(Today I fell into an interesting rabbithole. While I have already heard about the Succurath (also spelled Su or Succarath) some time ago, now I stumbled upon it again and really read about it, and boy has this thing some interesting history.
As far as I cound find, its earliest appearance was in Conrad Gessners Historia Animalum from 1551. This alone is interesting, as Gessner, who is often credited as the father of modern Zoology, writes mostly about animals that we today still know as real. There’s some exceptions to this, for example the dragon, but with these, Gessner quotes the most renowned authors from antiquity, like Pliny the Elder, without knowing that their “Draco” was just the python. But for the succarath, there are no older sources known. The reason for this is the creatures’ homeland: South America, which at that time has only been known to Europeans for half a century.
According to Gessner, the creature, which he calls “Su”, lives in Patagonia.It’s name supposedly means water, but there are no other sources for this [1]. When it is hunted, it puts its young on its back and runs away with them, protecting them with its long tail. The natives use its fur to protect themselves from the cold. The woodcut on top is from the German version released in 1563. [2]
In 1558, the French author André Thevet released a translation of Gessners work, but goes into more detail regarding the hunting method of the native Brasilians (according to him, the creature lives in Brasil). According to Thevet, they bury a hole in the ground and cover it with leaves before luring the animal into the pit. Thevet’s illustration is clearly inspired by Gessner’s. [3]
The French surgeon Ambroise Paré also translates Gessners description into French, but puts more emphasis on the animal’s tendency to protect its young. He’s also the first to call it Succarath instead of Su. [4] From there on, it became a staple of early books about animals, even appearing in the first edition of Brehms Tierleben.
Later, it found its way into depictions of biblical episodes. In 1605, Cristoforo Roncalli painted the animal as part of a fresco at the Basilica della Santa Casa in Loreto, Italy. Here it was used as emblem for Joseph’s and Mary’s flight to Egypt.[5]
Probably inspired by this tradition, Succaraths appear as figures in nativity scenes at the beginning of the 19th century, but only in Munich, Germany. Back then, nativity scenes tended to depict more episodes from the gospels, not only the holy family in the manger. There are several known nativity scenes from Munich that include the Succarath as part of the flight to egypt, and while the animal is missing from only a few of the extant nativity scenes from Munich, there is not a single one from outside of Munich that depicts a Succarath.[5]
There’s also only one male Succarath that we know of today, which can be seen in the background of this photo from the Bavarian National Museum in Munich. Sadly, they seemed to disappear from later nativity scenes.[5]
And that’s how a fictional (most likely, cryptozoologists are still debating weather the succarath is a giant ground sloth, oppossum, giant ant eater or another animal) creature from Patagonia made its way into Bavarian nativity scenes of the early 19th century.
[1] Austin Whittal (2009), Succarath - The first Patagonian monster, http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2009/09/succarath-first-patagonian-monster.html
[2] Conrad Gessner (1551), Historia Animalum, released in German as "Thierbuch" in 1563
[3] André Thevet (1558), Les singularités de la France antarctique autrement nommée amérique et de plusieurs terres et îles découvertes de notre temps par frère André Thevet, natif d'Angoulème
[4] Ambroise Paré (1579), Des animaux et de l'excellence de l'homme
[5] Nina Gockerell (2002), Succarath - ein Fabeltier in Münchner Krippen des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, Band LVI/105
