Lobizón

Lobizón is the Argentine (and broader Río de la Plata) version of the werewolf legend, most famously tied to the belief that a family's seventh consecutive son would transform into a wolf-like beast on certain nights, prowling cemeteries and countryside. Rooted in Spanish folklore brought by colonial settlers and blended with Guaraní and other Indigenous beliefs, the legend became so entrenched that in 1907, in Coronel Pringles, Volga-German settlers Enrique Brost and Apolonia Holmann asked President José Figueroa Alcorta to godfather their seventh son to ward off the curse — a request that grew into the enduring tradition by which Argentine presidents have since served as honorary godparents to seventh sons. Rural communities in provinces such as Santiago del Estero, Corrientes and Misiones sustained the tale through generations, with reported "sightings" often describing an unusually large, wolf-like dog. Skeptics link the myth to porphyria-like conditions, rabies-infected animals, and the pan-European werewolf archetype transplanted to South America, reinforced by the social pressure and stigma large, poor families faced over an extra mouth to feed.