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Bizarre Accounts of Mysterious Living Dinosaurs of Africa
Brent Swancer
December 10, 2018

One of the most mysterious types of cryptid creatures is that of what are called living dinosaurs, said to be relic populations of those enormous lumbering lizards that once thunderously crashed over the face of our planet with ponderous might. While most may assume that these creatures went extinct eons ago, it is surprising how many reports there are of actual dinosaurs still alive and roaming about in the most isolated parts of our planet as they did millions of years ago. One place that has proven to be a veritable Lost World of supposed living dinosaurs is the dark continent of Africa, and here in the remote unexplored jungles dinosaurs still allegedly reign supreme as if they were never gone at all.

By far the most famous of the supposed lost African dinosaurs is none other than the one called Mokele-mbembe, which literally translates to “one who stops the flow of rivers.” The habitat of this creature is deep within the furthest recesses of the steamy swampland and dark jungles of the Congo river basin, in particular an expanse of sprawling isolated wilderness called the Likouala swamp region. The beast in question truly lives up to its name, larger than an elephant and with a long neck topped by a smallish reptilian head and with stocky short legs, resembling a brontosaurus and which has been a part of the landscape here for the native tribes since time unremembered. Semi-aquatic in nature it is rarely seen even by the natives, and although a vegetarian makes for a frightening sight, with a mighty roar that is said to create great fear and dread in all who hear it. A good description of the Mokele-mbembe can be found in a 1980 issue of Science, within an article called Living Dinosaurs, which reads:

"In the swampy jungles of western Africa, reports persist of an elephant-sized creature with smooth, brownish-gray skin, a long, flexible neck, a very long tail as powerful as a crocodile’s, and three-clawed feet the size of frying pans. Over the past three centuries, native Pygmies and Western explorers have told how the animals feed on the nutlike fruit of a riverbank plant and keep to the deep pools and subsurface caves of waters in this largely unexplored region.

Although the tribes and missionaries of this land of impenetrable swamp had long known of the creature, it was not until the early 1900s that its existence would finally trickle out to the Western world. In 1909, the renowned big game hunter Carl Hagenbeck wrote of the creature in his autobiographical work Beasts and Men, in which he told of hearing tales from the natives of a hulking, frightening beast that was described as being half elephant and half dragon. Hagenbeck looked into this phenomenon further, speaking with the naturalist Joseph Menges, who told him that indeed the natives had a rich lore of this beast, and that he personally believed it to be some kind of dinosaur similar to a brontosaurus. Yet another of Hagenbeck’s sources was the German adventurer, filmmaker, and big game hunter Hans Schomburgk, who told him that the natives of the area blamed the Mokele-mbembe for killing all of the hippos at a place called Lake Bangweulu.

Another well-publicized account was made in another area in 1913, by German adventurer and Captain Ludwig Freiherr von Stein zu Lausnitz, who at the time was surveying a region of present day Cameroon for potential spots for colonies. Natives told him many tales of the Mokele-mbembe, which were surprisingly consistent across the board from many independent sources, although Lausnitz remained rather skeptical himself at first. This version of Mokele-mbembe painted it as a vicious force to be reckoned with, an aggressive behemoth that the natives steered well clear of, and he would later write of the mysterious beast:

"The animal is said to be of a brownish-gray color with a smooth skin, its size is approximately that of an elephant; at least that of a hippopotamus. It is said to have a long and very flexible neck and only one tooth but a very long one; some say it is a horn. A few spoke about a long, muscular tail like that of an alligator. Canoes coming near it are said to be doomed; the animal is said to attack the vessels at once and to kill the crews but without eating the bodies. The creature is said to live in the caves that have been washed out by the river in the clay of its shores at sharp bends. It is said to climb the shores even at daytime in search of food; its diet is said to be entirely vegetable. This feature disagrees with a possible explanation as a myth. The preferred plant was shown to me, it is a kind of liana with large white blossoms, with a milky sap and applelike fruits. At the Ssombo River I was shown a path said to have been made by this animal in order to get at its food. The path was fresh and there were plants of the described type nearby. But since there were too many tracks of elephants, hippos, and other large mammals it was impossible to make out a particular spoor with any amount of certainty."

These accounts, along with other scattered reports from explorers and missionaries in the region of these brontosaurus-like animals roaming the swamps really captured the public imagination, with the thought of lumbering dinosaurs from ages past wallowing through the mists of this lost world proving to be absolutely irresistible. Many expeditions were launched into the forbidding terrain of this mysterious domain in search of the enigmatic Mokele-mbembe over the decades, with some of them funded by such respected institutions as the Smithsonian, and even the famed cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson made an excursion there in 1932. Sanderson would come across large tracks that the natives explained as being from the creature, and he also spotted something very large disappear into the water which he could not explain. In the 1930s the lore was further fueled by a report from the region’s Lake Tele of a tribe of pygmies that had actually managed to kill one of the creatures. According to the tale, two of the Mokele-mbembe tried to smash through a wall of stakes designed to keep the beasts out, and were set upon by fierce, spear wielding tribesmen. After an epic, thrashing battle, they were allegedly able to kill one of them, after which they brought it back to the village and had it cooked and eaten as part of a celebratory feast. The story goes that everyone who ate the meat of this mysterious animal became violently ill and later died.

Perhaps the most famous of these expeditions was that of a University of Chicago biologist named Roy Mackal, who ventured to the Likouala swamp region multiple times in 1980s in order to investigate the stories. Although he would not find any solid physical evidence or see one of the creatures himself, the team did find things like large swaths of broken branches caused by something very large barreling through, footprints, and they claimed to have heard the creatures as well. Mackal would bring back numerous native reports of the Mokele-mbembe, which he compiled into a book entitled Living Dinosaur?. Another rather interesting expedition was carried out in 1981 by a Herman Regusters, who brought his team to the remote Lake Tele. This particular expedition would come back with quite a bit of supposed evidence of the creatures, such as droppings, a footprint cast, and even an alleged recording of the Mokele-mbembe’s roar, which you can listen to here, although it is pretty inconclusive at best and could be anything.

Indeed, the 1980s saw several promising expeditions into the region. In 1980 there was one launched by German adventurer and engineer Herman Regusters and his wife. The couple would claim to have seen the beast on several occasions, both in the water and on land, as well as hearing its roars, and they even produced an alleged photograph of it. In 1983 a zoologist by the name of Marcellin Agnagna led an expedition to Lake Tele and claimed to have seen the creature when it raised its long neck and head out of the water, which he described as being thin and reddish in color, with reptilian oval eyes that stared at him for a time before vanishing beneath the murky depths. Interestingly, the only known video footage of the Mokele-mbembe was taken at Lake Tele in 1987, when a Japanese film crew was flying over the lake to survey the area. The footage is grainy at best, but shows what appears to be a very large animal of some sort moving across the water, with what looks like it could be a head and neck but which has been criticized as being merely two natives on a canoe.

Expeditions and reports of the Mokele-mbembe have continued on into later years, with some of them proving quite spectacular indeed. One British expedition led by explorer and cryptozoologist William Gibbons in 1992 trekked through a large portion of the region and came back with a photograph of what might be the head of a Mokele-mbembe taken at Lake Tele. In 1999 there was also a rather incredible report printed in the Sunday Times of London, which claimed that members of the Kabonga tribe had killed one of the creatures, but it is unknown how much veracity this report holds as no body was ever presented for scrutiny. Despite all of the expeditions and reports, which continue to this day, there has not been any solid evidence provided for the existence of Mokele-mbembe, but it remains the most talked about and sought after “living dinosaur” of Africa. Is it out there or not? Considering the lack of many modern day sightings, is there even the chance that if it did exist, has it finally gone extinct after all?

(cont)