CONTINENT FILE

Cryptids of Africa

Living dinosaurs of the Congo Basin, river serpents and bush legends.

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Tanzania3 cryptidsDR Congo3 cryptidsRepublic of the Congo3 cryptidsCameroon3 cryptidsKenya2 cryptidsSouth Africa2 cryptidsZambia1 cryptid

Cryptids of Africa

The Likouala-aux-Herbes River near Epena, in the swamp-forest region where Mokele-mbembe is said to live REPTILIAN · 1913

Mokele-mbembe

Likouala swamps and Lake Télé, Republic of the Congo

A long-necked, elephant-sized river beast of Congo Basin lore, hunted since 1980 by expeditions hoping to find a living sauropod in the Likouala swamps.

REGIONAL LEGEND OTHER · 1912

Nandi Bear

Uasin Gishu Plateau and Nandi Hills, western Kenya

A ferocious, bear-like night raider of western Kenya’s highlands – Africa has no bears, so colonial-era sightings remain hotly debated.

REGIONAL LEGEND A shoebill, the large grey swamp bird often proposed as the real kongamato, standing in East Africa FLYING · 1923

Kongamato

Jiundu swamp, Mwinilunga district, Zambia

A red, leathery-winged flyer feared at river fords in north-western Zambia, made famous in 1923 when Kaonde men picked it out of a book of pterodactyls.

REGIONAL LEGEND LAKE & SEA MONSTER · Pre-colonial

Inkanyamba

Pool below Howick Falls (KwaNogqaza), uMngeni River, KwaZulu-Natal

The great storm-serpent of Zulu and Xhosa belief, said to live in the pool beneath KwaZulu-Natal’s Howick Falls and to ride the summer tornadoes.

REGIONAL LEGEND Flooded forest along the Likouala-aux-Herbes River in the northern Republic of the Congo OTHER · 1954

Emela-ntouka

Likouala swamps, northern Republic of the Congo

A one-horned, elephant-sized swamp beast of the northern Congo, said to gore elephants and buffalo – pegged by some as a surviving horned dinosaur.

LOCAL LEGEND SPECTRAL · 1965

Popobawa

Pemba and Unguja islands, Zanzibar, and coastal Tanzania

A shape-shifting night spirit of Zanzibar whose “bat-wing” shadow has sparked waves of panic since the 1960s, most famously in 1995.

REGIONAL LEGEND REPTILIAN · Early 20th century

Grootslang

The “Wonder Hole” cave, Richtersveld, Northern Cape

A colossal serpent said to guard a diamond-filled cave in South Africa’s Richtersveld – a prospectors’ legend of greed, peril and treasure.

FOLKLORE LAKE & SEA MONSTER · 1907

Dingonek

Migori (Maggori) River near Lake Victoria, south-western Kenya

A scaly, leopard-spotted, fanged river monster reported by a hunter on Kenya’s Migori River around 1907 – one of Africa’s strangest tales.

LOCAL LEGEND An adult male hammer-headed bat, fitted with a GPS collar – the species Sanderson was hunting when he saw the olitiau FLYING · 1932

Olitiau

Assumbo Mountains, north of Mamfe, Cameroon

A huge black, toothy bat-winged flyer that swooped at naturalist Ivan Sanderson in Cameroon’s Assumbo Mountains in 1932 – and sent local hunters running.

LOCAL LEGEND BIG CAT · 1937

Mngwa

Coastal forest near Lindi and Mchinga, southern Tanzania

A donkey-sized, tabby-striped man-eating cat of Tanzania’s southern coast, blamed for killings in colonial-era Lindi but never identified.

REGIONAL LEGEND HOMINID · 1937

Agogwe

Forests west of the Wembere plains, central Tanzania

Small, upright, russet-haired “little men” glimpsed by a colonial officer in Tanzanian forest – East Africa’s best-known mystery hominid.

LOCAL LEGEND A car ferry crossing the broad Kasai River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo REPTILIAN · 1932

Kasai Rex

Kasai River valley, Democratic Republic of the Congo

A 1932 tale of a giant predatory reptile devouring a rhino in the Belgian Congo, backed by a crudely faked photo – the “living T. rex” that wasn’t.

HOAX / DEBUNKED Dark water of the Likouala-aux-Herbes River reflecting the surrounding rainforest REPTILIAN · 1980

Mbielu-mbielu-mbielu

Likouala-aux-Herbes River, northern Republic of the Congo

A river creature of the Likouala said to show only its back – a row of algae-covered “planks” – which some cryptozoologists have linked to a stegosaur.

LOCAL LEGEND