What do you think of the Mokele Mbembe?

December 2, 2012

There is simply no chance for it to be a sauropod. They were particularly ill-suited for both semi-aquatic and forest life, with their long, inflexible necks and tails, massive weight and foot anatomy.

Maybe jungle would be a better word? Open woodland was the sauropods environment I thought. The long neck being used to browes from many trees while the body was basically still. Or is this also an old idea?

December 2, 2012

Maybe jungle would be a better word? Open woodland was the sauropods environment I thought. The long neck being used to browes from many trees while the body was basically still. Or is this also an old idea?

For example, most North American sauropods are known from the Morrison Formation, which was a large floodplain with occasional patches of forest and generally few trees. I really can't imagine a 20+ metre long, horizontally inflexible animal existing in dense woodland, as it couldn't really move around there.

From where did most sauropods eat is still hotly debated, but yes, they probably grazed on tree leaves. But you don't really see giraffes in a dense forest either. What you have there is the okapi, with a "regular" neck to aid mobility.

December 3, 2012

For example, most North American sauropods are known from the Morrison Formation, which was a large floodplain with occasional patches of forest and generally few trees. I really can't imagine a 20+ metre long, horizontally inflexible animal existing in dense woodland, as it couldn't really move around there.

From where did most sauropods eat is still hotly debated, but yes, they probably grazed on tree leaves. But you don't really see giraffes in a dense forest either. What you have there is the okapi, with a "regular" neck to aid mobility.

Right. But the sauropods wouldn't need such very long necks unless the trees were closer together then their neck is long. Logically they would need to be able to reach multiple trees in order to be more efficent. Unless they also grazed ground cover??

December 3, 2012

Right. But the sauropods wouldn't need such very long necks unless the trees were closer together then their neck is long. Logically they would need to be able to reach multiple trees in order to be more efficent. Unless they also grazed ground cover??

That is a possibility, but not for all sauropods. I would doubt that the likes of Brachiosaurus or Sauroposeidon, and others with near-vertical necks would have been low grazers.

But bear in mind that sauropods were a very diverse groups of animals, with huge and relatively small individuals, albeit the latter are generally known from either very old strata or are "special". Like the Magyarosaurus, which was only six metres long (still somewhat unsuited for forest life), but this was due to insular dwarfism. The last sauropods, the titanosaurs, more "regularly" humongous.

December 5, 2012

Furthermore, look what happens when any outsider temporarily joins an insider-group (sport team, work crew, family, circle of friends, etc) - they get screwed with. It's playful rather than malicious and can go on to create and maintain some recurring themes and amazing legends. It's human nature...

In all walks of life. Brilliant exemple. Illustrates the point perfectly. I am sure every person on this board has experienced such to some extent.

Now, does anyone know where I can find a good left-handed screwdriver?

Hrrmzz, where the hell did I Put that!! I just HAD the bloody thing before I put my 9 inch copulation tool back in my pocket and grabbed my metric shifting spanner to remove this square drill bit that I have stuck..........

Edited December 5, 2012 by psyche101

December 5, 2012

my 9 inch copulation tool back in my pocket

Well...hellooo there, my Australian friend, you... :-*

December 5, 2012

Well...hellooo there, my Australian friend, you...

I am pretty handy with my tools.

December 17, 2012

I absolutely love Mokele Mbembe. My favourite cryptid. There is so much I can say as I've read Mackal's book, Nugents book and done heavy research on the cryptid but to keep it short, I believe there is something unusual in the Congo, but not a dinosaur. Sure it could look similar but I don't think it is. The region is heavily unexplored and obtaining evidence is not a simple walk in the park and snapshot with a camera. Firstly the region is highly unstable and obtaining the proper paperwork can take months. Secondly, the vast region makes it impossible to pinpoint an ideal location. The conditions in the jungle are also nearly impossible to bear. I wrote this very quickly but there is ore to it !

December 17, 2012

Not sure if mokele mbembe exists, but I certainly like the idea of something like that existing. Always felt cheated having knowledge of dinosaurs but never getting to see one.

Any body ever seen the movie Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend? One of my favorite movies as a kid and I had to pick it up when I saw the blu ray for $5 at a grocery store. Doesn't really hold up, but a steal for your cyrpto-collection at only $5 or less.

http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Secret-Lost-Legend-Blu-ray/dp/B0054WPWRA/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1355780926&sr=1-1&keywords=baby+secret+of+the+lost+legend

December 18, 2012

Cryptomundo ran a pretty cool article on the possibility that Mokele Mbembe isnt a dinosaur at all but a mammal.

"In 1913, a German expedition in the Congo met a band of pygmies who described an animal they called mokele-mbembe, which means “one who stops the flow of rivers.” They said this beast was about the size of an elephant or hippopotamus, with a long, flexible neck and a long tail. This description would be repeated by numerous witnesses. Many would feel that the description was consistent with a sauropod or other small dinosaur.

As I and Patrick Huyghe noted in The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep, the existence of dinosaurs in central Africa is unlikely, but not a total scientific impossibility. According to cryptozoologist Karl Shuker, “If dinosaurs could exist unknown to science anywhere in the world, the Likouala is where they would be.”

But what if Mokele-mbembe aren’t dinosaurs?

Indricotherium, Baluchitherium, or Paraceratherium are names applied to the giant relatives of the rhino.

Discovery Channel has used all 3 names for programs. Walking with Prehistoric Beasts features Indricotherium as a solitary giant living in a relatively arid environment. While the PaleoWorld does a Paraceratherium program, which seems to be the name with priority. Recently, a program on a French expedition excavation in Pakistan uses Baluchitherium. There the environment was reconstructed as a lush jungle. The excavation is of what appears to be a herd that drowned crossing a river seems to indicate a social herd animal….

Indricotherium was the largest land mammal ever to live. This short-lived group of rhinoceros lived [during the Oligocene] in Central Asia and China. It was 27 ft long, as big as some of the extinct sauropods."

http://www.cryptomun...news/mammal-mm/

December 18, 2012

What on earth would Oligocene mammals from Central and East Asia do in the Congo? We can't just point at similar-sounding animals from tens of thousands of kilometres and millions of years away and say we have a match.

January 13, 2013

Its fun to speculate candidates.

1909 saw another mention of a Mokèlé-mbèmbé-like creature, in Beasts and Men, the autobiography of famed big-game hunter Carl Hagenbeck. He claimed to have heard from multiple independent sources about a creature living in the Congo region which was described as "half elephant, half dragon." Naturalist Joseph Menges had also told Hagenbeck about an animal alleged to live in Africa, described as "some kind of dinosaur, seemingly akin to the brontosaurs."

In 1960, an expedition to Zaire was planned by herpetologis James H. Powell Jr. scheduled for 1972, but was canceled by legal complications. By 1976, however, he had sorted out the international travel problems, and went to Gabon instead, inspired by the book Trader Horn.

On this journey, Powell located a claimed eyewitness to an animal called "n'yamala", or "jago-nini", which Powell thought was the same as the "amali" of Smith's 1920's books. Natives also stated – without Powell's asking - that "n'yamala" ate the flowering liana, just as von Stein had been told half a century earlier. When Powell showed illustrations of various animals, both alive and extinct, to natives, they generally suggested that the Diplodocus was the closest match to "n'yamala".

In November 2000, William Gibbons did some preliminary research in Cameroon for a future expedition. He was accompanied by David Wetzel, and videographer Elena Dugan. While visiting with a group of pygmies, they were informed about an animal called Ngoubou, a horned creature. The pygmies asserted it was not a regular rhinoceros, as it had more than one horn (six horns on the frill in one eyewitness account), and that the father of one of the senior members of the community had killed one with a spear a number of years ago. The locals have noted a firm dwindle in the population of these animals lately, and are hard to find. Gibbons identified the animal with a Styracosaurus, but, in addition to being extinct, these are only known to have inhabited North America.