slimy. There he is on the right, in his final moments.
Whenever I see this picture, I make the sound one always makes when sticking out one’s tongue and feigning death: “Ehhhhhhhh.”
I waited a few days before posting about Baron Von Slimy because I was waiting for some clever biologist-type to post a tidy summary of what the poor fellow really was. Happily, thanks to Carl Zimmer’s Twitter feed, I found this post by Darren at Tetrapod Zoology in which he makes the case that the Baron is obviously a sloth who has lost most of his hair. (Not all his hair: you can see that he’s quite furry down below.)
So, that was fast—much faster than the now-solved mystery of the Montauk monster, which took a year for everyone to be sure that it was in fact a raccoon that was given a Viking funeral by some beach bums.
Speaking of none of that, here’s Kanye interrupting Charles Darwin. That is all.
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21 Comments
infinitemonkey
09.18.2009
REBECCA! YOU KILLED ET!
I swear, my paradoilia makes it look like a dead steven speilberg titicular character!
JHGRedekop
09.18.2009
I still say it’s the baby from Eraserhead.
James Fox
09.18.2009
Thought it looked like #2.
durnett
09.18.2009
@James Fox: Ew. What have you been eating?
Bevans
09.18.2009
Yeesh, that thing is creepy as hell.
Mark Hall
09.18.2009
It just goes to prove: Things that are familiar when clothed can look kinda creepy when naked.
Joshua
09.18.2009
@Mark Hall: Oddly enough, my last girlfriend said the exact same thing.
catgirl
09.18.2009
So does anyone know why the sloth lost its hair? Is this a typical aging thing in other mammal species, too? Or is it a symptom of some specific disease?
Sam Ogden
09.18.2009
@catgirl:
Male pattern baldness?
Joshua
09.18.2009
@catgirl: Apparently, it’s quite common for mammal corpses that have been in water for a while to lose hair. Just part of the natural decomposition, but it’s not something most people will encounter.
James Fox
09.18.2009
@durnett: A character in the movie “9â€.
Wow, didn’t even think of the double meaning.
chickitychina
09.18.2009
It’s obviously a Warwolf who was intent on draining the life force of at least one of the teenagers and wearing his or her skin. Those kids may have saved us from an interdimensional catastrophe.
QuestionAuthority
09.18.2009
@Sam: Mammal pattern baldness?
Some Canadian Skeptic
09.18.2009
I thought it was a picture of me from a kegger I was at in 2003. Yes. When naked, I probably look like Mac from the film, “Mac and Me”
Skept-artist
09.18.2009
@Some Canadian Skeptic: What do you mean ‘probably’? I’m gonna buy you a mirror and an anatomy textbook for your birthday, young man. Tsk tsk tsk…
Some Canadian Skeptic
09.18.2009
@Skept-artist:
Mir…..ror?
What the hell is that?????
Skept-artist
09.18.2009
@Some Canadian Skeptic: *Can’t stop laughing*
sinphree
09.18.2009
It has to be some sort of central american sloth.
As Rebecca noted “its quite furry down below” so it isn’t Brazilian
asenathwaite
09.20.2009
It’s obviously a Naked Albino Cave Sloth. Its fellow naked albino cave sloths must have driven it out into the deadly sunlight when it started sprouting hair down below.
Karen Stollznow
09.20.2009
We did a newsflash on the sloth at Monster Talk!
http://www.monstertalk.org/wordpress/?p=201
dacy_ebd
06.02.2010
dang…….how did I miss this?
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