The Origins of African 'Living Dinosaurs': The Great Beast of Kafue

Better pack your elephant gun for this one.

NOTE: the guest appliance on Pirates Don't Eat The Tourists mentioned probably won't be out when you hear this. But it will be before too long ...

I didn't intend to get into the history of Mokele-Mbembe, the infamous African living sauropod (I really, really didn't) but this short story 'The Great Beast of Kafue' by Anglo-Irish writer Clotilde Graves (from Cork no less!) sucked me into the murky stories of inter-war Germans sending strange tales back to Europe from the Congo, Cameroon, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and other parts.

Cryptozoologists have, over the years, muddied the waters by combining tales from different parts of the continent, mixing and matching Mokele-Mbembes, Chipekwes, and other lesser-known mystery African animals to create a more homogenous idea of an African Jurassic Park creature.

In this episode, we look at the influence of Carl Hagenbeck's 'real-life' dinosaur stories on Graves' short story, and attempt to bring this story back to its origins.

Links:

Sharon Hill's Evolution of the Kasai Rex

Markus Hemmler's Kassaisaurus from Congo