The Mystery of the Mokele-Mbembe
Description
Mokele-Mbembe (mow-key’-lee mem-bee) is Lingala, and can mean a variety fo things. It is commonly defined as “one who stops the flow of rivers.” It can also mean “one who eats the tops of trees”, “monstrous animal”, or even “half-god, half beast”. This all being due to the extraordinary size of the creature.
Mokele-Mbembe is about the size of an elephant with a very long reptillian neck and large three clawed feet the size of frying pans. It is hairless and reddish brown in color and has a very long powerful tail.
The natives were shown pictures of various animal and dinosaurs and they quickly picked pictures of the brontosaurus as that which mostly resembled mokel-mbembe. The brontosaurus was a huge plant eating dinosaur that roamed the earth over 10 million years ago. Is it possible that a descendant of this prehistoric creature still roams the earth?
Habitation
The mysterious Mokele-Mbembe is said to make its home deep in te jungle and swamps of Zaire, formally known as “the Congo”. It lives in the Likouala swamp region, located in the northern part of the congo. This area is about the size fo the state of Arkansas. It uses lakes as a crossing path between rivers.
Behavior
Mokele-Mbembe lives underwater most of the time except for when it eats or travel to other parts of the swamp. It is said to kill hippopotamuses if they are in a location near the vegetation that the creature consumes. It will also kill people that get to close to it, but it will not eat them due to its herbivorous nature. It will overturn boats and kill the people on board by biting them and hitting them with its tail.
Diet
The pygmies, natives of the Likouala swamp region, report that the Mokele-Mbembe’s diet consists primarily of the Malambo Plant. This plant has a fruit on it that is kind of like an apple but it is harder than an apple.
Sightings
In 1909 Naturalist Carl Hagenbeck reported that a German named Hans Schomburgh and an English hunter both told him about a “huge monster, half elephant, half dragon”, which lived in the Congo Swamps. Another naturalist, Joseph Menges told Hagenbeck that “some kind of dinosaur, seemingly related to the brontosaurus” lived in the swamps. Hagenbeck sent an expedition to search for the monster, but due to disease and hostile natives, the effort was unsuccessful.
In 1913, Captain Freiherrvon Stein zu Lausnitz was sent by the German government to explore the Cameroon. Von Stein wrote that the Mokele-Mbembe in habited the area near the Ubangi, Sanha and Ikelemba Rivers. This was decided after being show a path said to be made by the animal to get his food. The path was fresh and there were Malombo plants nearby.
In 1920 a thirty-two man expedition was sent from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Six days into the expedition, African guides found large unexplained track along the bank of the river and they also heard mysterious roars that did not sound like any other animal that came from an unexplored swamp.
In 1932, American Crypto-zoologist Ivan Sanderson was traviling in Africa and caome across large tracks that looked to be that of a hippopotamus. But hippopotamuses did not inhabit this region. Sanderson later saw something in the water that was too large to be a hippo, but it disappeared before he could tell exactly what it was.
In 1977, Mambombo Daniel, a local school teacher, said he had see a creature from only
thirty-feet away. He described it as gray in color, with a thick neck and large body.
In 1983, Marcellen Agnagna, the Congolese zoologist led an expedition to the Likouala region and claimed to see the monster himself. He and two villagers were near Lake Tele when one of them spotted a strange animal in the water. They soon found themselves facing a creature with a wide back, long neck and a small head, measuring about fifteen feet long. They had run out of film for their cameras and were unable to take a picture of the creature.
The last recorded sighting was in April of 2000. Two Congolese security Guards reportedly saw the Mokele-Mbembe along the Cameroon, Boumba River, but other information about the sighting was not available.
Might dinosaurs still exist? No one knows for sure. If dinosaurs could exist anywhere in the world then this is where they are most likely to be since most of the Congo has not been explored. For now the Mokele-Mbembe will live on only through the imaginations of those who have seen it.
The mystery will continue on until some day, someone can return from the Congo with enough information to prove that the Mokele-Mbembe is in fact a real living dinosaur.
