Tag: kongamato

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An Old Cryptozoology Book

I’m sure I’ve read this book at least once, in my youth long ago. On the Track of Unknown Animals, by Bernard Heuvelmans, is now considered a classic in cryptozoology, originally in French but often encountered in its 1958 or 1959 English edition with its 120 sketches, a well-crafted assortment of strange creatures and a few monsters. Yesterday I found a library copy and took notes on sightings of apparent pterosaurs. This classic now deserves quoting, again.

classic book of cryptozoology

Chapter twenty-one, “Kongamato, the Last Flying Dragon,” begins by quoting Charles Kingsley (The Water-Babies): “People call them pterodactyls; but that is only because they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons could exist.” On page 485 the author digs into the meat of a live pterosaur in Africa.

In 1923 Frank H. Melland published an account of his travels entitled In Witchbound Africa . . . [It included] rather vague rumours about a much-feared animal called “kongamato,” said to live in the Jiundu swamps in the north-west corner of No. Rhodesia near the frontier of the Bengian Congo and Angola. . . . The natives told him that it was a bird, but not exactly a bird, more like a lizard with wings of skin like a bat’s . . . the beast’s wingspan was between four and seven feet . . . it had no feathers at all . . . [with skin] bare and smooth, and its beak was full of teeth. . . . he showed the natives pictures . . . They immediately [pointed out] the Pterodactyl, excitedly muttering “kongamato!”

Amazon gives two prices for this out-of-print cryptozoology book, On the Track of Unknown Animals: $135.00 and $339.66, revealing its collectible status.

Kongamato or Pterodactyl of Africa

The kongamato is sometimes compared with the ropen of Papua New Guinea or the long-tailed pterosaur seen in Eastern Cuba in the mid-20th century. This kind of cryptid has been reported in many parts of the world, including North America, Australia, Europe, and Africa.

Kongamato Crossing the Atlantic?

One species of crane flies over the Himalayan Mountains regularly, sometimes at an altitude of 30,000 feet. Large nocturnal pterosaurs, under the right wind conditions, could cross the Atlantic, from Africa. As more sighting reports come in from Africa and North America, we need to look at the possibility that some of the flying creatures on different sides of the Atlantic may be closely related or even the same species.

Books About Live Pterosaurs in North America

It seems we now have three nonfiction books about extant pterosaurs in North America . . . These paperback books are Big Bird (by Ken Gerhard), Live Pterosaurs in America (by Jonathan Whitcomb, third edition), and Bird From Hell (by Gerald McIsaac, second edition).

Books on extant pterosaurs are not so rare as they were when On the Track of Unknown Animals was first published.

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Third edition of "Live Pterosaurs in America"

Get the details lacking on the online blog posts and web pages. Buy Live Pterosaurs in America, third edition, by the nonfiction author who interviews eyewitnesses from around the world, the live-pterosaur expert Jonathan David Whitcomb. Get the facts, eyewitness accounts from many U.S. states: California, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, Kansas, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, New York, and other states.

From a review of the second edition of this cryptozoology book, on Amazon, by “stevie” (the third edition is slightly expanded, even better than the second edition):

“This is an updated review of the book and I am changing my rating to 5 stars. This book has been on my shelf for almost a year now. I pick it up every now and then and a part of me becomes more impressed by the book every time. . . .

“Whitcomb painstakingly reviews every account for credibility and reason. This man is not a crank. He tries to weed out would be hoaxes and miss-identification. This is not a guy looking to create evidence to confirm his own beliefs. On top of this, I have great respect for a guy who follows his dreams so passionately. He has traveled to Papua New Guinea to search for the creature there and this book is somewhat of a sequel . . .

“I do believe the author tried hard to deliver these stories and was very good at it. This is well written and very hard to put down.”

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Kongamato Crossing the Atlantic?

Pterosaur seen by Eskin Kuhn in Cuba in 1971

With the right winds, butterflies can sometimes get across the Atlantic Ocean, at least from North America to Ireland. So could a kongamato get across the Atlantic from Africa? I like to think of it from another perspective: Could a species of large pterosaur be prevented from crossing the Atlantic if countless of the flying creatures flew off the west coast of Africa for countless centuries? What could prevent their eventual migration?

One species of crane flies over the Himalayan Mountains regularly, sometimes at an altitude of 30,000 feet. Large nocturnal pterosaurs, under the right wind conditions, could cross the Atlantic, from Africa. As more sighting reports come in from Africa and North America, we need to look at the possibility that some of the flying creatures on different sides of the Atlantic may be closely related or even the same species.

Pterosaurs in Cuba

. . . I had been in Cuba for perhaps four months and the SeaBees were engaged in constructing new barracks for us . . . It was a beautiful, clear summer day . . . I was looking in the direction of the ocean . . . I am an artist with sharp eye for detail and was determined to drink in the visage before me for future recording on paper. I saw two pterosaurs flying together at low altitude, perhaps 100 feet, very close in range from where I was standing, so that I had a perfectly clear view . . . The vertebrae of their backs was noticeable, mostly between the shoulders. I would estimate their wingspan to be roughly ten feet.

Pterosaur Extinction Indoctrination

Standard Western paleontology is based upon assumptions about extinction. When a dinosaur fossil or a pterosaur fossil is discovered in a stratum, that layer of rock may be subject to reevaluation: given a different date based upon the popular ideas about when that species lived and when it became extinct.

But what if a species of pterosaur never became extinct? What would that do to paleontology, in particular with dating a stratum by the existence of a fossil of that species being found in that stratum?

Gitmo Pterosaur

The sketch shown above was drawn by the U. S. Marine Eskin Kuhn, who witnessed two of the long-tailed featherless flying creatures (obvious pterosaurs) flying at “close range” at the Guantanamo Bay military installation in Cuba, in 1971.

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Kongamato and Ropen Compared

Let’s begin by being precise. I do not insinuate that in Africa all sightings with the label “kongamato” are of the same species of pterosaur or even any kind of pterosaur; the same applies to the label “ropen.” But specific sighting reports have similar details, namely this: a large or giant size, a long tail with a Rhamphorhynchoid-like structure at the end, and a lack of feathers. Sightings involving those details—those I believe to have come from sightings of living pterosaurs.

Before we begin, however, we need to clear up a misunderstanding about an implied association with “science-fiction movies and old cartoons such as The Flintstones.” Dale Drinnon has mentioned this, in commenting on another post, as if it damages the credibility of sightings, notwithstanding he did not mention any particular sighting. But he does not seem to appreciate or realize that specific sightings are by eyewitnesses who have probably never seen any science fiction movie or Flintstones cartoons in their entire lives: The boy who saw the flying creature in Sudan, Africa, for example. And what about all the native eyewitnesses that were interviewed in the two expeditions on Umboi Island, in 2004 (I led the first expedition)? I asked Gideon Koro if he had ever seen a picture of a ropen in any book at his school; he thought about it for a second or two and then replied, “No.” Yet his description of the ropen flying over Lake Pung in daylight corresponds to details in the sighting reports by Westerners such as Duane Hodgkinson and Brian Hennessy.

Let’s examine details in Gideon Koro’s sighting report. I interviewed him in person, on Umboi Island, in 2004. He and his six friends had hiked up to the crater lake, arriving there in the middle of the day. The creature flew over the lake, just meters over the surface, with no reasonable possibility that the boys could have seen a common bird or bat and misidentified it.

  1. No feathers—Gideon was positive about that
  2. Tail seven meters long—He thought about it for a few seconds before giving me his estimate
  3. Mouth “like a crocodile”

Now let’s examine details in the Sudan, Africa, sighting report. By email, this man reported to me his 1988 encounter, which I now summarize (adapted from a post on the blog Live Pterodactyl):

While walking from one mud-brick hut to another, one night, the boy noticed something on the roof of a nearby hut. Lit up by the patio light, perched on the edge of the roof, the creature appeared to be four-to-five feet tall, olive brown, and leathery (no feathers). A “long bone looking thing” stuck out the back of its head; its long tail somehow reminded the boy of a tail of a lion (I suspect there was hair at the end of the tail).

The boy froze as the creature stretched its wings and hopped toward another roof, passing a few feet over the boy’s head. He dropped the metal tray of dishes that he had been carrying and the creature flew away. The eyewitness was sure about the head crest and the long tail.

Science Fiction Movies and the Flintstones are Irrelevant

Eyewitnesses who have never seen a movie or television are not influenced by science fiction movies and TV cartoons, but there is more. Those Americans and Australians who have seen movies and cartoons are not necessarily influenced in any way that would cause them to report sighting details that were distorted by those media experiences. How many media experiences do Westerners have that involve people being shot by guns! Yet we do not dismiss eyewitnesses from testifying in court, in a shooting case, just because they had seen gun fights in movies and on television.

Another problem shoots down this science-fiction-movies-and-Flintstones insinuation. Why are no details given? Why not mention details about portrayals of pterosaurs in media? Why not mention details in particular eyewitness reports? Why try to shoot down a large long-tailed pterosaur by blowing smoke at the poor flying creature?

Kongamato Pterodactyl

Namibia, Africa, Pterosaur (sighting in the Spring of 2011)

“The wings span was about double the distance of beak-tip to end-of-tail. I cannot remember details of the tail, but thought that two legs and a strange looking longer tail or appendix were visible, parallel to one another . . .  he estimated the flying creature had a wingspan about half of that of the airplanes he sees flying overhead . . .”

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Objectiveness and Live Pterosaurs

Sometimes critics of live-pterosaur investigations mention a lack of objectiveness with those investigators, but I now look at potential objectiveness problems in the thinking of those critics. Rather than be guilty of bulverism by jumping into what may be wrong with the thinking of those who think differently than I do, I start with what one particular writer has said in disputing the plausibility that pterosaurs cause many of the sightings of apparent pterosaurs.

I will call him DCZ, this cryptozoologist who finds alternate explanations for sightings of live pterosaurs. I do not dispute all that he writes about the possibility of misidentification in reported sightings of the Kongamato. What we need is objective thinking while examining each individual sighting report.

DCZ says that the Kongamato originally referred to a water monster. He believes a large stingray could overturn a boat (“Kongamato” means overturner of boats), declaring that a pterosaur would never have enough mass to overturn a boat. I find a number of serious problems with that pterosaur-impossible assumption, although there may have been some instances of large stingrays being labeled “Kongamato.” The point is twofold: His dismissal of the pterosaur possibility is flawed and the dependence on the label “Kongamato” can cause problems as well as solve them.

How important that we understand that “pterosaur” does not refer to any particular species! How many pterosaur species may have lived in the past (and, I believe, in the present)! How few of them have left us fossils, compared with the innumerable ones that died without leaving any trace of their anatomy! Some paleontologists have become so focused on the precise details in the fossils that they have forgotten the ramifications of the obvious: A surviving pterosaur species may differ from pterosaurs that left us fossils. (And how few of those fossils have been discovered!) Looking at the enormous varieties of creatures now living, how enormous are potential differences!

Think about this: Can fossils of small turtles prove that reports of giant Galapagos Tortoises must be mistaken? With somebody ignorant of those giant tortoises of that Pacific island, could not any report sound impossible? Could not a knowledge of fossils of small or medium-sized turtles and tortoises seem to discredit reports of giant Galapagos Tortoises? Of course, if those with that specific ignorance allowed themselves to overinflate the importance of their specific knowledge. But with objective thinking, and at least a little knowledge about Galapagos Tortoises, that response appears ridiculous.

The point of that exercize? Reports of giant long-tailed pterosaurs in the southwest Pacific cannot reasonably be dismissed by just referring to small fossils of Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs. How ridiculous!

But another problem appears from examining the reasoning of DCZ in dismissing the possibility that any pterosaur could overturn any boat. How are small boats usually overturned? A human in a small boat makes a wrong move. Put yourself into that small boat and how would you react to an attack by a reported-dangerous flying creature with many teeth? How could you avoid making a wrong move for a small boat? How easy for a terrified human to overturn a boat that was dive-bombed by a Kongamato!  What difference does it make if the mass of that flying creature is insufficient to overturn a boat by only an impact?

I suspect that a lack of objectiveness, on the part of DCZ, may have caused him to rely too much on the original source of the word “Kongamato.” The common meaning for that word, in Western countries, is “modern pterosaur in Africa.” Early native encounters with large stingrays are irrelevant to the many reported sightings of obvious pterosaurs in Africa.