Region // 10 files

Africa

The continent of supposed relicts: Likouala dinosaurs, unknown highland cats, river pterosaurs. Old local narratives, often reinterpreted — sometimes abusively — by Western expeditions.

• Case file Nº057 1909

  Mokele-mbembe

  Relict / 1.34°N 17.15°E

  A water being of Likouala tradition, recast by Westerners as a living dinosaur; every expedition has returned empty-handed.

  Class 2

• Case file Nº058 1923

  Kongamato

  Aerial / 11.73°S 24.43°E

  The 'breaker of boats' of Zambia's swamps, read as a pterosaur; big waterbirds and bats account for the case.

  Class 2

• Case file Nº059 Années 1900

  Nandi Bear

  Relict / 0.10°N 35.18°E

  Colonial Kenya's night predator; behind the monster, the spotted hyena accounts for most of the file.

  Class 4

• Case file Nº060 1954

  Emela-ntouka

  Relict / 1.35°N 17.46°E

  Congo's one-horned 'killer of elephants', most plausibly a displaced memory of the rhinoceros; no scientist has ever seen it.

  Class 2

• Case file Nº061 Folklore ancien

  Mngwa

  Phantom cat / 9.99°S 39.71°E

  A donkey-sized grey cat blamed for deadly night attacks on Tanzania's coast in the 1920s; the killer was never identified.

  Class 2

• Case file Nº062 1931

  Marozi

  Phantom cat / 0.42°S 36.70°E

  The spotted lion of Kenya's Aberdare Range: one very real skin shot in 1931, and no confirmed population before or since.

  Class 3

• Case file Nº063 1938

  J'ba Fofi

  Critter / 2.50°S 23.50°E

  A giant spider of the Congo basin known from a handful of tales; spider physiology makes such an animal very unlikely.

  Class 2

• Case file Nº064 XIXe siècle

  Mahamba

  Aquatic / 2.00°S 18.28°E

  An outsized crocodile of Congo's waters; the stories double the length of the largest crocodiles ever measured.

  Class 2

• Case file Nº065 1980

  Mbielu-mbielu-mbielu

  Relict / 1.25°N 17.25°E

  A Congo animal said to bear planks on its back, cast as a stegosaur by creationists; the file rests on a few local accounts.

  Class 1

• Case file Nº099 1983

  Gambo

  Aquatic / 13.44°N 16.71°W

  A carcass measured on a Gambian beach in 1983 by a single witness, then buried and lost — most likely a decomposed beaked whale.

  Class 4