Country file · South America
Cryptids of Colombia
What cryptids are in Colombia? The best-known are Patasola, El Silbón and La Llorona.
Colombia’s geography – Andean ridges, Amazon rainforest, Caribbean plains and the Pacific coast – has produced a rich body of folk monsters, many collected in Javier Ocampo López’s Mitos, leyendas y relatos colombianos. Several are tied to the forest and are used to warn men away from dangers: the Madremonte, the Mohán of rivers and the Patasola.
- 3 cryptids
- 1 recorded sighting
Cryptids reported in Colombia
Patasola
A one-legged woman of Colombian forest lore who lures lone men as a beauty, then shows her fangs; a warning tale for hunters and loggers. Folklore
El Silbón
A towering, cursed phantom of the Llanos who carries his father’s bones in a sack – and whose whistle is most dangerous when it sounds far away. Folklore
La Llorona
A weeping ghost in white who wanders rivers and canals at night crying for the children she lost – Mexico’s most famous and most widely told legend. FolkloreThe legends of Colombia
The Patasola is a one-legged woman who appears as a beauty to lure lone hunters and loggers, then reveals fangs. It is told especially in mountain and coffee regions such as Tolima. Colombia is also part of the story of the whistling ghost El Silbón, shared with Venezuela, and of La Llorona.
Hotspots
- Tolima and the Andean forests
Mountain country where Patasola stories are told to warn night workers.
Sightings timeline
- 2006Mitos, leyendas y relatos colombianos Patasola
Historian Javier Ocampo López’s collection of Colombian folk narratives is a standard modern reference for the Patasola legend.
