The tokandia was a cryptid reported from Madagascar, described as a "huge jumping quadruped, which climbs into the trees, where it lives". Its face is not like that of a man (but is otherwise undescribed), though its cry is.[1] According to a Malagasy saying, "the tsomgoby goes straight ahead but the tokandia moves in jumps".[2][3]
Bernard Heuvelmans first suggested that the tokandia represented a a late-surviving example of the giant lemur Megaladapis edwardsi, noting that it surely "is not pure chance that this barely credible legend of a large arboreal quadruped should be found in the only country where such an animal - the Megaladapis - has ever lived".[2]
Although Megaladapis, the most famous of the giant lemurs, is frequently suggested as an identity for other cryptids such as the tratratratra or kidoky, its long snout rules it out as a valid identity for such flat-faced animals. The tokandia presents no such problem, as its face is specifically said to be unlike that of a man. There are no recorded sightings of the tokandia dating from modern times, and Karl Shuker notes that "even in the least-accessible surviving forests of Madagascar, a koala-shaped lemur the size of a bear would surely be somewhat difficult to overlook".[4][5]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Eberhart, George M. (2002) Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, ABC-CLIO, Inc., ISBN 1576072835
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Heuvelmans, Bernard (1955) On the Track of Unknown Animals, Routledge, ISBN 978-1138977525
- ↑ Decary, Raymond (1950) La Faune Malgache, Son Role dans les Croyances et les Usages Indigenes
- ↑ Shuker, Karl P. N. (2013) Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History, Anomalist Books, ISBN 978-1-938398-05-6
- ↑ Shuker, Karl P.N. ShukerNature: MADAGASCAR'S ELUSIVE MEGA-LEMURS AND MINI-MEN karlshuker.blogspot.com [Accessed 29 April 2020]