Congosaurs

Cryptozoology tells of dinosaur-like creatures supposed to live in the rainforests of the Congo region of Central Africa.

When I first learned of these great beasts, I read them being referred to as either "living dinosaurs" or "African mystery dinosaurs".

Eventually, since they live in the Congo region, I settled on calling them "Congosaurs".

This has since become my all-purpose term for the mythical giant reptiles.

The names of these beasts come from Lingala, a language spoken in both the R. of Congo and the D.R. of Congo.

Mokele-Mbembe, "the thing that stops the flow of rivers", is said to be the size of an elephant; with a long neck and head like a python, and a tail like a crocodile.

That would make it way smaller than the average sauropod dinosaur.

Mbielu-Mbielu-Mbielu, "the thing with planks growing from its back", is depicted here with literal plank-shaped back plates.

Like the Mokele-Mbembe, the creature is also said to be a water beast...like a crocodile.

Perhaps its back plates are exaggerated crocodile back scales?

Kongamato, "the boat breaker", also lives in the wetlands of countries that border the D.R. of Congo (Zambia, Angola, and Kenya).

It almost looks like a giant bird mixed with a bat.

Kasai Rex resembles a gigantic monitor lizard with legs like that of a leopard.

Nguma-Monene and Emela-Ntouka ("elephant killer") look like no dinosaur I've ever heard of.

The former looks like a snake with legs (its name even means "big python") and crocodile back scales; the latter appears to be a cross between a lizard and a rhinoceros.

When I was first learning about these massive Congo beasts, I read about supposed sightings by Occidental explorers around the early 20th century (with accounts given to them by locals in the region).

Movies such as The Lost World (an adaptation of a novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the same guy who created Sherlock Holmes) and the original King Kong (where Kong beats up dinosaurs before being taken away to New York City) were also released around this time.

Hence, I believe that these outsiders' accounts of these beasts that were already present in local Congolese folklore may have been influenced by these classic movies with dinosaurs in them.

Hence, when they first heard about these monsters from locals, their minds immediately went to these Hollywood dinos in the days before Jurassic Park was released.

Perhaps this is why Mokele-Mbembe is said by cryptozoologists to be a sauropod that is semi-aquatic...an idea that was already dated by the time Jurassic Park was released and we saw a Brachiosaurus depicted as a landlubber.

It is similar to how my own portrayals of certain mythical creatures are influenced by Dungeons and Dragons.

For example, I depict Tiamat (the dragon goddess slain by the god Marduk in Babylonian myth) as a five-headed dragon a la the queen of the evil chromatic dragons in that game.

Balor and his Fomorian hordes from Celtic Irish mythology are portrayed as a one-eyed demon commanding an army of homely purple giants; echoing the balor demons and the giants of the fey underdark in D&D.

In the descriptions I give for the Congosaurs, I use present-day animals that are native to Africa (and other places too) instead of long-dead dinosaurs.