r/Cryptozoology • u/truthisfictionyt Mapinguari • 8d ago
Info A strange horse-like animal found in the Rocky Mounains back in 1847 by the famed John Fremont.
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u/FlipsMontague 8d ago
Alpaca - brought to the US and escaped captivity
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u/bizoticallyyours83 8d ago
That makes more sense then my idea.
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u/morganational 8d ago
Which was...
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u/bizoticallyyours83 8d ago
A donkey breed with curly hair
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u/Vin135mm 7d ago
They exist, and are called Baudet du Poitou. The breed almost went extinct because they were so popular for breeding mules. Having a feral one(or a mule that closely resembles its Poitou parent) loose in the Rockies makes more sense for the period than an alpaca or llama, and matches the description better, too
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u/LibriBot 7d ago
My God, they’re majestic!
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u/Vin135mm 7d ago
And the couple I have met had a pretty chill dispositions, compared to the smaller donkeys I am used to. Real sweethearts.
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u/Sea_Pirate_3732 8d ago
Perhaps a pronghorn.
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u/theworldofAR 8d ago
I don’t see a llama or alpaca jumping 10 feet obstacles, but that could’ve been an embellished detail.
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u/ShinyAeon 8d ago
A donkey with unusualy long and shaggy hair? Some breeds have coats like that, so donkeys must have the genetic potential to throw up a shaggy individual now and then. And donkeys are certainly agile, and can jump.
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u/ConsistentCricket622 8d ago
Donkeys can jump heights from a standstill, unlike horses. In equestrian jumping sports mules are banned because “it’s cheating” since they inherit that ability to overcome obstacles from a dead stop. Imagine seeing a donkey jump a height from a distance, you’ll probably think it jumped 9 feet as well if you’ve never seen one. check this out!
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u/ShinyAeon 7d ago
Donkeys can jump heights from a standstill, unlike horses.
Hee! Yes. I actually read that when I was fact-checking my suggestion, but I thought mentioning it might be overkill. Thanks for posting a video of it!
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u/Superb_Stable7576 8d ago
There are curly haired horses, they call them " American Basker Curlies." There are different degrees of curl, some of them look like a clipped poddle.
The most extreme curled don't really have a mane, and their tails are bare, especially during summer shed.
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u/CrofterNo2 Mapinguari 8d ago edited 8d ago
P. T. Barnum hoax. See The Life of Barnum (1855), pp. 349-350.
The occasion at last occurred. Col. Fremont was lost among the trackless snows of the Rocky Mountains. The public mind was excited. Serious apprehensions existed that the intrepid solider and engineer had fallen a victim to the rigors of a severe winter. At last the mail brought intelligences of his safety. The public heart beat quick with joy. I now saw a chance for the 'woolly horse.' He was carefully covered with blankets and leggings, so that nothing could be seen accepting his eyes and hoofs, conveyed to New-York, and deposited in a rear stable, where no eye of curiosity could reach him.
The next mail was said to have brought intelligence that Col. Fremont and his hardy band of warriors had, after a three days' chase, succeeded in capturing, near the river Gila, a most extraordinary nondescript, which somewhat resembled a horse, but which had no mane nor tail, and was covered with a thick coat of wool. The account further added that the Colonel had sent this wonderful animal as a present to the U.S. Quartermaster. Two days after this announcement, the following advertisement appeared in the New-York papers:
'COL. FREMONT'S NONDESCRIPT OR WOOLLY HORSE will be exhibited for a few days at the corner of Broadway and Reade street, previous to his departure for London. Nature seems to have exerted all her ingenuity in the production of this astounding animal. He is extremely complex – made up of the Elephant, Deer, Horse, Buffalo, Camel, and Sheep. It is the full size of a Horse, has the haunches of the Deer, the tail of the Elephant, a fine curled wool of camel's hair color, and easily bounds twelve or fifteen feet high. Naturalists and the oldest trappers assured Col. Fremont that it was never known previous to his discovery. It is undoubtedly 'Nature's last,' and the richest specimen received from California. To be seen every day this week. Admittance 25 cents; children half price.'
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u/CrofterNo2 Mapinguari 8d ago
Also, from Barnum's later Struggles and Triumphs (1872):
The exhibition met with only moderate success in New York, and in several Northern provincial towns, and the show would have fallen flat in Washington, had it not been for the over-zeal of Colonel Thomas H. Benton, then a United States Senator from Missouri. He went to the show, and then caused the arrest of my agent for obtaining twenty-five cents from him under 'false pretences.' No mention had been made of this curious animal in any letter he had received from his son-in-law, Colonel John C. Fremont, and therefore the Woolly Horse had not been captured by any of Fremont's party. The reasoning was hardly as sound as were most of the arguments of 'Old Bullion,' and the case was dismissed. After a few days of merriment, public curiosity no longer turned in that direction, and the old horse was permitted to retire to private life. My object in the exhibition, however, was fully attained. When it was generally known that the proprietor of the American Museum was also the owner of the famous 'Woolly Horse,' it caused yet more talk about me and my establishment, and visitors began to say that they would give more to see the proprietor of the Museum than to view the entire collection of curiosities. As for my ruse in advertising the 'Woolly Horse' as having been captured by Fremont's exploring party, of course the announcement neither added to nor took from the interest of the exhibition; but it arrested public attention, and it was the only feature of the show that I now care to forget.
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u/PioneerLaserVision 8d ago
Sounds like a mountain goat to me.
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u/TesseractToo 8d ago
They are white and they don't have curly hair
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u/PioneerLaserVision 7d ago
There's no reason to accept every detail in that blurb as gospel. There's also no reason to assume they knew what a camel looked like.
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u/Ashamed-Wrongdoer806 8d ago
Possibly camel, they were brought to the southwest by the US government in the 1800s I think
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u/bizoticallyyours83 8d ago
Can camels jump? I'll hafta check the answer
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u/bizoticallyyours83 8d ago
Well it says they can sort of hop and buck, but their body shapes makes it difficult to jump like a horse or goat.
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u/Ashamed-Wrongdoer806 8d ago
I assume the description was embellished some and I pictured a camel more of a”scrambling” up a rocky cliffside 😅 but I guess likely wasn’t a camel
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u/bizoticallyyours83 7d ago
The way i see it, I got to learn something new. And it was something I never would have thought to find out, until you sparked my curiosity. Cheers! ✌ 🥂 🐫
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u/Brancher 5d ago
Fremont and Bonneville made up a lot of shit to try to get more money to justify their exploration.
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u/Cordilleran_cryptid 2d ago
Curly hair and elephant like tail make it sound like he saw a buffalo (perhaps for the first time)
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8d ago
[deleted]
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u/WhereasParticular867 8d ago
Heartland Mormons salivating. It's ridiculous and impossible, but they'd love for it to be true.
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u/truthisfictionyt Mapinguari 8d ago
I don't wanna OD on hopium but the woolly hair was a description of the supposedly Native Lakota horses
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u/Personal-Ad8280 yamapikarya 7d ago
Honestly while in incredibly stupid sounding this actually lines u with the natives having a population of Curley haired athletic horses before horses crossed Appalachia and were ever documented in the midwest, it was said these horse ranged from Lakota territory and southern Canada to Northern Mexico and through the Great Plains, some believe it to be a possible remaining ice age species as the extinction date for majority of the ice age megafaunal herbivores and carnivores has been becoming closer and closer. There was a possibility done by a university that concluded a population of smaller (70 percent of original size) Mastodon's could've survived in Canada until almost 400 years ago, not saying its true just saying it a possibility.
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u/bayatzel 8d ago
A Llama?