The Mokele-Mbembe

Weird Creature or Myth?

It is usually described as being anywhere between 15 and 30 feet long including the long neck and tail, the body often said to be about the size of an elephant. Its legs are stubby. It has smooth, greyish brown skin and is occasionally said to have a horn.

This description would fit with some form of sauropod dinosaur, a theory that has frequently been advanced.

The Mokele-Mbembe is dangerous and will kill anyone who approaches too close. Although aggressive it will not eat those it kills. It is a herbivore, its favourite food being the "Malambo plant", a Landolphia shrub which bears fruit. Some have suggested that this makes it less likely to be pure myth - huge creatures of legend are more often carnivores than herbivores! A vegetarian "monster" would be unusual.

Sightings of the Mokele-Mbembe are recorded in the natives' oral tradition going back as far as can be remembered. These reports have been passed to the outsde world since contact was first made with the local people. Since then there have been a number of expeditions attempting to track down the Mokele-Mbembe, most notably those of Roy Mackal in the 1980s. Although Mackal never sighted the creature himself he believed that he was nearby when the locals did so.

No scientific expeditions have yet to discover any trace of the creature. Maybe it doesn't exist. Maybe it used to exist but has now died out.

Then again, the Congo Basin is a huge area. Maybe the Mokele-Mbembe is real and we just haven't found it yet.