Kongamato (literally breaking boats ) is an aggressive flying or water floating monster from African legends. It is also sometimes considered a pterosaur that has survived to the present. Enthusiasts of cryptozoology believe that it lives in the Mvinilunga region in the Jindou swamp region of western Zambia , Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo .
There is no actual confirmation of the existence of congamato; various people, both local residents and European guests, testify to it only It is assumed that large birds (for example, the sad- billed yabiru , the great stork, the hornbill) or the large bats, when it is described as flying, or freshwater stingrays, when it is described as floating, are mistakenly taken as a monster.
Congo Stories
Frank Malland, in his 1923 book, In Witchbound Africa, describes a congamatato as an animal living along some rivers, very dangerous, often attacking small boats and anyone who bothers it. It is usually described as having a red or black color, with a wingspan of 4 to 7 meters. Representatives of the local kaonde people identified him as pterodactyl- like after seeing the picture from the book shown to Melland.
In 1932, the American zoologist and seeker of " inappropriate artifacts " Ivan T. Sanderson was, in his words, attacked from the air by a flying toothed monster in the Asunbo valley. To escape from him, he jumped into the river. After that, he immediately shot a monster from a revolver, but he remained alive and flew away. Sanderson described the creature as like a huge eagle with a long sharp beak and teeth on it, with a wingspan of 3.5 meters.
In 1956, engineer Brown allegedly saw a creature in Fort Rosebury near Lake Bangweulu in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia ). It was about 6:00 pm, when he saw two creatures flying slowly and quietly right above his head. He noted that they looked "prehistoric." He estimated their wingspan from about 3 ½ to 3 feet (1 meter) and the distance from the beak to the tail, about 4 ½ feet long (1.5 meters). The creatures, he said, had long, thin tails and narrow heads, which he compared with the elongated snout of a dog.
It is also said that in 1957, a patient with a severe chest wound came to the hospital in Fort Rosebury, claiming that a creature that looked like a big bird attacked him in the swamps of Bangweulu. In response to a request to draw a creature, he depicted something resembling a pterosaur.
It is curious that the area concerned is positioned as a great place for bird watching , but no large flying animals seem to have been noticed here during any visits to bird watchers. .
Similar legends are also found in Angola, Zimbabwe , the Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia , Tanzania and Kenya .
See also
- Mokele-mbembe