The Nubian bear was a cryptid bear reported from what is now Sudan.[1] Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid is said to have sent a "Nubian bear" to Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne in 801, alongside a lion, an elephant, and some monkeys.[2] At the end of the 17th Century, Jacques-Charles Poncet recorded that one of his mules was injured in Nubia by a "bear". The later explorer James Bruce felt that the attacker was a hyena,[3] and that Poncet had confused the Arabic dubbah (hyena) with dubb (bear).[4]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Heuvelmans, Bernard & Barloy, Jean-Jacques (2015) Les Ours Insolites d'Afrique, Les Éditions de l'Œil du Sphinx, ISBN 9791091506298
- ↑ Dygo, Marian "Capitulare de Villis and the Bible: On the Economic Programme of Charlemagne," Acta Poloniae Historica #80 (1999)
- ↑ Bruce, James (1790) Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile: in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773
- ↑ Cuvier, Georges (1825) Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles de quadrupèdes