The Monster of Cameroon and Gabon

In Gabon, a group of African natives known as the Fang people tell of an animal called N’yamala, identifying it with a picture of Diplodocus. In 1913, Capt. Von Stein was sent by the German government to explore the Cameroon. Von Stein wrote of an animal sized between a hippopotamus and an elephant with a long and very flexible neck and a long muscular tail like that of an alligator. Von Stein was even shown a path said to have been made by this animal in order to get at its food.

On p. 257 of his 1927 book Trader Horn, Alfred Aloysius Smith wrote, “Aye, and behind the Cameroons there’s things living we know nothing about. I could ‘a’ made books about many things. The Jago-Nini they say is still in the swamps and rivers. Giant diver it means. Comes out of the water and devours people. Old men’ll tell you what their grandfathers saw, but they still believe it’s there. Same as the Amali I’ve always taken it to be. I’ve seen the Amali’s footprint. About the size of a good frying pan in circumference and three claws instead o’ five.” In 1948 a group visiting Lake Barombi Mbo in western Cameroon also had an encounter with some long-necked creatures. Note the illustration (above center) drawn by one of the witnesses, A.S. Arrey. It shows what appears to be a female and a male, who sports a horn or frill on his neck. The drawing to the top right, shown in Claws, Jaws, and Dinosaurs, illustrates the monstrous creature as a Scottish explorer reported seeing it in 1932, while canoeing on the Cross River in Cameroon. 

To the right is a photo (click to enlarge) of sauropod dinosaur that is modern in design. But it is identified as a west African artifact and is currently housed at Glencomeragh House in Waterford, Ireland. This was once the home of the Rosminian Fathers, a missionary order that worked for many years in Africa. Many of the Irish fathers brought back souvenirs of their time serving there. It is estimated that this piece was acquired in the 1950s (placing it before the modern Mokele-mbembe research was popularized). The carving clearly shows a sauropod with very large scales. The fan-like flap of skin depicted under the tail is a feature that has not been reported by eyewitnesses from Africa, nor is it known in paleontology. Is it an attempt to portray a cloaca? Another oddity with the carving is the small neck of the apparent juvenile. The piece is about six inches tall but is quite heavy. It seems to have been carved from a single piece of wood. Perhaps the original wooden block was too small for the artist to add a long neck on the baby sauropod.

In the fall of 2000 an expedition led by Genesis Park staff pioneered research in southeastern Cameroon by slogging through rainy season swamps, cutting a path through virgin rain forests, and interviewing pygmy forest peoples who had never before talked to an outside explorer. From village to village informants recognized this creature (top right) from a lineup of various animals. But the Baka pygmies in Cameroon often use the name Li-ke’la-bembe, rather than Mokele-mbembe. Li-ke’la-bembe means “lizard foot with slippery skin”. Eyewitnesses led them to places where it had been seen, in some cases quite recently. Its actions were described in fascinating detail, including the fact that it utilizes its tail as its primary weapon. This harmonizes with paleontologist’s theories that Diplodocids could even have used their tails like a bullwhip, achieving supersonic cracks to intimidate enemies! (Myhrvold, and Currie, “Supersonic Sauropods? Tail Dynamics in the Diplodocids,” Paleobiology, 1997, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 393-409.)

A follow up expedition, initiated by the BBC in 2001, popularized southern Cameroon as a potential cryptid location. Then a later trip, led by Canadians Brian Sass and Peter Beach, discovered an island in the Dja River which contained nesting caves like those identified by Mackal. The team took casts of footprints and photographs of the caves (right) and actually had a brief encounter with the elusive monster as it swam past their dugout canoe toward its lair. Such “burrow digging” activity on the part of dinosaurs was confirmed by fossils in 2008. A paleontologist from Montana State University stumbled upon a sandstone mass that was “S-shaped” and about 7 feet long. At the end of this feature were the bones of an adult dinosaur and two juveniles who apparently inhabited a burrow which filled with an influx of sand, trapping the inhabitants. This burrow, which is surrounded by rock derived from mud and clay, is strong evidence that digging and denning dinosaurs cared for their young. The scenario exactly matches the reports from eye witnesses in Cameroon. Evidence of burrowing dinosaurs has also come from South Korea and Australia.

Researchers who followed up on the initial Genesis Park trip typically focused on the rivers, using a gas-powered boat to get up the Boumba and the Dja River from the town of Moloundou in southern Cameroon. But the downside to this approach was the noise…frightening off wildlife as they went. A Genesis Park team went again in 2025, using different approach. We brought over an electric motor and rented a large inflatable raft. We started far upstream and floated down a large stretch of the Boumba River for nine days. We also explored tributaries along the way, especially the Lokomo and the Bek Rivers. A GoPro was mounted on the front of the boat and a solar panel helped keep the large battery charged. This quiet approach allowed us to see gorillas, monkeys, otters and other wildlife up close. Although the trip did not yield a historic dinosaur photo, we did interview dozens of indigenous pygmy people and we found an intriguing footprint on a large sandbar. It seems that the pygmies have had fewer sightings in recent years. Perhaps the logging that is taking place in that area has frightened them off, driving them deeper into the Boumba Bek National Park. Our team placed multiple motion-sensitive solar-powered game cameras at strategic points along the way. For more information about these trips, see the Genesis Park Expeditions page.