Creatures, Myths & Legends

Sightings of the enigmatic mokele-mbembe are reportedly on the rise

By T.K. Randall
March 29, 2025 ·  38 comments

Was the mokele-mbembe legend based on early depictions of dinosaurs ? Image Credit: Charles Robert Knight Said to resemble the size and shape of a giant sauropod dinosaur, the legendary creature known locally as mokele-mbembe has been sighted in the Congo Basin for decades.

One of the earliest accounts of the creature came courtesy of German Captain Ludwig Freiherr von Stein zu Lausnitz who had heard stories of the mokele-mbembe from local villagers during a 1913 survey of German colonies in what is now modern day Cameroon.

While descriptions varied, the creature was said to be an enormous reptile around the size of an elephant with a long, flexible neck, a horn on its head and a long alligator-like tail.

It was also said to live in caves and although it was known to kill people, it was entirely vegetarian.

While the legend of the mokele-mbembe had faded into obscurity over the decades, in more recent years it seems as though the creature has been sighted a lot more frequently.But what is behind this sudden resurgence and could the creature actually be real ?

Some believe that this otherwise inexplicable increase in sightings is most likely down to increasing amounts of deforestation in the Congo Basin.

Animals of all sorts are being displaced and inevitably this means that they are encountering human settlements a lot more often - perhaps some of these encounters have been misinterpreted as sightings of the creature.

Then again, perhaps there really is a large, unknown creature lurking in the forests.

Without definitive physical evidence, however, we will likely never know for sure.

Source: IFL Science | Comments (38)

Tags: Congo, Mokele-Mbembe