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My report is on Mokele-Mbembe (or 'He Who Stops the Flow of Rivers'), who is reportedly a dinosaur still living in Africa!

Title - Mokele-Mbembe
Researched - Mr. Giraldi
Date - Thursday, May 26th, 2022

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The Mokele-Mbembe (or 'He Who Stops the Flow of Rivers') is a 'Monster of Mystery' supposedly living in Africa. He's very large, walks on four legs, and is able to be both in and out of the water. Many people believe that he could be a long-lived dinosaur that has survived up until modern times! His large, powerful jaws are actually for eating plants, but he can and will kill animal that threaten with his crushing stomps and heavy, swinging tail. His habitat is deep in the African jungle, far away from inquisitive eyes and hidden in dark, overgrowth swamps. Personally I think that the Mokele-Mbembe can actually exist, as we have other dinosaurs on Earth (like alligators) that have survived up until modern times, and the jungles of Africa are so difficult to accurately search! Hopefully we're able to find and videotape this amazing creature if he/she does actually exist.

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All the above information comes from the online e-book 'Monsters of Mystery' by Sue Hamilton, especially focused on pages 24-27. The publisher is Abdo Digital.

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Fact Category - Location/Speculation On How It's Remained Hidden (2 Facts)

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Fact Category - Location/Speculation On How It's Remained Hidden (2 Facts)

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Rumoured to be from deep in the swamps of Congo, Cameroon, and Gabon come tales of Mokele-mbembe, this monstrous creature is in a very difficult area to explore. These areas are often hard to travel through, which makes scientists being able to confirm that he/she exists very difficult! Modern expeditions have centered their searches in the Likouala and Lake Tele regions of the Congo. Nearly unchanged since the Cretaceous Period, this 50,000-square-mile (129,000sq-km) area is a perfect hiding place. It is filled with thick forests and wetlands. Few people and even fewer roads are found there. Scientists agree that an undiscovered large animal could possibly exist there.

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Fact Category - Science Records (4 Facts)

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Fact Category - Science Records (4 Facts)

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First we'll look over documented reportings of events that indicate the presence of something large and unknown in the Congo basin. The first record of the creature came from Abbé Lievain Bonaventure Proyart, a French priest who wrote about the Congo Basin of Africa in 1776. Proyart described finding monstrous footprints about 3 feet (.9 m) across and 7 feet (2.1 m) apart from each other.  In 1909, naturalist Carl Hagenbeck was told of a “huge monster, half elephant, half dragon” living in the Congo’s swamps. Hagenbeck organized a search for the creature, but the expedition was defeated by native attacks and disease. A few years after (in 1913), Captain Freiherr von Stein was sent by the German government to explore the Congo. Although he did not see the creature himself, he was shown a path at the Ssombo River that was reportedly created by the monster as it came up from the water to eat nearby plants. Lastly, in 1980 and 1981, biologist Dr. Roy P. Mackal and researcher Richard Greenwell journeyed to the Congolese jungles in search of Mokele-mbembe. While traveling by canoe, their group rounded a curve in the river, heard a splash, and saw the waves of what had to have been a large creature disappearing under the water. Their native guides were frightened and convinced that they had just missed Mokele-mbembe. Unfortunately, none of the group actually saw what caused the disturbance in the water.

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This creature, while never officially photographed/documented, has a host of rumours and evidence suggesting that it (or something equally large and unknown) may still exist deep in the Congo basin! Hopefully one day a modern expedition will be able to carefully check the waterways of this difficult place and see if any large beast matching a similar description are there. There have been creatures (like the coelcanth fish) presumed extinct from eras ago that have been 'rediscovered' in modern times; could this be an example of the same?

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Fact Category - Description and Habitat (2 Facts)

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Fact Category - Description and Habitat (2 Facts)

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Described by local people as having a long, flexible neck, an alligator-like tail, and a body somewhere between the size of a hippopotamus and an elephant, this creature reportedly reaches a length of 16 to 32 feet (5 to 10 m). Mokele-mbembe lives mostly underwater, surfacing only to eat plants or to move to another location. A strict herbivore, it prefers the malombo plant as its main food source.