40 Fun Facts About The Pampas

Outside the United States, the Pampas are the most consistently active region on Earth for which violent storms?

Tornadoes spin out of the severe thunderstorms that build here in spring and summer. The same storms bring intense hail and some of the most frequent lightning in the world.

Argentina's national sport was first played by gauchos on horseback using which live animal as the ball?

A duck, alive and tucked inside a basket, was the original ball, and the game's name, pato, is simply Spanish for duck. Juan Perón declared it the national game in 1953.

Which South American country lies entirely within the Pampas, which also cover parts of Argentina and southern Brazil?

Uruguay sits wholly on these grasslands, though its share is hillier than the Argentine flats, with low grassy ridges known as cuchillas.

Which naturalist paid a farmer 18 pence for a Toxodon skull while riding across the Pampas region in 1833?

Charles Darwin bought the skull during the voyage of the Beagle. Local children had been using it for target practice and had knocked out its teeth with stones.

Gauchos on the Pampas traditionally sip which caffeine-rich herbal infusion from a gourd through a metal straw?

Mate is brewed from a South American holly. Its metal straw, the bombilla, doubles as a sieve that holds back the chopped plant material.

Which umbrella-shaped giant of the Pampas has soft, spongy wood and poisonous sap that keeps grazing cattle away?

Ombú trunks are not true wood, because the species descends from herbs. It grows fast, shelters gauchos from sun and rain, and is a favourite for bonsai.

Luis Ángel Firpo, the boxer called the Wild Bull of the Pampas, knocked which heavyweight champion out of the ring?

Jack Dempsey was helped back into the ring and knocked Firpo out in the second round. Their 1923 title bout was named Ring Magazine's Fight of the Year.

Which big flightless bird, known as the ñandú on the Pampas, now has a feral population living in northern Germany?

Greater rhea males do all the parenting, tending the nest and raising the chicks on their own. The species is the largest native bird in the Americas.

Which barbecue tradition of the Pampas is cooked over an open fire or on a grill called a parrilla?

Asado is a social event as much as a meal, run by a designated cook known as the asador or parrillero.

The name Pampas comes from a word meaning 'plain' in which Indigenous language family of South America?

Quechua was the main language family of the Inca Empire. Roughly seven million people still speak it, more than any other Indigenous language family in the Americas.

Which throwing weapon of weighted cords did gauchos swing to entangle the legs of running cattle on the Pampas?

Bolas with three weights carry two heavy balls on short cords and a lighter one on a long cord, which whips around the animal's legs.

José Froilán González, the driver nicknamed the Pampas Bull, scored which team's first Formula One championship win?

Ferrari took its first world championship victory at the 1951 British Grand Prix. González went on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the team in 1954.

Which uncooked sauce of parsley, garlic, oregano and vinegar is the classic partner of grilled meat on the Pampas?

Chimichurri comes in green and red versions. It was first made in Argentina and has since been adopted across most of Latin America.

What Spanish name is given to a large cattle ranch on the Pampas, the equivalent of an Australian station?

Estancia points to something that stays put. The name took hold in the 19th century, when free-roaming herds gave way to permanent ranches with marked livestock.

Buenos Aires stands on which estuary at the eastern edge of the Pampas, a body of water up to 220 kilometres wide?

Río de la Plata means River of Silver. Geographers who count it as a river rather than an estuary or a gulf call it the widest in the world.

Which Pampas city on the Paraná River is the birthplace of both Lionel Messi and Che Guevara?

Rosario is also known as the Cradle of the Argentine Flag, because Manuel Belgrano first raised the national colours there in 1812.

Which spotted cat once hunted across the Pampas but has since been wiped out of the grasslands completely?

Jaguar territory here was lost to farming and ranching, while the puma hangs on only in a few remnant patches of wild grassland.

Which gaucho hero of José Hernández's 1870s epic poem gave his name to Argentina's top television and radio awards?

Martín Fierro is a conscript who deserts and turns outlaw. The poem about him has been translated into more than 70 languages.

Which national bird of Argentina, a familiar sight on Pampas farmland, sings duets and builds a nest of mud?

Rufous hornero nests look like old wood-fired ovens, and the name hornero comes from horno, the Spanish word for oven.

Which burrowing rodent of the Pampas drags home brooms, garden tools and firewood to cover its burrow entrance?

Viscacha colonies can hold hundreds of animals, and their elaborate burrows may house one generation after another for decades.

Which semiaquatic rodent still found on the Pampas became an invasive pest abroad after fur farmers exported it?

Coypu fur is sold in Italy as castorino, meaning little beaver, and in North America the animal goes by the name nutria.

Which elephant-sized ground sloth of the ice-age Pampas was first unearthed beside the Luján River in 1787?

Megatherium became the first fossil mammal to receive both a genus and a species name when Georges Cuvier described it in 1796.

Which hardy horse breed of the Pampas carried Aimé Tschiffely on a ride from Buenos Aires to the United States?

Criollo horses Mancha and Gato spent three years on the trek, from 1925 to 1928, and went on to live to 40 and 36.

What is the facón that a gaucho of the Pampas traditionally wears tucked into the back of the belt?

A large knife with a blade up to 51 cm long, the facón was both tool and weapon, and some were made from cut-down swords.

Which stamping folk dance of Argentina's gauchos began as a contest between two men taking turns to outdo each other?

Malambo is full of stomping and brushing footwork, and the first national championship for women dancers was held only in 2018.

What name is given to the gaucho tradition of improvised sung verse duels, usually accompanied by a guitar?

Payada duels can run for hours and end only when one singer fails to answer the other straight away.

What did Argentina build across the Pampas in the 1870s to stop raiders driving stolen cattle west?

A deep trench three metres wide, the Zanja de Alsina was lined with small forts, yet it failed to stop the large raids of 1876 and 1877.

Which general, later twice president of Argentina, directed the Conquest of the Desert beyond the Pampas frontier?

Julio A. Roca was promoted to brigadier general for the campaign in 1880, the same year he first became president.

Which Pampas rancher became governor of Buenos Aires in 1829, ruled as a dictator and died in exile in England?

Juan Manuel de Rosas spent his last years as a tenant farmer in Southampton, a long way from the 420,000 acres he once owned.

The pampero, a squall-line wind that bursts across the Pampas of Argentina from the southwest, brings what kind of air?

Cold polar air arrives with a sharp drop in temperature. In summer around Buenos Aires the storms are welcome, because they end long spells of heat and humidity.

Which mountain range near Bahía Blanca contains Cerro Tres Picos, the highest point of the Pampas?

Sierra de la Ventana tops out at 1,239 metres, and its steep, rocky slopes make it the least farmable corner of the grasslands.

In the late 18th century, which Pampas river marked the frontier between Spanish settlers and Indigenous peoples?

Salado means salty. The river runs about 640 kilometres across Buenos Aires Province and stayed a frontier line until the military campaigns of the 19th century.

Which Indigenous people of the Pampas clashed with the Spanish colonists who founded Buenos Aires in the 16th century?

Querandí was a name given by Guaraní neighbours and is usually said to mean men with fat, after the animal fat in their daily diet.

Which wind-blown silt, a deposit that covers much of Argentina, gave the Humid Pampas their flat, fertile soil?

Loess takes its name from a German word related to the English word loose, and it builds up from dust dropped by the wind.

Which naturalist, born on the Argentine Pampas to settlers from the United States, wrote the romance Green Mansions?

William Henry Hudson collected bird skins for the Smithsonian as a young man, and two Patagonian birds now carry his name.

The Pampas city of Tandil was long famous for which natural landmark, which toppled and broke in 1912?

A balancing boulder called the Piedra Movediza moved so slightly that locals proved it by placing glass bottles beneath it to shatter.

Which sabre-toothed cat was the top predator of the ice-age Pampas and grew larger than any big cat alive today?

Smilodon populator, the South American species, could weigh up to 470 kg, and the man who named it explained populator as the destroyer.

Male Pampas deer give off a strong smell, detectable from over a kilometre away, from glands in which body part?

Back hooves carry the scent glands. An alarmed Pampas deer does not bolt at once: it stamps its feet, trots and whistles first.

Which long-legged wild dog of South America's tall grasslands has lost most of its Pampas habitat to farms and ranches?

Maned wolf legs make it the tallest of the wild canids, yet the animal is neither a fox nor a true wolf.

While out on the range, the gauchos of the Pampas lived on a diet made up almost entirely of which food?

Beef was free for the taking on the open range, so a skilled horseman could live without steady work by selling hides, feathers and pelts.