The 'Merfolk-Chupacabras' of Coleman/Hughe Field Guide as Compared to Tyler Stone's Freshwater Monkeys

Quoting from an online review of Loren Coleman's opinion of "Merbeings"

 Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman and Fortean researcher
Patrick Huyghe devote a whole chapter to "Merbeings,"and summarize a
number of actual "Merbeing" sighting reports, in The Field Guide to
Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates (Anomalist Books, 2006). Coleman
and Huyghe list the "Merbeing" as the ninth and last of their nine basic
categories of  possibly real unknown primates sharing our planet
with us, including also the Neo-Giant (including the "classic" or
"standard" North American Bigfoot/Sasquatch and Himalayan Yeti), True
Giant, Marked Hominid, Neandertaloid, Erectus Hominid, Proto-Pygmy
(including Sumatra's Orang pendek and Flores Island's  Ebu gogo),
Unknown Pongid, and Giant Monkey. They further subdivide the "Merbeing"
into two distinct subtypes, a more fishlike, fully aquatic sea-going
marine variety including the traditional "Mermaids" of Western legend,
and a bipedal semi-aquatic freshwater variety including the Latin
American Chupacabras, Japanese Kappa, Madagascar Kalanoro,
and North American "Lizard-men."

"The Merbeing, or water creature," Coleman and Huyghe note at the
beginning of their "Merbeing" chapter in The Field Guide to
Bigfoot..., is "perhaps the most traditional of all the undiscovered
nonhuman primates" (Loren Coleman & Patrick Huyghe, **The Field Guide
to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates**, p. 37). "Perhaps
surprisingly," however, "the Mermaids and Mermen of ancient lore are
still being seen today," though in seemingly far fewer numbers than
formerly. Yet this group of aquatic beings "ranges far beyond the
Merpeople of yore" and also includes creatures like "the Sea Ape of the
Bering Sea, the scaly-looking but actually hairy and misnamed Lizard
Men, and the fiery-eyed Latino phenomenon known as the Chupacabras."
Likewise, "Asians have been aware of their Kappa and other Merbeings
for centuries" (Coleman & Huyghe, The Field Guide to Bigfoot..., p. 37).

Merbeings, Coleman and Huyghe note, "appear to come in two varieties,"
marine and freshwater. The "marine subclass" is "distinguished by a
finlike appendage," while the freshwater subclass is "characterized by
an angular foot with a high instep and three pointed toes." The
Chupacabras, Kalanoro, and "Lizard Man" freshwater merbeings are
"often found venturing onto land" and are "far more aggressive and
dangerous, being carnivorous," than the "calmer" marine type** (Coleman
& Huyghe, The Field Guide to Bigfoot, p. 37).
[Personally I do not count the Kalaorno, either]

Merbeings vary in height, according to Coleman and Huyghe, from dwarf to
human-sized. Their bodies are "strong, bit not stocky or bulky." Marine
Merbeings have smooth skin, sometimes with a very short "fur," while the
freshwater type sometimes has patchy hair growths that appear "like
leaves" or "scaly," giving a reptilian impression responsible for the
popular name "Lizard Men." In both types, the hair is often "maned,"
though "some exhibit almost complete hair cover, especially in the
Chupacabras kin." Merbeings generally have oval or almond-shaped
eyes, "perhaps due to their watery origins." These "mostly nocturnal
creatures" have a "singsong vocalization," which has been "reported
almost universally from Eurasia to Africa" (**Coleman & Huyghe, The
Field Guide to Bigfoot, pp. 37-38).
**Coleman and Huyghe  suggest a relationship of the freshwater Merbeings--the
Chupacabras, Kappa, "Giant Frog", and "Lizard Man" types--to the
"prosimians" (primitive primates) known as the loris and potto,
especially the potto. Freshwater primates, they point out, often display
a row of spikes along their backs, a "rather unknown but not[?Completely] unknown
feature among primates." In the potto, a cat-sized African loris, the
spines of the last neck vertebra and first thoracic vertebra penetrate
the skin and are capped with horny spines. When the potto is threatened,
the spines stand up so that a predator can't bite it on the neck.
Also--while freshwater Merbeings appear to be three-toed, the potto has
an enormous big toe pointing in the opposite direction from its third,
fourth, and fifth toes, and a vestigial second toe reduced to a lump
bearing a cleaning claw. "So much for primates not having weird digits
and spines on their backs," they remark **Coleman & Huyghe, The Field
Guide to Bigfoot..., p. 38).*

*The "whole body of lore on Merbeings," Coleman and Huyghe believe,
"appears to have basis in reality and is not all myth," as "Credible
sightings have occurred." On the other hand, they feel, the "increased
activity or visibility of the _/chupcabras/_" and the decreased reports
of oceanic Mermaids and Mermen may "signal a shift toward the successful
survival of the more aggressive freshwater, land-oriented sublass" of
Merbeings. Sightings of Louisiana's "scary, triple-toed Honey Island
swamp monster," Canada's "three-fingered and three-toed Thetis Lake
monster," South Carolina's "similarly digited Scape Ore Swamp Lizard
Man." and the Latin American Chupacabras suggest that "the most
dangerous Merbeing variety is presently at the head of its class."
**(**Coleman & Huyghe, The Field Guide to Bigfoot_, p. 38).

I find that Tyler Stone's revision of the Freshwater Monkey category was constructed as a substitute for Coleman and Huyghe's freshwater Merbeing. the Fit is usually good enough, but the understanding about the Chupacabras in particular needs more clarification. My impression is that we have identified the "Freshwater Merbeing" pretty well but it is NOT what is being sighted and called a "Chupacabras." and there is a question about how frequently they are called "Swamp Monsters" and/or  if the "Lizardmen" really belong with the rest of the sightings of basically smaller creatures. I have been finding more sightings of the "Thetis Lake Monster" types in other lakes in British Columbia as well, so there is evidently indirect indication that the tradition does exist locally and some of the sightings could be legitimate at Thetis Lake. The Freshwater monkeys do NOT have spines but they have longer hair on the head and back, called a mane, and locks of it can stick together  to be called spines or scales

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/08/freshwater-monkeys.html
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/02/freshwater-monkeys-and-other.html
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/12/more-freshwater-monkeys-sprites.html
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/03/chaneques.html
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/03/some-speculations-on-freshwater-monkey.html

Europe: Watersprites and Goblins

 

Kittelsen_TheWaterSprite

Japan: Kappas

NWCoast Area and S Alaka: Kushtaka the Otter Man 

 

 Chaneques, Mexico

 

"Baby Chupacabras" as produced bya Japanese Toy company

 

Honey Island Swamp Monster, possible adult male with fully dry fur fluffed up

 

 

Macaque monkey going swimming

Some modern macque monkeys do go in for wading

 and swimming, and they can and do find food in there

 

 And for reference again the Line-up of the types to scale (Paste-up and editing by Dale D)

Some Speculations on the Freshwater Monkey Anatomy

After several behind-the-scenes and Online discussions with Tyer Stone on the matter, I have a few suggestions on what the skeletal anatomy of the Freshwater Monkeys are like. They are basically large macaques on a par with the bigger macaques such as the bear monkeys o Southeast Asia, and there are big males which are about normal human size seen commonly in the USA. This may be a geographical variation or it may be a new development triggered in response to environmental disturbances by humans. Traditionally, the creatures are usually small (3-5 feet tall being a common general range of estimations) they are very powerful swimmers and divers relying primarily upon their very developed hind legs and large flipperlike feet, either of which are often compared to the legs and feet of frogs. It would seem that their feet are disproportionately large in conparison with most human beings and even bigfoot: whereas a human being's height might commonly be seven times the length of the foot and a Bigfoot's height more like a sixth, in the case of the Freshwater monkeys it is probably more like a fifth of the height or even larger. The crreatures are also possessed of very large, bulging, glassy and reflective eyes, usually heavily lidded in daylight, which also remind witnesses of frogs or lizards. The head is surrounded by a prominent ruff or mane of hair all around, but coming out in all directions from the center of the top of the head, which therefore has something which looks like a depression or a bald spot.

 These are the skulls of South American owl mokeys which I chose as most likely representing the proportionate size of the eye sockets. The owl monkeys are New World monkeys and the Freshwater monkeys areOld World monkeys and so there are some differences between them, including the number of teeth. The Freshwater monkeys also seem to have cheek-pouches which they use to store food, which is one of the characteristics of the Old World Monkeys.

                        (Images of Macaques taking to Water)

 Here is my initial diagram comparing the track of Momo (one of the "Frogfoot" series of tracks common in the midwest: some of these are also counted as "Devil Monkey" sightings) to a large macaque monkey. It was in this diagram I first pointed out what looked to me like the stump of the hallux (big toe) on the inside. Further examoination of depictions of Japanese Kappas made it seem more likely that the first and fifth toes were vestigial but variably expressed in the living animals, but that even if a fairly obvious stub of a big toe was seen by witnesses, it was situated in such a way that it did not imprint upon the track. Therefore I made up a hypothetical diagram for the bone structure of the webbed "Flipper" foot and it is reproduced below. In this case it is the other foot from the original diagram shown above, in both cases the reduced hallux is on the medial side of the track.

I would imagine that the weight of a FW monkey that left a humansized track would be less than half the weight of the human, the actual weightbearing part of the foot is quite small in comparison. So if you had a 12 inch FW monkey track it would go with a five foot tall FW Monkey and it would weigh less than a chimpanzee at the same height, perhaps 75 to 85 pounds. The usual FW Monkeys  would be smaller than that and range usually 15 to 30 kg or 30 to 60 pounds approx.

BTW, if I am correct in my re-assessment of the proportions, "Momo" would be closer to five feet tall rather than the reported seven feet or more. In discussing  similar reports, Loren Coleman also noticed that the common run of NAPES sightings were less than human size but some sightings said seven feet or more. He then quoted Heuvelmans as saying 'A hair-covered creature always seems larger than it really is' in regards a report of a 7-foot-tall monster that had left a 10-inch track: we are dealing with exactly that situation again in the case of Momo and the Fouke Monster. In other words, the North American variant of Freshwater Monkeys might not actually be outsized as compared to other populations, only reported as being so.

Water-Monkey

..And just because I had it handy, a cast of one of those lopsided coyote tracks I was talking about.

PS, for convenience I have concocted the Latin genus name "Hydromacaca" to refer to the FW Monkey. It is only provisional and only time can tell if it shall become an accepted genus in the official Taxonomic catalogues.

Best Wishes, Dale D.