Otherwise known as the de Loys’ ape, Ameranthropoides loysi has only ever been reported as encountered by humans once, back in 1920. François De Loys, a Swiss geologist, says he shot and photographed the creature when he was looking for petroleum along the Colombia/Venezuela Border.

Despite its resemblance to a spider monkey, De Loys claims the creature was much larger at 1.57cm tall. For comparison, spider monkeys are typically 40 to 60cm. He noted that the creature had no tail.

De Loys’ story is that his expeditionary group was camped near the Tarra River when two large creatures approached them. He initially thought they were bears, but quickly realized, because they held onto branches, that they were primates. They appeared angry and then began defecating into their hands and throwing the dung at his party. Fearing for their own safety, they shot one of the creatures. The other then ran away.

The victim’s corpse was then propped up on a crate, with its head held up by a large stick and subsequently photographed. Afterwards, the creatures hide, skull and jaw were said to have been removed and preserved; however, they were later abandoned by the troubled expedition. And troubled they were indeed, losing people to disease and skirmishes with natives – out of the original twenty, only four survived.

Interestingly, there were no documented sightings of this type of creature either before or after the contact in 1920. The only evidence being the de Loy’s testimony and photograph. It has been claimed by some, such as cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson, that the photograph is simply a posed spider monkey. However, this can doubted since the crate that the monkey is sat on was typically manufactured at about eighteen inches tall, placing the monkey significantly bigger than even the tallest recorded spider monkey.

One advocate of the existence of the de Loys’ ape is researcher Michael Shoemaker, who concedes that there are many similarities between the creature and the spider monkey, but has noted several significant anatomical differences: its chest and hands are different, the face is much more oval than the spider monkey, it has a higher forehead and lacks the spider monkey pronounced underbite. (An underbite is where the lower jaw is further forward.)

The existence of de Loys’ ape remains unconfirmed and may always do so. For many there is not sufficient evidence to discredit the story and picture. Assuming the de Loys’ ape was not a hoax, there are several possible explanations. It could be that an as yet undiscovered and very shy species of ape lives in the forests of the Americas. Another possibility would be a family of spider monkeys who developed different characteristics to most (possibly now reabsorbed back into the general population) – similar to the aesthetic differences between races in humans. Another explanation would be that the ape was never recorded before because of its small population and has since gone extinct.

Whatever the truth, the de Loy’s ape will remain a mystery until further evidence is presented to either discredit the photograph or prove the existence of this illusive ape.