The hunt for Mokele-mbembe: Congo's Loch Ness

[Still Waters]

The search for Scotland's Loch Ness Monster is world famous. Far less well-known is the hunt for a similar creature, Mokele-mbembe, which is reputed to live in the remote north of Congo-Brazzaville. But how strong is the evidence?

"I checked maps, and the data on the maps was white.It said, 'insufficient data to delineate terrain'. Well that got me!" says Dr Roy Mackal, a retired biologist from the University of Chicago.

"It's the end of the world. It gives you a feeling of a surviving prehistoric time.

In the 1980s, Dr Mackal led two expedition teams to the vast Likouala swamp and rainforest area of the Congo which is inhabited by pygmies, on the hunt for this mystery creature - Africa's version of Scotland's Loch Ness Monster.

The Mokele-mbembe is reputed to be a large reptile-like creature, with a long neck, and long tail.

Despite being a herbivore, it is said to roar aggressively if approached by humans. Some say it has a single horn, which it uses to kill elephants.

Many a Western explorer over the years has been gripped by the tantalising possibility that they could discover a creature - a formidable one at that - that has remained, as yet, unknown to science.

Read more...

[Cryptid-Seeker]

The Mokele-mbembe is more commonly a Diplodocus-type creature that lives on land but enjoys going in the water.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Cryptid-Seeker

[+DieChecker]

Seems like a re-hash of what is already known, but I still welcome the idea that MM is out there in the Congo swamps.

What I always say, when people talk about how sauropods could not bend or live like the MM does, is that evolution has had hundreds of millions of years to change, say a turtle, into what is today the Mokele-Mbembe. It is clearly not a dinosaur/sauropod. It just looks like one somewhat. Just as a dolphin looks like a shark somewhat, and bat looks somewhat like a bird. Whales, elephants, kangaroos, humans, mice, bats and even hyraxes have all evolved since the time of the dinosaurs from one little rodent like critter. So there is no reason that the MM cannot look the way it is described. Once one is caught, the why of why it looks that way will quickly be solved.

Personally, I think it might be some kind of elephant, or maybe a kind of rhino. Long necked hippo?

Roy Mackal has a Wiki entry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Mackal

[Cryptid-Seeker]

I think that the Mokele-mbembe could quite easily be a sauropod dinosaur. They ate plants which are in abundance, and there is nothing in those jungles that could kill a Diplodocus (apart from humans). Percy Harrison Fawcett, the famous explorer claimed to have seen one, and there are many legends about the creature stopping rivers by standing in the water.

[Rafterman]

Funny that the vast majority of reports fit perfectly with a hippo.

[Junior Chubb]

I would love there to be some truth in the Mokele-mbembe sightings, but not as much as my son who brought a Diplodocus at the Natural History Museum and named it Mokele-mbembe.

I think DieChecker is closer to the truth, if such a creature exists it would more likely to be an unknown variant of an already known animal. I would go with a longer necked rhino.

[95-Nasty]

I saw a programme on TV 'River Monsters' wasnt this proved to be some sort of fish (pike or a cat fish), unsure of the exact fish!

[Clobhair-cean]

I think that the Mokele-mbembe could quite easily be a sauropod dinosaur. They ate plants which are in abundance, and there is nothing in those jungles that could kill a Diplodocus (apart from humans). Percy Harrison Fawcett, the famous explorer claimed to have seen one, and there are many legends about the creature stopping rivers by standing in the water.

Sauropods were horrendously ill-suited for living in a dense jungle or a lake, so hunger or drowning would kill any Congolese Diplodocus quite quickly and efficiently.

And Percy Fawcett never set foot in the Congo Basin. He worked in South America.

And all sauropods have been extinct since about 65.5 million years ago. All animals above a certains size were killed of during the K-T Event, and sauropods were way bigger than the largest survivors. There is no reason to believe that they could have survived.

[CloudSix]

Yes i agree that Mokele-mbembe is or was somekind of dinosaur.The interesting thing is that in the beginning it was described as a huge monster with a gorilla like body, a massive mouth in the place of it's stomach and an ape like head.

[A rather obscure Bassoon]

As a child i remember seeing a photo of an Elephant that use to swim across a lake in Sri Lanka or India(can't remember which).As i remember it swam with its trunk in the air and its head and back looked like humps on top of the water.I wonder if this would be what the locals in the Congo are seeing.I have scoured the internet to find this photo but to no avail.

[Cryptid-Seeker]

Percy Harrison Fawcett did as far as one of my cryptozoology books says. I am sorry if I am mistaken clobclean cean.

[Cryptid-Seeker]

Sorry, i mean clobhair cean

[Junior Chubb]

Yes i agree that Mokele-mbembe is or was somekind of dinosaur.The interesting thing is that in the beginning it was described as a huge monster with a gorilla like body, a massive mouth in the place of it's stomach and an ape like head.

Aren't you thinking of a South American, Giant Sloth related cryptid? The name escapes me, anyone else know the name for this one?

Edited December 30, 2011 by Junior Chubb

[grendals_bane]

Personally I think the Mokele Mbembe is a description of an Elephant and/or a Rhino. The most likely scenario to me is that the description of the animals have been passed down the generations from a time when the natives lived in an area where Elephants and Rhinos were a common sight and they have ended up getting merged into what has become the Mokele Mbembe.

[Cryptid-Seeker]

I checked my book and I am

not mistaken. I am merely repeating facts. I q

am sorry if I was misinformed

[Cryptid-Seeker]

Megartheruim is the word. Extinct giant sloth

[bulldogzrep]

I've got the books written by Rory Nugent and Roy Mackal. I have contacted them personally about mokele-mbembe as I am fascinated with this cryptid. I am conviced that there is a possibility of something LIKE a dinosaur exisiting deep in the Congo.

I have a couple of interesting emails written by Rory Nugent:

Dear Hamza,

Faith and desire, Hamza, you'll need both to find the big critter. So, yes, you'll get a reply, and yes the dino is alive in, I hasten to add, a special form. The answer to your question is in my book. And if you think the beast swims and roams, than you're halfway to Lac Tele, since imagination is necessary ingredient for the hunt.

Do yourself a favor, read DRUMS ALONG THE CONGO, and then decide on an answer to your question, so briefly put.

Good luck

rory

Hamza,

C'mon Hamza. Read the book. Do some research. And then reach deep inside yourself for an answer.

Meanwhile,

best of luck to you

rory

----- Original Message -----

From: "hamza anwer" <sharkyboy_909@hotmail.com>

Sent: Mon, February 21, 2011 19:54

Subject: RE: mokele

I also forgot to ask, what do you mean by "special form"? spiritual or physical? plz reply

Keep chasing that darn dino...

rory

What you guys think?

Edited December 30, 2011 by bulldogzrep

[bulldogzrep]

Aren't you thinking of a South American, Giant Sloth related cryptid? The name escapes me, anyone else know the name for this one?

Mapinguari?

[Tata Rompe Pecho]

I only have one piece to add to the puzzle which might or might not be of use to this thread take it as I give it.

The people of the Congo, are my ancestors, and from one generation to another certain religious knowledge has been handed down from one to another.

From within this knowledge a Rhino is defined as one, and an elephant as itself aswell. This means that the people of the Congo have no reason to confuse these animals with what they believe to be a separate animal.

In our native language of bantu: mbembe means water, mkele means beast thus the name being "beast of the waters"

[CloudSix]

Mapinguari?

Yes i believe it's Mapinguari

[chainsawcam]

Isn't there a short grainy film of this creature, which makes you say ELEPHANT?

[chainsawcam]

Isn't there a short grainy film of this creature, which makes you say ELEPHANT?

[Junior Chubb]

Yes i believe it's Mapinguari

Thast the one, but isn't that South America rather than Africa?

[Junior Chubb]

Isn't there a short grainy film of this creature, which makes you say ELEPHANT?

Then that would not be of this creature, that would have been a film of an elephant

But it did make me say Elephant, I said it outload to the person I was watching it with.

[Mr.United_Nations]

Megartheruim is the word. Extinct giant sloth

Only in South America not Africa