Comments on: New Mokele-mbembe Expedition Departs

By: barkoczy

barkoczy — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:37:07 +0000

I have been looking into the Auyantepui sightings for some time now, and Mr. Iles report piques my curiosity. There does, however, seem to be a dissimilarity in the size description of these animals, which seems consistent with their supposed geographic distribution. Thus, Mr. Iles, I have a few questions with regards to this supposed sighting:
1) Were the animals on located on the summit of the tepui near Angel Falls, or were they located in the lowlands near the base of the tepui?
2) What color were they?
3) In what capacity were you flying near Auyantepui? As a scientist, or tourist, or something else?
4) Did this sighting occur in the wet season or the dry season?

Further information would be greatly appreciated.
-Laz

By: Spook

Spook — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 05:29:51 +0000

Dave hasn’t explained how Hugo Chavez allowed him to fly a helo in his country and near the falls. Hugo is way too paranoid for that with Dubya’ sneakin’ around Venezula these days…

I’m also totally amazed at the extremely fine detail Dave had of the creatures wieght, claws, etc. in a noisy vibrating helo and the rotor noise and wash didn’t frighten them off. And no camera? Then why rent the helo??? Dave may just be pullin’ our legs???

BTW A insurance agent in Africa IS an amateur expedition. I hope they brought some Blackwater mercs with them into the jungle. Its one thing to have Cameroon permision but totally another with Congolese permision. How many RoC soldiers have or know how to work a GPS unit. Try explainin’ that your GPS says you are not trespassing or snooping on them… Where’s the updates? It’s almost March 2006. Don’t they have Iridium sat-phones???

By: ZanzibarRedColobus

ZanzibarRedColobus — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 01:03:44 +0000

I’ve heard stories that mokele mbembe may have lived in Okavango Delta and Zambias marshes hundreds of years ago. Did anyone else hear about that?

By: CryptoInformant

CryptoInformant — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 00:18:48 +0000

Dave-
It sounds like you described a fully aquatic crocodilian, possibly a smaller relative of the extinct Metriorhynchus.

By: greatanarch

greatanarch — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 19:22:23 +0000

No, you don’t need to be rich or famous to mount an expedition, even for Mokele-mbembe. See this site:
http://www.extreme-expeditions.net/
These blokes are entirely self-financing. However, it is best to avoid the Congo!

By: Crystalwren

Crystalwren — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 22:43:40 +0000

Does anyone remember a doco quite a while back where the native tribesmen of the area were shown a guidebook of African animals, and they all very firmly identified one of the rhino species as the mokele-mbembe? The theory was that, as the rainforest had been in ecological terms a savannah only yesterday, the rhinos had become stranded in the rainforest and had adapted to the water instead of dying out. If this is true, it might account for their famous, notoriously vile temper.

Strictly speaking, if we did find a living dinosaur species, would they be in fact dinosaurs or something else? If one could find some impossible way (Jurassic park anyone?) of comparing the DNA of a modern coelacanth to an ancient one, I wonder what the odds are that they’d be genetically the same species. Just a thought.

By: 2400bc

2400bc — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 02:07:35 +0000

Batgirl -

When I win the lottery you can be on my expedition team.

By the time we get back from the Congo the only thing “prominent” about us will be our odor.

Seriously though, the only thing keeping me from going on my own expeditions is money. As soon as Bill Gates pays me back that loan I’ll be all set!

By: Eulipian

Eulipian — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 23:09:57 +0000

When he was in his dinosaur obsession phase (from 5-7 yrs. old) my son developed a persistent belief that a living version would be found in Africa. He was specific: It would be able to hide in water, undetected, because it would be a version of the Archelon–a turtle relative. Why? Who knows. Good luck. Here are the facts:

This giant turtle could live to 100 years old, possibly thanks to taking long sleeps on the seabed

Type: Reptile
Size: 4.6m
Diet: Omnivorous
Predators: Mosasaurs and sharks
Lived: Late Cretaceous, 75-65 million years ago

Link

If he turns out to be right, I guess I’m going to have to listen to him a lot better than I do now–though now he’s into gravity, dark matter and magnetism and I can’t really match him–if I ever could.

By: Toirtis

Toirtis — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 20:36:05 +0000

Batgirl: Prominence has little to do with it….a fat bank account and/or celebrity does.

By: BOB J

BOB J — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 20:02:02 +0000

Hope that this expedition succeeds. If there are living dinos—then the question is how can they survive in a very small breeding group? Are they all female? There are alot of questions to be answered.