Arica Monster
Region of origin: Atacama Desert, Chile
Sighted by motorists on the roads of the deserts of northern Chile, witnesses have described encountering a large, bipedal creature crossing the road and approaching their vehicles. In the early Eighties, it was described as kangaroo-like, then in the Nineties it was said to more conclusively resemble the velociraptors from Jurassic Park, leading cryptozoologists to surmise it may be a surviving dromaeosaur of some kind. However, like the chupacabra turning from a winged reptilian figure to a canid beast as new information was absorbed into the folklore, as our understanding of the dinosaurs themselves changed so too did the Arica monster: those intent on preserving the idea of an extant dinosaur changing their depictions to include feathers and bird-like features while others maintain the earlier accounts of a more distinctly reptilian creature.
Originally posted on Tumblr on July 5, 2016
