Mapinguari

The Mapinguari (also called the juma) is a mythical monstrous creature from Brazilian folklore, believed to protect the Amazon rainforest and its animals. Traditional folklore before 1933 described it as a former human shaman transformed into a hairy humanoid cyclops with a gaping mouth on its abdomen and backward-facing feet designed to confuse trackers. In the latter half of the 20th century, the legend evolved as some cryptozoologists speculated it might be an unknown primate similar to Bigfoot, while others, notably ornithologist David C. Oren in his 1993 article, proposed it could be a surviving giant ground sloth—a theory that faced scientific criticism due to the lack of recent fossil records. A 2023 academic study examining giant sloth bones from 1995 that were "modified into primordial pendants" suggested humans coexisted with giant sloths in the Americas, proposing this relationship "may have served as inspiration for the Mapinguari," which in Amazonian legend "had the nasty habit of twisting off the heads of humans and devouring them."