Mokele-mbembe

[Searcher]

Ever heard of the Mokele –mbembe? It’s another one of planet Earth’s great unsolved mysteries. This strange sounding name means “ one who blocks the flow of rivers” and belongs to what is claimed resembles a living sauropod dinosaur!

This creature lives in the Congo river basin and is well know to the local tribes that inhabit the region. It is described as having a long neck with a small head, a large elephant like body and a large tail. Evidence dates back to the 17th century when French missionaries found footprints with claw marks that measured three feet in circumference! This reportedly bad tempered beast is also known for killing any hippos that stray into its territory.

There have been a number of expeditions mounted to find this lake and river dwelling monster, but so far none have any success. The main sightings continue to come from the natives that inhabit the area. In one encounter, from 1959, the pygmy people speared a Mokele-mbembe to death and then cooked and ate it. It seems all who took part in the feast later died.

There are many interesting stories about this animal, so a bit of research is well worth while. As with so many other creatures from the realm of cryptozoology, we stand by for some conclusive proof of their existence. In the meantime, just like Yowies and Bigfoot, it is the tantalizing eyewitness accounts that continue to whet our appetite for the truth.

The sketch drawing comes from the Wikipedia article on Mokele-mbembe. It gives a good overview on some of the available evidence and is well worth a read.

[Yowie bait]

Thanks Searcher. Thats interesting . Found a lot to read on the mokele-mbembe. A real live dinosaur would be a sight to see. I'll make sure i never eat one thats for sure.

[Searcher]

Glad you liked it, Yowie bait. When the Yowie scene gets a bit quiet, I like to get my head into other unsolved crypto mysteries.

There is so much out there that needs explaining!

[Yowie bait]

Yeah it sounds very hard to get into the areas where theyre sposed to be. The civil war in congo stopped some of those biologists from going back to the spot. I remember a great youtube doco on a dinosaur some fishermen netted in japan and others that washed up in japan. Could be b.s but who knows?Theres no way we could know of everything in the oceans and jungles.

[Shazzoir]

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/plesios.html

Anything that dies in the ocean is soon stripped of most of its' muscle and fat, by predators and opportunistic fish species. I remember thinking at the time 'Wow, a Plesiosaur!' but I was only 11 or so at the time. Over the years, I have tended to believe it was some natural marine creature's carcass which had been drastically altered in appearance due to scavengers (head missing, probably disjointed from the spinal column pretty early in the process) but then again, nobody took a sample as DNA testing was unheard of back then... I guess we'll never know for sure...

Shazzoir

[Yowie bait]

A few monsters ive seen (on youtube) that they have tested were whale carcass but looked nothing like a whale.

[Simon M]

Have a read of Bernard Heuvelmans' On the Track of Unknown Animals, he has a lot to say about the Mokele-Mbembe.