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The gassingrâm was a tigre de montagne reported from the Central African Republic, specifically Ouanda Djallé in the Vakaga Prefecture. Lucien Blancou transmitted information on this cryptid, collected in Ouanda Djallé in 1937, to Bernard Heuvelmans.[1][2] In that year, the chief of a Yulu village in Ouanda Djallé told Blancou that a gassingrâm had been seen in the district, only rarely during the daytime, carrying its prey to caves in the Massif des Bongos. The chief described it as being larger than a lion and brown all over, with eyes that shone like lamps.[1]
Linguist Pierre Alexandre (1922 – 1944) argued that the term gassingrâm was not the animal's name but a misinterpreted sentence, as the word does not conform to Yulu language structure. Blancou, however, insisted that gassingrâm was the animal's name, and suggested the word had been borrowed from some Nilotic language. Two other tigres de montagne, the vassoko and coq-djingé, are also reported from the Vakaga Prefecture. Heuvelmans speculated that these cryptids were machairodontine sabre-toothed cats (~20 MYA–9 KYA) which had been forced into the mountains through competition with big cats.[2]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Heuvelmans, Bernard (1955) On the Track of Unknown Animals, Routledge, ISBN 978-1138977525
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Heuvelmans, Bernard & Rivera, Jean-Luc & Barloy, Jean-Jacques (2007) Les Félins Encore Inconnus d’Afrique, Les Editions de l'Oeil du Sphinx, ISBN 978-2914405430