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The njago gunda (Nkami: "hairy elephant") was a cryptid proboscidean reported from Gabon, in the vicinity of the brackish Fernan Vaz Lagoon or Lake Nkomi, and the Ogooué River, from which the neodinosaurian n'yamala is also reported. The njago gunda, however, was described as a giant proboscidean, allegedly standing twice as high as an ordinary elephant.[1][2]
Attestations[]
The existence of the njago gunda was reported by the primatologist Richard Lynch Garner (1848 – 1920), who wrote an article on it for the New York World in 1909.[1] Garner lived by the Fernan Vaz Lagoon at this time. According to Garner, many of the local Nkami people claimed to have seen the animal in the creeks and swamps, and to have been attacked by it. It was said to have lurked around the mouth of a river for some months, attacking any canoes which came near, and supposedly killing more than twenty people.[1]
Description[]
The njago gunda was described by Garner as being more than twice the size of a bull forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), which have an average shoulder height of 8–10 ft (2–3 m), and darker in colour. Its trunk is short, only slightly more than half the length of its head, as are its ears, and there are nostril-like, oval holes on either side of its head, close to the base of its trunk. Its most prominent features, and the source of its name, are the ridges of bristly hair all over its body–an enormous, 1 ft (30 cm) fan-shaped tuft above each eye and "nostril," as well as rows along the edges of the ears, the sagittal crest, and the spine.[1]
The njago gunda is said to be swifter and more active than an ordinary elephant, as well as extremely aggressive. When it charges, it allegedly stiffens the bristles on its head and body, capsizes the canoe with a spray of water from its trunk, then attacks with its proboscis. It was said to be extremely rare, and the Nkami thought that only four or five individuals had ever been seen, one of which was a female. The njago gunda was only ever seen during the monsoons, usually during rainy weather.[1]
Sightings[]
A convoy of four canoes coming down the Rembo Nkami was allegedly attacked by an njago gunda not long before Garner's time, losing nine out of fourteen people. Garner believed that the accounts of each of the five survivors agreed well enough for the story to be taken seriously. The Nkami also told Garner that an njago gunda had been found dead in a deep morass near the river's mouth some years previously.[1]