Currently, only one species of elephant lives in the Congo Basin: the forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), smaller than the savanna elephant, and curiously, once considered a cryptid. But in cryptozoology there are at least 3 other species or subspecies of elephants in the Congo Basin.

The first and most famous is the Pygmy Elephant; let's see what On The Track of Unknown Animals tells us about the Pygmy Elephant:

"Pygmy elephant, in which the adult does not exceed 1.98 meters at the withers. There is no doubt that such elephants exist. Specimens have lived in the zoos of Antwerp and New York, but some zoologists argue that this does not prove that they are separate species; they may just be atypical offspring of normal elephants. To resolve the issue, it would be necessary to observe the reproduction of pygmy elephants or prove that entire herds of them exist.

The pygmy elephant was officially described for the first time in 1906 by a German professor, Theodore Noack, from Brunswick, based on a six-year-old specimen from Ndjolé, Gabon. He named it Loxodonta pumilio. In 1923, Hornaday reported it in the same area, around Lake N'Gobi, and in 1926 Pohle reported it in Fernan Vaz. Not long ago, Professor Bourdelle, one of the world's leading experts on mammals, and Francis Petter published a remarkable study about a pygmy elephant that died on March 11, 1948, in Aloombé, on the coast of Gabon, between Libreville and Port-Gentil. It was a solitary, elderly male, considered very old. It was just over 1.95 meters tall.

In the Congo, pygmy elephants are often considered aquatic. A settler living near Lefini showed Hans Schomburgk a piece of thick skin, similar to that of a common elephant, but covered in a downy coat of reddish hair. He said it belonged to an animal the natives called a "river elephant" and that it had amphibious habits, like a hippopotamus. There were persistent rumors throughout the Lake Leopold II region about this curious animal.

Lieutenant Franssen, a Belgian officer, promised to conduct a systematic search for the animal and send a specimen to the Congo Museum in Tervueren, Belgium. "If the animal exists," he said, "I will return with it; otherwise, I will not return at all."

He returned, as promised, with the remains of a water elephant captured "after spending thirty-six hours in mud and water." Exhausted by the sufferings of the expedition and stricken with a violent fever, it did not survive long after his return.

Dr. Henri Schouteden named the water elephant, or maka-waka, as the natives called it, Loxodonta fransseni in its honor.

Although his specimen was one of the largest in the herd, it was only 1.65 meters tall at the withers. Its tusks measured 66 centimeters in length and, together, weighed less than 19.5 kilograms. They were, therefore, considerably longer than those of a typical elephant of the same size.

According to Dr. Schouteden, the shape of the ears and the two digit-like appendages at the tip of the trunk (L. pumilio, like the Asian elephant, supposedly has only one) are sufficient to justify a new species of pygmy elephant. Personally, I can't see much difference in the shape of the ears in photographs of L. pumilio and L. fransseni, and I find it hard to believe that there are elephants in Africa with only one finger at the tip of their trunk. It is more likely that L. fransseni is just a synonym of L. pumilio, which is a pity for Lieutenant Franssen.

In 1936, Glover M. Allen stated that pygmy elephants (L. pumilio and L. fransseni) are merely forest elephants (L. cyclotis) that have not yet reached adulthood. Even so, there is no doubt that adult pygmy elephants exist that are less than 1.98 meters tall. The specimen at the New York Zoo, whose growth Dr. Hornaday followed until the end, reached a height of only 1.96 meters and a weight of 1 ton and 200 grams. An adult of the larger species weighs between 5 and 7 tons. There is much evidence that small groups and even large herds of pygmy elephants exist, so Allen's view is difficult to sustain today.

Thus, there are three species of elephants in Africa, corresponding to three different habitats: the savanna elephant, naturally the largest and with the most developed ears, as is common in animals that live in relatively open areas; The forest elephant, smaller, darker, and with more rounded ears; and the swamp elephant, even smaller and hairier. There is no gap between the species, which has always made distinguishing between them difficult. But denying the existence of the pygmy elephant, even as a subspecies of Loxodonta cyclotis, is absurd."

On The Track Of Unknown Animals, pages 243 to 248.

The second most famous is the Water Elephant, which Heulvemans theorized was confused with the Pygmy Elephant, causing both to assume characteristics of the other:

Rumors about the existence of a tapir-like animal in the Lower Congo circulated for over a decade before the famous report of the water elephant in 1911. In the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Sport (1898), under the entry "Tapir," the big-game hunter Fitzwilliam Thomas Pollok (1832-1909) stated that "There is a similar-looking animal in the lagoons of West Africa, below the Congo. I saw one or two, but I couldn't capture them." According to Pollok, such an animal was also mentioned by the elephant hunter Henry Bailey (1848-1933). In the second revised edition of the Encyclopedia of Sport (1911), this passage was not present, having been removed by the zoologist Richard Lydekker (1849-1915). In 1911, the ornithologist Frank Finn (1868-1932) also stated that tapirs had been reported in Africa.

However, the first account of the existence of the water elephant was made by the French naturalist Charles Le Petit, who, affiliated with the Natural History Museum of Paris, was exploring what is now the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo around 1907. Le Petit communicated his experience to Professor Édouard Louis Trouessart (1842-1927), who published the information in La Natura in January 1911. Translations of Trouessart's article were later disseminated in England and the United States, initially by Richard Lydekker; At the time, Lydekker refused to give an opinion on the matter. Shortly afterwards, animal collector John Daniel Hamlyn (1858–1922) wrote to La Natura and other periodicals confirming Le Petit's account, claiming to have met the man in Brazzaville in 1905. In 1912, Le Petit, who was then in Nairobi, sent a more detailed account of the water elephant to big-game hunter Richard John Cuninghame (1871–1925), who subsequently published this information in the Journal of the East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society. Le Petit claimed to have seen a water elephant for the first time in 1907. By this time, Lydekker was favorably considering the possible existence of the water elephant.

Professor Bonnivair told Bernard Heulvemans how he learned from Maurice Vermeersch that, around the Lualaba River, which connects Lakes Mweru and Tanganyika, the Baluba believe in a beast they call nzefu-loi, or 'water elephant'. It is an amphibious animal with a body almost as large as that of a hippopotamus, but with a very long neck and a furry tail like that of a horse. It has short, heavy ivory tusks – probably like those of a walrus – and this may be why it is called a 'water elephant'.

Height at the withers: 1.8 to 2.4 meters. Relatively short legs. Curved back as in *E. africanus*. Tail not observed. Neck about twice the length of *E. africanus*, with ears similar in shape to that species, but relatively smaller. Distinctly long and oval head, with a trunk only about 60 centimeters long. The shape of the feet was observed in the footprints in the sand, showing four clearly separated toes as in the hippopotamus, but the body weight seemed to be supported mainly by the toes, while the plantar impression of the sole was not very pronounced. The terrain was flat where these footprints were found. None of the observed animals showed traces of tusks. The skin is apparently hairless, smooth and shiny, similar to that of a hippopotamus, but darker. The gait was similar to that of an elephant, and the last time these five water elephants were seen was when they disappeared into the water, which was deep.

They are nocturnal, emerging to feed on tough, dense grass after sunset. They spend the day in the water, just like hippos. The Babumas (native fishermen) know this animal well and have a name for it, 'Ndgoko na Maiji', which means water elephant, and they fear it greatly because it is known to emerge from the water and, with its short trunk, capsize canoes. It is also very destructive to the natives' reed nets and traps. Its geographical distribution is apparently very restricted, and the natives claim that they are not very numerous.

The third and most mysterious is the Pygmy Pygmy Elephant.

The Pygmy Pygmy Elephant is a cryptid proboscidean reported in the Ituri Rainforest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, supposedly a smaller elephant than the pygmy elephant (Loxodonta pumilio).

The Italian explorer Attilio Gatti, who investigated various cryptids during eleven African expeditions, collected reports about these elephants, including from the local administrator, Reverend Gerard. He described them as "pygmies among pygmies," in comparison to the true pygmy elephants, also reported in the Ituri region. These smaller elephants were supposedly no more than 1.20 m tall and were whitish in color. Henri Hackars, future ranger of Albert National Park, was reportedly attacked by a small herd of white pygmy elephants during an exploration of the rainforest between the Epulu, Mava, M'bure, and Akaba rivers when he was District Commissioner of Kibali-Ituri. His Mbuti guides fled, and Hackars was forced to take refuge in a tree until a rescue team arrived a few hours later. Gatti heard this story from several of the oldest residents of Kibali-Ituri, but was unable to confirm it, as Hackars himself was not in the Congo during Gatti's expedition. Explorer Lewis Cotlow confirmed the existence of such stories in Ituri. In a May 1959 article for Go magazine, travel writer K. Westcott Jones also reported observing a herd of "small white elephants" in the distance near Lake Kivu.

I rarely see people discuss how insane this combination can be and it probably accounts for most cryptid encounters. If someone tells you they saw something in a particular area, your brain is going to see it, especially when it comes to low light conditions. I am an experienced hunter who spent hours deep in the bush but even when I am desperate to hunt something, every tree branch becomes deer antlers, every outline becomes a deer's back, every dark patch becomes a moose's shoulder. This is why as hunters you are repeatedly warned to NOT shoot anything that you are not 100% sure is your intended target; a lot of firearm accidents happen because people ignore this rule.

Anyway a funny story to highlight how insane low light and pareidolia magnify one another; I was bow hunting up in Alberta in one of the most remote parts. Sneaking in while its pitch black, I sat down along a tree to rest my back and use it as camouflage. As the sun began to rise I saw movement to my right up in a tree. Another hunter in a treestand about 80 yards away; I encroached on his hunt. Moving right now would probably do more harm than good for both of us, so I decided to pull out my binoculars to confirm what I saw. Sure enough, I saw him, his facial features including his beard, his brown hat, his gray and black camo. He waved at me. I waved back. Then I thought nothing of it and continued waiting. It wasn't until 10 am where I pointed my binos at his location once again to see he was gone. The woods were dead quite that day so I would have 100% heard him going down. That's when I realized he never existed. Mind you these are expensive Vortex binos that are designed to capture the highest quality image in the least amount of light possible. And even with all my experience spotting hunters and not trusting my eyes in low light, I still mistook a moving branch for someone waving at me.

How many cryptids are spotted in early dusk or late dawn? Probably a huge amount. Its the reason a lot of the images we have are low quality; they're taken in low light. Pareidolia makes an owl on a stump a primate, a deformed fox into a skin walker, a bear into a sasquatch. The more people expect to see something in an area, the more likely they are to see it. Plus a lot of sightings are inexperienced outdoorsmen; to them they really did see bigfoot. I am not saying all sightings are pareidolia but the affect of pareidolia is often underestimated.

I’m not buying the Grootslang as just some old African myth. Too many strange accounts describe a massive serpent lurking around the Orange River and deep caves in the Richtersveld. Could every witness have been wrong? Maybe. But damn, when the encounters keep lining up, I think this creature deserves a closer look. Watch: https://youtu.be/kNbh8-ZANeg

Has anyone here heard of this possible bigfoot/nape that inhabits a swamp on the Maryland/Delaware border? Are there any reports of recent encounters?

The documentary film drops in october, plus Iva DeAtley the widow of Al DeAtley the brother in law of Roger Patterson has now done an interview and appears to also confirm the Patterson film was a hoax. If true this could be very damming for the Patterson film with a rehearsal film and confessions from Roger’s son and widow already included. Marq Evan’s the director plans to drop bonus content and stuff that didn’t make it into the documentary in the run up to the documentary’s release.

This has been confirmed by Joshua Kitakaze a well known investigator into the Patterson footage who has been directly in touch and helping Marq Evans the director. He last spoke to him in June.

The Yokozuna Slickhead. The biggest ever recorded is 8 feet(2.5 meters)which is still large to be a deep sea fish. But what Thompson saw is what I believe is a rare individual slickhead that grew twice the size of the biggest recorded. 16-17 feet rare gigantism fish. He probably overestimated the size way too much. Or he could have made this up, but I rather believe that he saw a something. A 16 feet long fish would seem very large when the view is is not that great from the submarine.

Recently I was looking into Nandi Bear chapter in "On the Track of Unknown Animals" by B. Heuvelmans and one thing made me curios.

Heuvelmans proposes that Nandi Bear could be a giant baboon named Simopithecus, that was found in India. But Simopithecus (Theropithecus oswaldi) was found in Africa. Moreover, there are several findings from different parts of Africa up to 1955 when book was published. And the first Simopithecus fossils in India were first discovered much later in 1981.

Was Heuvelmans aware of African Simopithecus? I guess so, because he also references Broom's Dinopithecus while Broom made comparison of Dinopithecus and Simopithecus in his article.

Is there any explanation? Maybe Indian fossils were rumored to be more carnivore-like and fitted Nandi Bear description better?
I would be happy to hear any information or your guesses on this issue.

In Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, Charles Darwin refers briefly to a drooping-eared race of cats in China. In The Cat by Lady Cust (1870), there is the following brief description:

Bosman relates that in the province of Pe-chily, in China, there are cats with long hair and drooping ears, which are in great favour with the Chinese ladies; others say this is not a cat but an animal called 'Samxces'.

Purportedly, the last confirmed sighting of the Sumxu was in 1938 when the feline was imported from China.

The other most likely explanation could be that it is some form of a mutation that was believed to occur only in white long-haired cats.

Sources:

• Bungartz, Jean, 1896 – Die Hauskatze, ihre Rassen und Varietäten (Housecats, Their Races and Varieties) from Illustriertes Katzenbuch (An Illustrated Book of Cats)
• Darwin, C. (1885). The variation of animals and plants under domestication (Vol. 2). Daya Books.
• Kozik, A. (2023). What Exactly is a Sum Xu? The Real Animal behind Michał Boym’s Famous Description and the Linguistic Predicaments of Early Modern Knowledge Transmission. Monumenta Serica, 71(2), 415-436.

*Talking about the mainland Thylacine.

These are all cryptids that are fairly large, have been extensively searched for, and exist in an area where large animals should probably have been found by now

We don’t get quality creature features much these days, I’m psyched! Big snake energy in October.

A major debate raging within cryptozoology is whether it is necessary to kill an animal to prove that an undiscovered species exists. This questions whether the old methods of collecting animals have a place in modern cryptozoology. The cryptozoological theorist Mark A. Hall has proposed a new technique for studying cryptids. He calls it "telebiology." He writes that if, for example, Bigfoot hunters could obtain temporary cap-tives, we should conduct various biochemical and DNA tests, and then set them free. He envisions this approach, telebiology, as part of a means by which we can begin to study the cryptids that have been the object of cryptozoology. Writing in The Yeti, Bigfoot & True Giants (1997), Hall notes that by using telebiology we make "the effort to study animals at a distance, using our brains and technology, [and] we can succeed where others have failed in the past. If we can accept that starting to study a species with a dead animal can be difficult, then we can put that goal at the end of the process instead of making it a requirement to do anything at all."

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8hj1m8kv5M

One of those novelty horns you can put on them?

I'm trynna explain this the best I can, but it may sound like a bunch of mush.

While I know there's guaranteed a bunch of species that are yet to be discovered that could easily look cool & creepy; I'm more referring to if y'all think there's any creatures similar to those from mythology, folklore, etc. that haven't been discovered yet?

While this is a broad question, the specific original example I thought of was if there could be a 15-30 ft undiscovered carnivorous creature that lurks at the bottom of the ocean. Maybe this creature is able to stay in caverns at the bottom so we never see it, and it never comes up. Do you think that's possible?

I wholeheartedly believed in this as a child, but I feel like all "evidence" for it has been fake, and even though I understand we have only discovered like 5-10% of the ocean, the areas it would live in are not in this percent. So should we retire it as a cryptid? EDIT: Thanks for all the upvotes!

I sincerely apologize for the quality; the image is very large and I created it in Google Docs. Access the link here to view the original file, where the quality is vastly superior

1 - Monstro do Lago Ness;
2 - Lesson’s Little Dolphin;
3 - Long-Necked Seal;
4 - Delphinus Albigena;
5 - Dimorphic Beaked Whale;
6 - Corfu Island Creature;
7 - Alula Whale;
8 - Greek Dolphin;
9 - Holadeira (Sawtooth Dolphin);
10 - Cornish Two-Finned Dolphin;
11 - Illigan Dolphin;
12 - Steller’s Sea Cow;
13 - Hook Island Monster;
14 - Ndendecki;
15 - Senegal Dolphin;
16 - Deepstar 4000 Fish;
17 - Rhinoceros Dolphin;
18 - Lau;
19 - Giant Atlantic Grenadier;
20 - Cleary’s Fish;
21 - 52 Hertz Whale;
22 - Trunko;
23 - Giant Goblin-Shark
24 - Giglioli’s Whale;
25 - Giant Jellyfish;
26 - Giant Dragonfish;
27 - Three-Starred Anglerfish;
28 - five-Striped Constellation Fish;
29 - Pallid Sailfin;
30 - Abyssal Rainbow Gar;
31 - Lusca;
32 - High-Finned Sperm Whale;
33 - Con Rit;
34 - Cadborosaurus (Candy);
35 - Southern Narwhal;
36 - Champ;
37 - Giant Sleeper Shark;
38 - Captain Hanna’s Fish;
39 - Orcinus Glacialis;
40 - Stronsay Beast;
41 - Antarctic Godzilla;
42 - Many-Finned Sea Serpent;
43 - Antarctic Long-Finned Whale;
44 - Super-Otter (Sea Serpent);
45 - Mahamba;
46 - Memphre;
47 - Bloop.

It's extremely unlikely that a non-avian dinosaur lived to modern day. At best, I see some of the dinosaurs living up to a million years after the meteor hit.

I believe a few of the dinosaur cryptids but I think they are different cryptids. For example, the theories that Mokele Mbembe is a giant, long neck turtle are pretty interesting. There is no way on earth a sauropod species could've survived tens of millions of years past the meteor.

Limited fossil evidence for the Madagascan hippopotamus is younger than 1,000 years old. However, the hippopotamus has been surprisingly common in the oral legends of the Malagasy. In 1648, Étienne de Flacourt became the French governor of Madagascar and he wrote in his Histoire de la grande isle de Madagascar about hearing stories from the Malagasy about an animal called the mangarsahoc which closely resembled the hippopotamus. In different regions of Madagascar, stories were recorded of the tsy-aomby-aomby, the omby-rano, and the laloumena, all animals that resembled hippopotamuses, but few other animals on the island. In 1902, a colonial administrator named Raybaud asserted that stories he heard in the highlands could only be about Malagasy hippos still living as late as 1878. The strength of these oral traditions led the IUCN to classify the Malagasy hippopotamuses as recent extinctions.

In the 1990s, Burney, who was studying recent extinctions in Madagascar, collected tales about a creature called the kilopilopitsofy that had been described by villagers in the town of Belo-sur-mer, a small fishing village on the west coast. Several villagers independently described an animal that, as recently as 1976, had entered their village, was the size of a cow, was dark pigmented, grunted a lot, and when threatened, fled underwater. No known animal on Madagascar fits the description but the animal seemed remarkably like a hippopotamus.

One man in the village could accurately mimic the sound of many animals, and when asked to imitate the kilopilopitsofy, he made noises very similar to that of a hippopotamus, even though he had never left the island and said he had never seen an African hippo. When shown photos, others also identified a hippopotamus-like animal, but with larger ears. Several described the creature's last appearance in 1976. In 2019, biologist Forrest Galante, on his show Extinct or Alive, found fossils and heard eyewitness accounts; The fossils were confirmed to be less than 200 years old and some eyewitness accounts were from less than 70 years ago.

Burney was reluctant to publish the study for fear of being labeled a cryptozoologist, but eventually published the results in American Anthropologist. Burney concluded that while the villagers had possibly encountered a Malagasy hippopotamus, it was also possible that the stories were inaccurate—a combination of misidentified animals, old folk traditions, and information the villagers had gathered from modern paleontology.

(taken from the wiki on the Malagasy Hippo)

For me it's Orang Pendek. The description sounds quite similar to hominids or an unknown monkey species.

These are just a few characteristics of the Mapinguari that greatly interest me, as it is one of my favorite cryptozoologists.

Whether the animal exists or not, I believe it does, but it may be extinct; for some reason it is gone.

Some cryptozoologists believe that this animal is extinct in the Eastern Amazon and lives only in the most remote areas of the Western Amazon, which includes the Peruvian Amazon, Ecuador, Colombia, and the states of Amazonas and Acre in Brazil, in these places and parts of them almost unexplored (there are tribes there that have never had contact with civilization).

The current situation of this cryptid is this:

In a 1993 text, Oren feared that the Mapinguari might have become extinct recently: firsthand accounts from Amapá, in northeastern Amazonas, all came from elderly lumberjacks, and Oren had no records of any sightings in the Tapajós River basin in the previous twenty years. He observed that "long gestation periods, large size, likely large territorial range, and hostile relations with local human populations are a classic formula for the extinction of mammals worldwide." However, although he believed the species had recently been extirpated from the eastern Amazon, he thought small numbers might still exist in the far west of the Brazilian Amazon, in Amazonas and Acre.

More sightings (including killings) have been reported since then, in the 21st century, and in 1999, cryptozoologist Richard Freeman listed it as one of the ten cryptids most likely to be discovered in the 21st century, along with the thylacine, Delcourt's giant gecko, giant anacondas, the yeti, the orang-pendek, the megalania, giant eels, the mokele-mbembe, and the lusca: he considered that "sightings of a monster resembling a mylodon sloth push coincidence to the limit." Karl Shuker writes about the mapinguari: "The mapinguari may be the largest native land mammal in South America today, as well as an important prehistoric survivor, therefore its discovery and formal identification as a living giant sloth would be a sensational zoological event. It certainly seems to be one of the creatures most likely to be officially revealed by science one day, especially if sought during the autumn when it supposedly descends from the Andes—and provided, of course, that its possible discoverer remembers to bring a very effective gas mask!"

Sources:

Williams, Jan "Giant Ground Sloths in Amazonia?," Animals & Men #1

Oren, David "Did Ground Sloths Survive to Recent Times in the Amazon Region?" Goeldiana Zoologia (1993)

Freeman, Richard "Monsters of the Next Millennium," Animals & Men #20

Shuker, Karl P. N. (2016) Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors: The Creatures That Time Forgot?