Succarath

Su, or Succarath is a ferocious beast that lives in the cold, wild country at the tip of South America (Patagonia).

Woodcut, from Cosmographie universelle. In Les Singularitez de la France antarctique, by Thevet

Description

Half tiger and half wolf, it has the head of a beautiful but malicious woman. Its tail looks like a large, flat, green palm leaf.

Behavior

It lived near the banks of rivers and, if it were pursued, took its young on its back, covered them with its tail, and fled. If it is cornered by a hunter, the mother Su will kill her young rather than let them live in captivity, which is why you will never see one in a zoo.

History

Most likely, the creature has been invented by Thevet. Ambroise Paré mentioned it in 1585, before Edward Topsell’s The Historie of Four-Footed Beastes (1607).

Quote

The Su, i. e. water, becaufe living by rivers LI

moftwhat , is found among the Patagons.c.

Some call it Succarath. it hath a fierce Lions

looke, yet is bearded from the eare like a man,

1hort-haired, the belly Itrutting out,lank flank-

ed , the tail large and long , as a fquirrclls.

Tliegiantlike men there,the climate being not

very hote, wear the skins, for which, wlien

hunted they lay their young on their back,and

cover them with their tail, and fo run away,but

are taken, vvhelps, and all in pits covered with

boughs. Being faft in, for rage, or generouf-

nefIe they kill their whelps, and cry hideoully

to fright the hunters; they flioot him dead with

arrows, and flea him. Some fain that they in

fondneffe carry their young to medows, and

there thev dreffe onch otherwithlicrndsind of

faire fweet flowers.

Jonstonus, Joannes, 1603-1675 / A description of the nature of four-footed beasts : with their figures :engraven in brass (1678). Chapter IV. Of the stinking beast, the graffa, and caoch, p. 112.