Mokèlé-mbèmbé

Mokele-mbembe

A sketch of Mokele-mbembe.
Grouping	Cryptid
Sub grouping	Lake monster
Region	Congo River basin
Habitat	Water

Mokèlé-mbèmbé (meaning "one who stops the flow of rivers" in the Lingala language) is a legendary water-dwelling creature of Congo River basin folklore, sometimes described as a living creature, sometimes as a spirit, and loosely analogous to the Loch Ness Monster in Western culture. It is claimed to be a sauropod by some cryptozoologists.

Expeditions mounted in the hope of finding evidence of the Mokèlé-mbèmbé have failed, and the subject has been covered in a number of books and by a number of television documentaries. According to skeptic Robert T. Carroll, "Reports of the Mokèlé-mbèmbé have been circulating for the past two hundred years, yet no one has photographed the creature or produced any physical evidence of its existence." The Mokèlé-mbèmbé and its associated folklore also appear in several works of fiction and popular culture.

According to the traditions of the Congo River basin the Mokèlé-mbèmbé is a large territorial herbivore. It is said to dwell in Lake Tele and the surrounding area, with a preference for deep water, and with local folklore holding that its haunts of choice are river bends.

Descriptions of the Mokèlé-mbèmbé vary. Some legends describe it as having an elephant-like body with a long neck and tail and a small head, a description which has been suggested to be similar in appearance to that of the extinct Sauropoda, while others describe it as more closely resembling elephants, rhinoceros, and other known animals. It is usually described as being gray-brown in color. Some traditions, such as those of Boha Village, describe it as a spirit rather than a flesh and blood creature.

The BBC/Discovery Channel documentary Congo (2001) interviewed a number of tribe members who identified a photograph of a rhinoceros as being a Mokèlé-mbèmbé. Neither species of African rhinoceros is common in the Congo Basin, and the Mokèlé-mbèmbé may be a mixture of mythology and folk memory from a time when rhinoceros were found in the area.