Mobele-Mbembe

For more than 200 years, expeditions have set off into the jungles of the Congo River basin in search of the mythical Mobele-Mbembe — the "one who stops the flow of rivers," in a local Bantu dialect. The lake monster, like that of Loch Ness, is supposed to be akin to a plesiosaur, a kind of a long-necked aquatic dinosaur thought to have been an herbivore. Colonial explorers reported large footprints and grumbling roars and recounted stories from pygmy natives about a possible "half-elephant, half-dragon" swimming in nearby swamps and lakes. A photo released by a 1981 expedition of the monster floating in Congo's Lake Tele has been largely discredited.

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