Library of Cryptozoology

... there are reports in the [Imatong] mountains of a mythical beast akin to the Nandi bear of Kenya. Some labourers working high in the Acholi hills clearing firelines came to me with a tale of having seen a large animal, bigger than a lion and very broad. Its head was large, with a pointed muzzle, and a black mouth with long canine teeth. The general colour was brownish, with vertical yellowish-white stripes on its flanks. It left an elongated footprint, the size and shape of that of a small boy, but with claws. The beast was quite unknown to them, and they were very scared about it.

In the lava caves of the Lake Kivu area there exists an animal which is described by the natives as never having been seen or killed by man. The native description of it is: "Very high in the back. Color blue black. No horns, small ears, long jowl. Its teeth meet like those of the hippopotamus. All animals fear it save the gorilla, the lion, and the buffalo. It is entirely carnivorous, and eats three bush buck or marsh antelope a day. It some times attacks human beings. No man can withstand it save with glowing coals or fire, aided by shouts and drum beats close by. If left, unburied when killed, it is a great wizard, and its spirit returns with potent sorcery. No beast of prey will eat its flesh" "I hunted this animal for weeks," said Captain [Tracy] Philipps, "with every known device. When news of its lair was brought, and we found the grass broken at the entrance and a track made on the rock lava, we stopped all entrances but one. We descended, my orderly ...

?alendùmu' Nom. • Ancester of the panther family. Giant mythical panther capable of killing an elephant ... Or 'gbàngonjò': lion? Giant panther which lives in the water and makes holes like fish. It breeds in the water, but can come onto land if it sees prey; it can even kill a small elephant. - Also called: súà nà ngo: water panther.

We kept a good watch [near Entebbe on Lake Victoria] for the dreaded "Lukwata," an animal of which the natives are in great fear. What it is no one can exactly say. A semi-fabulous animal, its existence is vouched for by at least one distinguished Government official [Clement Hill] who made its acquaintance when crossing the Lake in a small steam launch. The natives cannot give any accurate description as they generally lose their consciousness when it appears and selects a victim from a canoe, but I have been assured by testimony it is impossible to disbelieve that it appears with head and neck at least ten feet above the level of the lake. Sea serpent, sea horse, or sea cow, there is certainly a strange beast which no one as yet has made a serious effort to capture.

Bangweulu is also the home of the legendary monster known as the "Chipekwe". It is supposed to live in the deepest part of the Lake and at various times it has been known to drive all the fish from the open waters into the swamps. I suspect however, that this is the way in which the local inhabitants explain away the bad fishing season from January to August. There are many stories concerning the "Chipekwe" and there is no doubt that the lacustrine villagers have a very real fear of it. I have often been in a canoe fishing when suddenly the paddlers have turned the craft towards the shore and when asked for a reason they have answered that we were getting too near to where the "Chipekwe" lived. Once when crossing the open Lake in the Government boat Mwewa the engine cut. Immediately all talking by the District Messengers and the other African passengers was reduced to whispers. When I asked why this was so, I was informed that "Chipekwe" had grea...

In the Congo I heard of what appeared to be a dinosaur which inhabited the depths of the Ituri forest. He was variously described to me by both natives and whites, and several of the accounts were so circumstantial that to my mind it seemed quite possible that some enormous, odd creature did live in those forest depths, in the swamps. In spite of the fact that many of the stories had about them just that something which suggested that imagination or exaggeration was at work, I should be very pleased if the opportunity came my way to make an expedition in search of him .

 ... on such journeys in Africa–at any rate in those days–there was generally something of interest to be gleaned, and I remember that it was on my return from Kapopo to Mkushi [in early 1901] that I first became interested in that grand mystery of mysteries, the Chipekwe. It happened in this way. One day before I had left Kapopo, Jones received an excited note from Louis De Fries, relating a curious adventure. De Fries was at that time trading not far from Kapopo and in the neighbourhood there was a lake–a rather remarkable and mysterious lake, of immense depth–known to the map-makers as Lake Choa. Well, early one evening, it seems, Louis De Fries was out for a stroll along the shore, when he saw some large object floating on top of the water. He made out a head–but it wasn't, certainly, a crocodile: he made out the ears–they certainly weren't the ears of a hippo: and stranger still, he could see quite distinctly what appeared to be a large horn. It looked almost like a rhino:...

 ... the natives in many parts of Central Africa believe in the existence of a gigantic water animal which has been described to me by the Buanga natives inhabiting the swamps of the south of Lake Bangweulu, as a water rhinoceros; they had even a name for it, which was chimpelwi, and described it as able to kill a hippopotamus with which it was in the habit of fighting; the bones of one of these animals, they averred, were to be found in the swamps. An authenticated case of a white man having seen such an animal was told me by the man himself, an acquaintance of mine named Defries [sic]. It is, of course, necessary to state he is an extremely abstemious man, besides being a good sportsman, a trained naturalist, and for a considerable period rubber conservator for North-western Rhodesia. When carrying out his duties in the latter capacity he had reason to pass by a small lake between Lakes Chaa and Kapopo on the upper Kafue River. This lake or rather lakelet is so deep as to be unfa...

Millais writes me on June 22nd, 1925, about the matter of an animal called the "Chimpekwe," in N.E. Rhodesia, which, I believe, is completely extinct, although I think it must have been in existence in the early years of the 19th century for I have heard the natives talk of it but never met one who had actually seen one. They say it had horns on its face like a rhino and was as large as a hippo. It may be a myth, but if so it seems strange to me that a name (or rather several names in different parts of Africa) should be used to describe it.

They [the Lamba] say that the ichisonga is a water animal which resembles a rhinoceros, having a horn on its forehead. It is said to inhabit the Kafue river. When it hears the hippo in a pool it comes out of the river, lest it be scented, and goes along the bank. When it reaches the pool it enters the water again, chooses the biggest bull hippo it can see, and stabs it with its horn. It does not eat the hippo, but merely kills it. It eats grass. The Lambas say, further, than when people kill an elephant near by the ichisonga roars and drives the people away. It then comes and remains near the dead animal, maybe for several days, until the people get tired of waiting and the dead animal rots. This creature is said to be prompted by ... jealousy.

 ... many natives in North-Eastern Rhodesia speak of the existence of an animal named the "chimpakwe," which they say resembles the hippo in its amphibian habits, but possesses a horn like the rhinoceros. I chatted with one or two old chiefs on the subject of this strange animal, a beast quite unknown to science, and gathered that the "chimpakwe" existed many years ago in North-Eastern Rhodesia, but at the present day he is probably to be found only in the Luapula River and some deep pools around the borders of the Congo Free State and North-Western Rhodesia. According to the natives, he is an extremely wary creature, and no white man has ever shot him, although it is stated that one or two white hunters have been so impressed with native assertions regarding the "chimpakwe" that they have spent some time in looking for the beast. I have never been told by natives that the "chimpakwe" killed the hippo, and the stories of its existence that I have...

I cannot discuss the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus without some reference to an animal which is most emphatically stated by the natives to frequent some of the deepest pools and rivers of the Congo-Zambesi watershed ... I do not say that I am convinced as to the existence of a huge water rhino in Central Africa, but I do say this, that, in my opinion, it is by no means unlikely that the "Chimpakwe," as the Awisa term it, is something very much more material than a myth. I have asked many old chiefs in North-Eastern Rhodesia about the "Chimpakwe," and they have all assured me that this mighty two-horned amphibian was, many years ago, an inhabitant of the Luangwa river. One old Awisa headman told me that his father had shot one with a gun which an Arab hunter had given him. The natives stated that since the water in the Luangwa has decreased in volume and height, the chimpakwe has disappeared, but that he might to-day be found in the deeper waters of the Luapula, an...

Don't you remember my telling you of the three-horned water-rhino which the boys say kills the hippo in Lake Bangweolo and in the swamps near Leauli, and on the Kafue? I heard of it from my boys at the Falls, and we were discussing it at the District Commissioner's, when S—, who had come down from Mwomboshi to take over, told us that a week or two before two white men had arrived at his place who said they had seen it.

Native rumour states that in Lake Bangweolo there is a water rhino. Should this prove correct, it will be interesting to see what adaptation of the rhino's foot has taken place to fit the animal for an aquatic existence.

It [Lake Chirengwa] is reported to be the home of that mythical animal the chibekwe, or water-rhinoceros, which lives in such secluded places and in deep lakes, has apparently the peculiarity of leaving no spoor, and whose daily food is a big hippopotamus.

The South African strandwolf, also referred to as the brown hyena, has on various occasions been tentatively reported for East Africa. I once thought to have caught a fleeting glimpse of one, but as no tangible evidence of its occurrence in Kenya has ever come forth, I assume that it must have been an abnormally coloured spotted hyena.

There are three species of hyaena recorded in Kenya, the spotted, the striped and the brown, but only the two former have been seen by me in the park. The brown hyaena has been killed and identified as near as Kabete, so it is quite possible that this species may visit the park too.

In a recent number of 'Nature in East Africa' (No 4. December, 1947, p  19), the brown hyaena ( Hyaena brunnea Thun.) was reported from Kabete near Nairobi. This appeared to be a record of great interest because as long ago as 1899 the species was recorded by Bryden (quoted in Shortridge, 1934, and in Rowland Ward's records of Big Game, 1935) as occurring north of Zambesi as far as Angola in the west of Kilimanjaro in the east, while Trouessart has cited Kordofan (Sudan) and other places in N.E. Africa as its habitat. ... ... the Brown Hyanea ( H. brunnea ) ... is known to exist in the Kedong Valley, and must come up the escarpment to higher country. This is proved by the fact that it ranges to Kabete, where it has been poisoned several times by the Veterinary Dept. The last one I handled in the mortuary a year ago. Two years ago I found one killed on the Railway line near Kabete Railway Station, I have the skulls of them both.

In ... some rivers are hidden Ndumba wa meia (water lion), Ripata (huge crocodile) and Tshife (great water snake) ... They say that Ndumba wa meia savages the hippo with ease and leaves a red trail wherever it goes; it can stop the flow of the river, divert its normal course and punish exploratory boatmen.

There is an animal, which I know not where to class, as no European has hitherto succeeded in obtaining a specimen of it: it is supposed by the natives to be far more active, powerful and dangerous than even the lion, and consequently held by them in the greatest possible dread. They call it 'wobbo' or 'mantillit,' and some hold it in superstitious awe, looking upon it more in the light of an evil spirit with an animal's form than a wild beast. Their descriptions of this animal are vague in the extreme: some say that its skin is partly that of a lion, but intermixed with that of the leopard and hyena; others, again, assert that its face is human, or very like it. It appears int he valleys, happily only rarely; for they say that when it takes its abode near a village, it pays nightly visits, entertaining the very houses, and carrying off the children, and even occasionally grown-up persons. One had been killed some years ago on the river Weney, and its skin presented...