Ceratopsian Salamanders of Honduras

 

Cryptozoologist Chad Arment wrote about a mystery animal from Honduras in his Biofortean Notes, Volume 5

While attending a cryptozoology conference Chad heard second hand stories about a missionary working in Honduras who had seen a strange creature. After extensive searching he was able to track her down. The woman didn’t want to be identified, and is only known by her initials LS in the report. She had no interest in anything fortean or paranormal. As well, she had only told people about the encounter a few times shortly after it happened in 2001, and then moved on with her life. She has never tried to profit off the encounter or tried to widely publicize it. These qualities together convinced Chad Arment that she was a reliable witness.

The sighting happened on the mission’s farmland in Cortés Department, Honduras. The landscape was along a mountain river, with cleared pasture on one side and jungle on the other. The time was between late morning and noon. LS was driving a tractor, cutting hay in the field at the time. She spotted the first animal on the edge of the field, near the river. She observed it while driving the tractor, then she turned to drive back to the other side of the field as she cut rows. On the next row up towards the river she saw two of the animals standing together. They were now in the way of her progress along the field.

LS described the creatures as being the size of a 12 hand pony, or 48 inches tall. The creatures had short rounded snouts with wide mouths, lacking any teeth, nostrils or ears on their head. The eyes were bulging and salamander like, and close to the corners of the mouth. LS said their head reminded her of Kermit the Frog. At the back of their heads they had ceratopsian like crests. These crests transitioned smoothly from the head and wrapped around completely from jaw to jaw. The back edge of the crest had evenly spaced points, not horns or spikes, but a smooth transition from the crest into point shapes. They stood on four thick, pillar like legs. The joints of the legs were hard to see, except for the hocks on the back legs. The feet had claws and were alligator like. The body was thick and barrel shaped. There was no defined neck and when the creatures looked around they would turn their whole body. The skin was smooth and hippo like. The colour of both of them was a dark grey like a hippo or rhino. One had bright colours on its chest, which LS compared to a pheasant. They had long reptilian tails, which transitioned smoothly from the body and tapered down to a point. The tail was as long as the body and head combined. LS estimated that they were 450 to 600 pounds, comparing them to similarly sized hogs that had been raised at the mission farm.

The mystery animals loitered around the field aimlessly. LS never observed them eating the grass or anything else. She slowly, and cautiously edged the tractor forward, trying to herd the creatures out of the way. LS noted that the creatures were not scared of the loud tractor the way most normal animals were and questioned if they were able to hear at all. After some convincing the animals slid into the river and waded around. LS noted that the river in the area was quite shallow and wouldn’t submerge them. They appeared to be as comfortable in the river as in the field, and LS assumed the creatures had originally come out of the river. LS did her row passed the river and turned. When she passed the area again the creatures were gone.

Two other people working at the mission also saw the creatures, but they didn’t give any details of the encounter. In addition to this a man driving along the dirt road from the mission to the nearest town saw the creatures crossing the road at night. There were no other sightings in the area. In addition to this the natives in the area who the mission was working with had no legends about similar creatures.

Chad Arment noted that in cryptozoology such creatures are usually compared to ceratopsian dinosaurs, but he thought the creatures deviated too much from typical ceratopsians to be considered as such, noting the lack of beak and scales. He suggested they could be pareiasaurs, a similarly stalky reptile from the Permian. I find this an odd choice, as pareiasaurs had even more prominent scales which were developed into armoured scoots, similar to ankylosaurus armour. The video I referenced suggests the creatures could be dicynodonts. While dicynodonts had pig-like mammalian skin like these creatures, they also had prominent beaks and tusks which the creatures lacked. These creatures don’t match up well with anything in the fossil record. These creatures are especially interesting because they deviate so much from typical cryptid sightings, where certain trends like ape men and plesiosaur like lake monsters repeat over and over. Although with so few sightings we will probably never know what they truly were.

Sources

https://drive.google.com/file/d/110IPiijNmYAhHDSsR2DgiNcGvxldf2GF/view

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stoNfDlclHY