The most intriguing and controversial encounter with the South American half-human half-animal took place on the Tarra River on the border between Venezuela and Colombia in 1920
Back in 1917, a group of twenty prospectors headed by the Swiss geologist Dr. François de Lois went there. After three years of work, only a handful of people remained from the expedition - the reason for this was illness, encounters with wild animals and poisoned arrows of hostile Indians. Once exhausted, ragged geologists saw two ape-like but tailless creatures 5 feet in front of them. They walked on two hind legs.
As soon as the wild creatures - male and female - noticed the geologists, they became violently excited and began to take out their anger on the surrounding vegetation. They went so far as to defecate in their hands and throw excrement at people. Then they moved decisively to the attack. The geologists responded with a volley of small-bore rifles. The female fell down dead. The male escaped.
The prospectors examined and photographed the corpse, recorded the results of the examination in detail.
The killed monkey was put on a box, propped on its chin with a stick to keep it in a sitting position, and photographed.
De Lois claims that this amazing monkey did not have a tail. In her mouth, he counted supposedly not 36, like all American monkeys, but only 32 teeth, like anthropoids.
The monkey was measured: its length was 1 meter 57 centimeters.
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They removed the skin from her, dissected the skull and lower jaw. But alas! In the hot climate of the tropics, the hide soon deteriorated. Lost somewhere in the forest wilderness and the jaw of a monkey. The skull remained the longest, and perhaps it would have been brought to Europe if it had not been in the hands of the expedition's cook. The cook was a great original: he decided to use the skull of the most unique monkey as … a salt shaker. Undoubtedly, this is not the best way to preserve zoological collections. Under the influence of damp and salt, the skull disintegrated at the seams, and unlucky collectors decided to throw it away.
Most of the photographs sank when the boat with the expedition members capsized. But one photograph survived. Upon his return to Europe, de Lois showed it to a prominent French anthropologist, Professor Georges Montandon. The latter concluded that the picture captured a species comparable to ancient primates - chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and gibbons. The creature received the official name - "American Primate Lua". Other researchers were less impressed by photography.
The creature really looked like a large, tailless spider monkey; most zoologists have confirmed its belonging to the species of arachnid monkeys. Some hinted - some subtly, others openly - at a hoax.
Montandon answered all critical remarks in detail, in detail, but the representatives of official science remained adamant: de Lois's find was not a monkey. Soon the discussion fizzled out and history was forgotten.
But a large amount of indirect evidence has accumulated in favor of the existence of semi-humans, semi-animals. The Indian tribes inhabiting the jungles of South America since ancient times believed in the existence of tailless, upright ape-like creatures.
Among the ruins of Mexican and South American settlements, sculptures of gorilla-like animals have been found that bear no resemblance to the chain-tailed primates (Capuchins). They look more like a female monkey killed by members of the de Lois expedition. Further, there is no ecological reason why such a monkey could not survive in the South American climate. Official science prefers to bypass uncomfortable questions and dismiss any arguments.
Nevertheless, scientists are still crossing spears over an old photograph of François de Lois. Skeptics chuckle in disbelief: either the skull has disintegrated, or the skin has deteriorated … But optimists believe in the existence, as they say, of "relict hominoids", that is, fossil monkey-men who have survived to the human era.