Biochemist pursues mysterious beasts from Loch Ness to Congo PROBE Doe i od TE as rss tt Sin Be P care ee yet set a aa a mt erg hae ‘ms eo oie esa ae rogyce fa i, hin i Loe er Stemi eet eon ae erase esmorem: Bees tn are Oe ‘Soy toes ere et meat sen ovr ith en cy sec pt sun preg ea a g's = geen pt nee ead 7. Growald sar a Frm, eS Sot tet er ‘pe dite ck ‘Gis in ote ere Aes he ae ea rae Nee eee Sey rte eet an ange Ramer ort ad Soa. ‘arene Sea pt se ‘ff oto ee 2 tetanic (elma panne out tng ure An te par SSeS eer Ree nate prompy st lal nt eh ow “in sino ty lente ema ste a ‘Sean ne me Sep ‘ge eeu a a rome Sip by bo ead gem ‘ya Ln SE vou et as aaa iret Bete eae pate sing tn 3 Sp wee oe gos ras tals pa SoMa oe Doers Sees Bas ees pd akan srr aisePRESS HERALD, Portland, ME March 10, 1987 Photographer seeks jungle dinosaur MFLBOURNE, Fla, (AP) — What has a body like an elephant'’s, three toes on each foot, aneck like a giraffe's and a tiny head? The “Mokele-Mbembe,” what some say is a 40-foot dinosaur that stalks the jungle in the Peoples Republic of Congo. The scientific community says tales of its exis- tence are baloney. But Jim Culberson, 36, a rapher who has battled poisonous snakes, government bureaucracy and skeptics in his unsuccessful ante says he's planning a return ip. Last month, Culberson spent three weeks on a $20,000 expedi- tion to the 60,000-square-mile Likouala Swamp. The legend of a dinosaur — in the African jun; has inspired books and movies, including the recent film “Baby.” “The scientific community thinks we're nuts,” said Culberson, who has planned a return trip for 1988. Culberson, a 1975 graduate in marine biology from Florida Insti- tute of Technol , Said “Sooner or later they will be found, and someone — maybe not myself — is going to eventually get pictures of this thing.”Mokele-Mbembe Unknown Dinosatmlike animal of Central Africa, Exymolog Lingala (Bantu), “water monste:” or “one who stops the flow of rivers.” Variant names: Amt, Barat, Imam, Isiquaym anevu, JAGO-Nint, Le’kela-bembe (Baka/Ubangi), Mbokilemuembe (in Cam- croon), Mbulu-em’bembe or M'kuoo-m'bem- boo (Denya/Bantu), M(o)Kén’sé, Nwe (Ewondo/Bantu), N’YANCAtA. Physical description: Size of 2n elephant or larger. Length, up to 35 feet. Shoulder height, 5-7 feet. Smooth, reddish-brown or brownish- gray skin, The male has a single long horn ot tusk. Serpentine head. Flexible neck, 6-12 feet long and as chick as a man’s thigh. Feet are like an clephant’s. Long, muscular tail. Behavior: Amphibious. Moves singly or in pairs. Active early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Said co live in the forest but feed in the lake. Makes a deep-throated, trumpeting, growl, Vegetarian diet. Prefers the applelike fruit of lianas (Lendolphia mannii and L. ‘owariensi) with white blossoms, known locally as Malombo. Digs caves in the riverbank. Ag- gressively defends its territory. Kills hippopoca- muses, elephants, and crocodiles. Said to over- turn canoes and destroy the occupants by lashing its tail. Its flesh is said to be poisonous. Tracks: Hippopotamus-like but bigger than an elephant’, or 12 inches in diamecer. Three clawed toes. Also makes a furrow like that made by a large snake or a wagon wheel. Habitat: Caves in river banks. Distribution: Bai River, Likouala aux Herbes River, Likouala Swamp, Lake Makele, Sangha River, Lake Tebeki, Lake Tél, and Lower ‘Ubangi River, Republic of the Congo: Ikelemba River, Democratic Republic of the Congo: Boumbe, Cross, Loponji, Mbamé, Ngoko, ‘Neem, and Sanagz Rivers, Cameroon. Significant sightings: In the mid-eighteenth century, French missionaries in the arca ofGabon or the western Republic of the Congo reported finding clawed tracks about 3 feet in circumference and 7-8 feet apart. Capt. Freiherr von Stein zu Lausnitz collected information on the Mokele-mbembe in the Re- public of the Congo for the German govern- ment during the Likuala-Kongo Expedition of 1913. Natives told him it had smooth skin, was the size of an elephant, had a long and flexible neck, and had a long tusk or horn. He was shown a path made by the animal to get at its preferred food, a white liana blossom. Ivan T. Sanderson and Gerald Russell heard a loud roar and saw a huge animal swim out from a submerged cave in Mamfe Pool on the Cross River, Cameroon, in 1932 or 1933. All they could see was a dark head larger than a hippo’s, which created a wave when it submerged. Sev- eral months earlier, they had come across large, hippolike tracks near the river.About 1935, Firman Mosomele saw a Mokele-mbembe in the Likouala aux Herbes River near Epéna, Republic of the Congo. It had a reddish-brown, snakelike head, and its neck was 6-8 feet long. Around 1959, a Mokele-mbembe was killed by Pygmies at Lake Télé, Republic of the Congo, by putting up a barrier in a waterway thar the animal used to enter the lake; the cor- nered animal was then speared to death. They cut it up and ate the mear, but everyone is said to have died shortly afterward. In the 1960s, Nicolas Mondongo was hunt- ing for monkeys along the Likouala aux Herbes River between Bandéko and Mokengui when a huge animal reared out of the water about 40 feet away. Its head and neck together were 6 feet in length, and it had four sturdy legs and a long tail. Mondongo watched it for three minutes be- fore it submerged.In February 1980, Roy Mackal and James Powell went oma reconnaissance expedition that reached Epéna on the Likouala aux Herbes River, Republic of the Congo, and they col- lected firsthand reports of the Mokele-mbembe. The Herman Regusters Expedition t0 Lake Télé, Republic of the Congo, from October 9 to December 9, 1981, made several observations of disturbances in the water caused by a large ani- mal. A long neck was seen for five minutes dur- ing one encounter and for a few seconds on an- other occasion. On November 4, Regusters heard and recorded an animal making a loud growl. Roy Mackal, Richard Greenwell, and Justin Wilkinson conducted an expedition to the Lik- ouala Region, Republic of the Congo, from Oc- tober 27 to December 3, 1981. They encoun- tered an odd wake made by a large animal in the Likouala River between Itanga and Mahounda and examined the trail made by an unknown animal upstream from Djeké months earlier and discovered by Emmanuel Moungoumela, ‘A Congolese expedition led by zoologist Mar- cellin Agnagna surveyed the Likouala Swamp and Lake Télé area from April 3 to May 17, 1983. For twenty minutes on May 1, Agnagna and others saw 2 15-foot animal with a wide back and long neck swimming in the lake; though the animal was observed through the telephoto lens of a movie camera, the film was on an incorrect setting and proved worthless, The expedition also found recent footprints near Djeké.The British Operation Congo, led by Wil- liam Gibbons from January to June 1986, re- turned from Lake Télé with little evidence, though it confirmed the existence of turtles, pythons, and crocodiles in the lake. A Japanese film crew led by Tatsuo Watanabe shot a controversial video in September 1992 showing fifteen seconds of what they thought was a Mokele-mbembe crossing Lake Télé. A village security officer at Moloundou, Cameroon, saw a Le’kela-bembe in the Boumba River in February 2000. The animal stopped swimming downstream when it saw a ferry and moved away upstream. (1) Sauropod dinosaurs, herbivorousquadrupeds that ranged in total body length from 20 to 145 feet, had small heads, long necks, long tails, and massive limbs. They had five toes on all four limbs, with at mast a single clawed toe on each forefoot and perhaps three on the hind feet. There were two types of sauropods, distinguished primarily from characteristics of the teeth: large animals with thick, spoon-shaped teeth, such as Brachiosaurus, and smaller animals with longer snouts and thin, peg- shaped teeth, such as Diplodocus. The earliest sauropod fossil is Vudeanodon, a 33- foot animal from Zimbabwe and dating from the Early Jurassic, 200 million years ago; other early species have been found in Germany and China. Sub-Saharan African sauropods include Barosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and Dicraeosaurus from Tanzania and Janenschia and Malawisaurus from Malawi. Presumably, the last sauropods died off at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago.(2) Ouranosaurus, a 24-foot, bipedal iguanodontid dinosaur, was excavated in the Sahara Desert in Niger in 1966. Its distinctive dorsal spines are 2 feet high and may have supported a sail-like membrane. This explanation was proposed by Herman Regusters, who misidentified the fossil as a sauropod and alleged that one vertebra was radiocarbon-dated as only a few thousand years old. In fact, the remains date from the early Cretaceous, some 110 million years ago.(3) An unknown species of giant Monitor (Varanidae) or Iguana (Iguanidae) lizard. Both groups include semiaquatic species, and some iguanas are herbivorous. (4) Large African softshell turtle (Trionyx triunguis), called NDENDEKI by locals living in the Lake Télé area and said to grow up to 15 feet in diameter. Marcellin Agnagna’s 1983 sighting may have involved this turtle. (5) An African elephant (Loxodonta africana) swimming with its trunk raised. (6) The Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus), which can grow to over 20 feet long. (7) During the rainy season,Hippopotamuses (Hippopotamus amphibius) are said to hibernate in caves along the riverbanks. If disturbed, one of them might surprise and confuse the unwary traveler. This might explain Ivan Sanderson’s sighting in Mamfe Pool, Cameroon. (8) The West African manatee (Trichechus senegalensis) grows to about 12 feet in length and might be mistaken for a larger animal if encountered suddenly. It may be found in certain rivers of the Republic of the Congo.