Kongamato
A pterosaur-like flying cryptid of central African swamps.
- Region
- Jiundu swamps of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Documented sightings
- 5 on map →
Overview
Kongamato — translated as "overturner of boats" — is a flying cryptid reported from the Jiundu swamps of northwestern Zambia and the surrounding Congo Basin border regions. British explorer Frank H. Melland documented the creature in his 1923 book "In Witchbound Africa" after collecting consistent descriptions from Kaonde and Lunda witnesses.
Identification
Reported with a wingspan of 1.2 to 2.1 meters, leathery skin (no feathers), a long beak with visible teeth, and a long thin tail — a morphology consistent with the rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs of the Jurassic period. Coloring is reddish-brown. The creature is reported as territorial along certain river bends and is associated with the capsizing of small canoes.
Lore & Origin
When Melland showed his Kaonde witnesses an illustration of a Pteranodon from a paleontology textbook, they reportedly identified it immediately as the Kongamato. American journalist J. P. F. Brown reported a sighting in 1956 along the Bangweulu Swamps. The cryptid remains among the most frequently cited "living pterosaur" candidates in cryptozoological literature.