For example, G. Alvarez writes in El Tronco de Oro that swimming around in Argentina's Lake Caviahue are
"animals that should not have been there, like threatening bulls and horses […] and a female entity associated to these waters named 'la sirena' [the mermaid] who is mentioned many times in the stories of the elderly locals."According to Whittall, there have been several sightings in southern Chile's Lake Tagua-Tagua of a strange lake horse.
In 1995, local Carlos Pinto was traveling upstream in a motor boat when he saw swimming in the same direction an animal with “the head of a little foal, with a shiny hide and a short rigid mane.” Moving aside to let the speedy creature pass (its wake almost capsized his boat), he watched as it swam out of view.
Pinto's aunt, who lives near Tagua-Tagua, had a mare that seemed to have given birth after a pregnancy. She began “to neigh, and an animal like a small foal appeared which had feet like those of a duck […] and it walked like a duck."
The creature, which Pinto's aunt thought was the foal but which Whittall believes was probably "a predator that had captured the foal and taken it to the lake to eat it," went on to “molt its fur like through a wounding its back [it then] went towards the river that goes into the lake and disappeared.” The mare neighed as if calling the foal.
Sources:
Patagonian Monsters
Creatures at the Reloncavi Fjord Area
Lake Caviahue - lake of the week
Alvarez, G., (1968). El Tronco de Oro. Neuquen: Pehuén. pp. 116 -7.
http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2009/12/lake-viedma-lake-of-week.html
http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2010/06/another-paleo-lake-puelo.html
http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2009/12/creature-at-lake-cisnes_08.html
http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/view/flipcard/5563336289273021599/2009/10/lake-of-week-lake-la-plata.html
http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2010/01/patagonian-tapir.html
These creatures are some among many in Patagonia which Aquabeasties found at Austin Whittall's wonderful Patagonian Monsters blog.
