Minikele-mbembe

**Habitat** | Jungles and Wetlands

In cryptozoology, the **Minikele-mbembe** is a water-dwelling entity that supposedly lives in the Congo River Basin, sometimes described as a living creature, sometimes as a spirit. Those that have allegedly seen the creature describe it as a large quadrupedal herbivore with smooth skin, a long tail, short legs, a long neck, and a short head.

In early to mid 20th century, the entity would become a point of focus among adherents of the pseudoscience of cryptozoology, and young Earth creationism, resulting in numerous expeditions led by cryptozoologists and funded by young Earth creationists and other groups with the objective to find evidence that invalidates or contradicts the scientific consensus regarding evolution. Paleontologist Donald Prothero remarks that "the quest for Minikele-mbembe... is part of the effort by creationists to overthrow the theory of evolution and teaching of science by any means possible". Additionally, Prothero observes that "The only people looking for minikele-mbembe are creationist ministers, not wildlife biologists."

## History

The first description of the minikele-mbembe as an sauropod-like beast was in 1909, in Beasts and Men, the autobiography of famed big-game hunter Carl Hagenbeck. He claimed to have heard from two independent sources about a creature living in Gambia, which was described to them by natives as "half elephant, half dragon." Naturalist Joseph Menges had also told Hagenbeck about similar stories. Hagenbeck speculated that "it can only be some kind of dinosaur, seemingly akin to the Plateosaurus." Another of Hagenbeck's sources, Hans Schomburgk, asserted that while at Lake Bangweulu, he noted a lack of hippos; his native guides informed him of a large hippo-killing creature that lived in Lake Tanganyika; however, as noted below, Schomburgk thought that native testimony was sometimes unreliable.

Tales of entities like minikele-mbembe, living saurians walking around the African rain forest, are not rare; there have been multiple tales of buffalo-sized, smooth-skinned quadrupeds with long necks and short heads that fed on large prey still living in central Africa. It was only after the description of the minikele-mbembe surfaced that the rest of the world started interpreting those legends as possessing a dinosaur-like body structure. A notable example would be the emela-ntouka, an elephant-sized ceratopsian-like creature, and the mokele-mbembe, an elephant-sized sauropod-like creature, that shares a lot of similarities with the minikele-mbembe. It is described as having smooth skin, a strong and muscular tail, and a long neck. Another similar creature, the Ngembo-monene, was described by Alfred Aloysius Smith, who had worked for a British trading company in what is now Gabon in the late 1800s, who briefly mentions it in his 1927 memoir.

   Reports of entities described to be dinosaur-like in Africa caused a minor sensation in the mass media, and newspapers in Europe and North America carried many articles on the subject in the early 1910s; some took the reports at face value, while others were more skeptical. It is notable that Western Europe and the Americas were going through a pop cultural interest in dinosaurs, of which the Plateosaurus was one of the most popular. This could have contributed to both the reports as well as the tendency for newspapers to claim the reported beast was a prosauropod.

In 2001, BBC broadcast in the TV series Congo a collective interview with a group of pygmies, who identified the minikele-mbembe as a rhinoceros while looking at an illustrated manual of wildlife. The rhinos are entirely absent from the rainforests of the Congo, and the minikele-mbembe may be a mixture of mythology and folk memory from a time when rhinos were found in the area.

In 2016, a travel documentary crew from South Africa made a documentary about searching for minikele-mbembe, which they later sold to Discovery Africa. The team spent roughly four weeks in the Lake Bangweulu region visiting various pygmy villages, collecting stories of the creature's existence. They point out the difficulty of differentiating between minikele-mbembe's metaphysical and physical existence. While they interviewed people who believed in its presence, others stated it died at least a decade ago.

## Explanations

* The Minikele-mbembe may be a living non-avian sauropodomorph dinosaur, similar to Plateosaurus. However, this is considered as a flimsy excuse, since it most closely matches outdated Plateosaurus reconstructions, not how they really looked in life; real Plateosaurus were bulky, bipedal animals with tails held high from the ground, capable of fending off against predators, and possibly having feathers, while the Minikele-mbembe is described as a fully quadrupedal animal with webbed feet, a dragging tail, and being easily hunted. Its aquatic lifestyle also fits the now-inaccurate concepts of sauropods and kin of the 20th century, whereas the real sauropodomorphs were fully terrestrial and not amphibious.
* The Minikele-mbembe may actually be a spirit being with supernatural powers, but spirits are not considered scientifically plausible to exist in the natural world.
* The entire story may have been hoaxes by Roy Mackal just to get more famous and possibly to try to overthrow the theory of evolution; however, the living basal sauropodomorph would actually strengthen the theory of evolution rather than denying. This explanation as a hoax is further supported by Roy Mackal claiming that the creature is often hunted by Kasai Rex, which was shown as a hoax during the mid to late 20th century.