Lake monsters and wetland-dwelling cryptids have been reported from Lake Chad, an African Great Lake in Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon, as well as from other lakes and marshes in Chad, including the Lakes of Ounianga and the Dagana Marshes.[1]
Attestations[]
In 1911, Professor Édouard Louis Trouessart (1842 – 1927) reported stories of a large, marsh-dwelling animal inhabiting the Great Lakes of Central Africa, in particular in Chad. According to Trouessart, certain explorers claimed to have glimpsed such animals from afar.[2][1] He may have been referring to the Rothschild tusk animals, such as the Lake Tanganyika monsters.
Similar lake monsters have been reported from Chad's Lakes of Ounianga, specifically the largest, Lake Yoan, near Tibesti and Ennedi. In 1960, travel writer Nigel Heseltine (1916 – 1995) reported that, while in Chad, his sergeant had heard stories of an amphibious beast existing in these lakes, described as a sheep-sized animal which crawls onto the land at night, dragging its hind limbs like a seal.[3][1]
Sightings[]
~1900—1901[]
Pharmacist P. Morel told Bernard Heuvelmans that his father, colonial army doctor Auguste Morel, had encountered a bulky marsh animal in Chad's flooded Dagana Marshes, probably in 1900 or 1901. While hunting ducks in a canoe manned by local fishermen...
| “ | [...] a major eddy shook the canoe dangerously, and a bulky thing passed a few yards behind at a very high speed. The paddlers bustled about. The thing passed in the opposite direction, almost completely submerged and still just as fast.
|
” |
Morel believed the animal was a hippopotamus galloping on the bottom of the marsh, but when he discovered the animal's trail, he recognised it as something new. A large area of reeds had been crushed, and the mud on the shore looked as if a very large canoe had been dragged into the water. Morel's local boatmen had not recognised the animal.[1]
Theories[]
The West African manatee (Trichechus senegalensis), which is found in stretches of the Chari River, has long been suspected to exist in Lake Chad, but its presence there has never been proven. The presence of manatees in the isolated Lakes of Ounianga is considered less likely. However, the Chari River is thought to have once passed Lake Chad, flowing to the Tibesti and Ennedi Plateaus and connecting to these lakes. Therefore, the manatees present in the Chari River could have moved into the Lakes of Ounianga in ancient times. Alternatively, as the Chari River once flowed as far as Libya, Heuvelmans suggests that the Chadian animals, like the auli, could be descended from North African Eocene sirenians such as Eotheroides or Eosiren. In support of this possibility is the fact that, unlike other manatees, West African manatees are thought to be incapable of moving on land.[1]
Trouessart theorised that the marsh monster he had described was a surviving species of the proboscidean Deinotherium (~16–1 MYA).[1] The youngest known species of Deinotherium, D. bozasi, was discovered in Africa, where it persisted until the Early Pleistocene in Ethiopia and Kenya. D. bozasi is believed to have gone extinct around 1 million years ago, when the last forests in its range were replaced by dry, open habitat.[4] Trouessart's theory provoked zoologist Émile Gromier and M. Le Petit to lead an expedition to Lake Chad in search of Deinotherium.[1] This expedition, the Mission Gromier-Le Petit, collected specimens in Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but found no evidence of Deinotherium. However, this proboscidean has been suggested as an identity for other African cryptids,[5] including some water lions and the Rothschild tusk animal.[6]
Lakes map[]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Heuvelmans, Bernard (1978) Les Derniers Dragons d'Afrique, Plon, ISBN 978-2259003872
- ↑ Trouessart, Emile "Existe-t-il dans les Marais du Lac Tchad un Grand Mammifere Encore Inconnu des Naturalistes?," Nature (21 January 1911)
- ↑ Heseltine, Nigel (1960) From Libyan Sands to Chad
- ↑ Werdelin, Lars & Sanders, William Joseph (2010) Cenozoic Mammals of Africa
- ↑ Heuvelmans, Bernard "Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals With Which Cryptozoology Is Concerned", Cryptozoology, No. 5 (1986)
- ↑ Eberhart, George M. (2002) Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, ABC-CLIO, Inc., ISBN 1576072835