Wobo

The wobo or mendelit (in Tigray; also spelt mantillit) is a cryptid felid reported from Ethiopia, described as being larger than a lion, with yellowish-brown or brownish-grey fur and black stripes. It is said to live in rocky mountains. The wobo is equated with the abu sotan of Sudan by authors including Karl Shuker and George Eberhart, as well as Theodor von Heuglin, who first reported both animals. Heuglin wrote that:

“

Is the Wobo a variety of leopard, a bastard [hybrid] of lion and leopard, or a particular species not yet well known? I could not decide in a formal way. The animal is depicted as the wildest, boldest, and most powerful predator, and in some reports is yellowish in color and has dark longitudinal stripes. It seems to exist throughout Abyssinia, but none of the Europeans who live there has been able to give us a more precise description, and the information that the natives themselves have reported does not agree at all between them.

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Heuglin later described it as being larger than either a leopard or a lion, and wrote that its stripes are greyish black, and that it is found only in the hottest lowland areas, where it is rarely killed. According to Heuglin, the skin of a wobo was preserved in the main church of Ifag, where it was seen by many people including the Emperor Theodore (Tewodros).

In popular culture

• The wobo is mentioned in Henryk Sienkiewicz's Sudanese adventure novel In Desert and Wilderness (1912).