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Mokele-Mbembe
A
central Africa nessie, but unlike the celebrated monster often spotted in Loch
Ness, Mokele-Mbembe (literally, "one who stops the flow of rivers"), the creature
reputed to haunt the Likouala swamps and Lake Tele in Central Africa, is little known and
even less recorded. No photographs of it exist, for Central Africa, unlike the Scottish
Highlands, is not on the tourist trail.
The first printed mention
of the huge, plate-shaped tracks associated with the beast appears in a 1776 history of
French missionaries in west-central Africa. In the next two centuries missionaries,
colonial authorities, hunters, explorers, and natives would provide strikingly consistent
descriptions of the animals supposedly responsible for tracks of this kind. Sighting
reports in recent years have been confined to the swampy, remote Likouala region of the
Congo.
The first
"official" sighting by a "white man" was made in 1913 by Captain von
Stein zu Lausnitz, who had led an expedition to the Likouala swamp region. He heard tales
of a brownish gray animal with a smooth skin, perhaps as big as an elephant, with a long,
flexible neck and possibly a long muscular tail. Any canoe that went near it was said to
be doomed, the creature always attacking and killing its crew. The monster was reputed to
live in caves along the shore of the river and to be vegetarian.
Due to the region's inaccessibility, no further efforts were made to find Mokele-mbembe
until 1980. A crocodile expert, the herpetologist
James H. Powell, accompanied by University
of Chicago biologist Dr. Roy Mackal went deep
into the wildest parts of Likouala country round Lake Tele to gather reports. As they
hacked and squelched their way through appalling swamps and forests, they heard many
reports. One of the oldest witnesses was Firman Mosomole, who said that 45 years earlier
he had seen a snake-like creature while in a canoe near the town of Epιna. When shown an
illustrated book, Mosomele unhesitatingly identified a sauropod dinosaur as the creature
he had seen.
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Mambombo Daniel, a local
school-teacher, told of a more recent encounter he had had in 1977. He said he had seen a
creature from only 30 feet (9.l m) away, describing it as gray-colored, with a thick neck
but a separate body — not therefore a huge snake. Another story came from a fisherman
who said that a Mokele-mbembe had been killed in around 1959 by a band of
pygmies; all those who ate its meat
subsequently died.
In 1983, the Congolese
zoologist Marcellin Agnagna led an expedition to the Likouala region and said he had seen
the monster himself. He was with two villagers near Lake Tele when one of them spotted a
strange animal in the water. Wading out into the shallow water, they found themselves
facing a creature with "a wide back, a long neck, and a small head", totaling
about 15 feet (4.5m) in length. Unfortunately, they had run out of film for their cameras.
In his book
 A Living
Dinosaur Dr. Mackal suggested that, with its long neck and tail, four legs, vegetarian
diet and length of 15-30 feet (4.5-9.1m), the mokele-mbembe sounded very similar to a
small sauropod dinosaur. Certainly its
description would not fit the range of known living animals. Nor does another creature,
the Ngumama-monene, reputedly a giant snake 130-195 feet (39.5-59.3m) long. First reported
in 1961 by a woman who had bathed in the Mataba river, its reptilian head and neck emerged
from the water close to her and was observed by local villagers for 30 minutes until it
dived.
However, the most recent
traveler to return from the area, the British explorer and writer Redmond O'Hanlon, found
no trace of dinosaurs and dismissed the whole concept: others remain convinced that the
jungles of Central Africa may indeed shelter survivors from the distant past.
Related books:
A
Living Dinosaur.
Drums Along the
Congo: On the Trail of Mokele-Mbembe, the Last Living Dinosaur.
No Mercy: A
Journey to the Heart of the Congo.
More related
books.
Further info:
Cryptozoological Realms.
Mokele
M'Bembe - The Hunt For The Living Dinosaur.
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