Nahuelito facts for kids
Nahuelito is a lake monster that people say lives in Nahuel Huapi Lake in Patagonia, Argentina. Just like Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, this creature is named after its lake. People have described Nahuelito as a giant snake or a huge hump in the water. Some even think it looks like a plesiosaur, which was a type of dinosaur that lived in the sea. Photos believed to show Nahuelito often show a hump or a snake-like body.
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History of Nahuelito Sightings
Ancient Stories and Early Reports
The name "Nahuelito" comes from "yaguarete," which is another name for a Jaguar, a large wild cat found in the Americas. The legend of Nahuelito is thought to be very old, going back to stories told by the native people who lived in the area long before Europeans arrived. These early settlers heard tales from the local people about strange creatures living in the lakes.
In 1897, Dr. Clemente Onelli, who was the director of the Buenos Aires Zoo, started getting some reports about a possible strange creature in the Patagonian lakes.
First Modern Sightings
A man named George Garret worked near Nahuel Huapi Lake in 1910. One day, after sailing on the lake and getting ready to get off his boat, he saw something about 400 meters (1,300 feet) away. The part he could see was between 5 and 7 meters (16 to 23 feet) long and stuck out of the water by about 2 meters (6.5 feet). When Garret told local people about what he saw, he learned that the native people had similar stories.
Garret's sighting in 1910 became public in 1922 when he told the Toronto Globe newspaper. This story was then reported in newspapers around the world, which made people want to search for Nahuelito. The Buenos Aires Zoo even tried to find proof of a plesiosaur in Argentina's Patagonian lakes starting in 1922, with help from Clemente Onelli. However, they haven't found strong proof. The small lake where the creature was supposedly seen is now called Laguna del Plesiosaurio, which means "Plesiosaur's Lagoon."
Later Reports and Photos
More recently, in 1960, the Argentine Navy was said to have chased a mystery object underwater in the lake for 18 days. They couldn't figure out what it was, and some people thought it might be Nahuelito.
In 1988, photos of Nahuelito were printed in a magazine from the Río Negro newspaper. These pictures were taken from a short distance with an old-fashioned camera, and the object was near the coast of Bariloche. A man who didn't want to give his name left the photos with a letter that said, "It's not a weird-shaped log. It's not a wave. Nahuelito showed itself."
See also
In Spanish: Nahuelito para niños
