Nandi bear

Nandi Bear
Nandi bear illustration (1961)
Creature information
Other name(s)Chemosit, Kerit, Koddoelo, Ngoelo, Ngoloko, Duba
Sub groupingBear
Origin
RegionEast Africa

The Nandi bear is a cryptid purported to live in East Africa. It takes its name from the Nandi people, who live in western Kenya, the area in which the alleged animal has been reported. It is also known as Chemosit, Kerit, Koddoelo, Ngoloko, or Duba, which derives from the Arabic words dubb ("bear") or d.abʕ / d.abuʕ ("hyena"). The Samburu Nkampit also appears to be a version of this creature.

Scientists tend to dismiss the existence of the Nandi bear, arguing instead that such accounts are misinterpreted encounters with known animals; nevertheless, a variety of highly speculative, non-mainstream proposals have been offered in an attempt to identify the creature.

Description

Descriptions of the Nandi bear are of a ferocious, powerfully built carnivore with a sloping back and front shoulders reaching a height in excess of 1.2 m (4 ft). Stories further highlight its apparent danger to both humans and wildlife, and depict it as a nocturnal animal capable of standing on its hind legs. In 1914, Charles William Hobley authored a diagram of a footprint attributed to a Nandi bear.

The Nandi people call it kerit. Local legend holds the Nandi bear has reddish hair, long feet, and is said to scalp people. In 1961, Gardner Soule noted sightings were reported in Kenya throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, but further stated that it "never has been caught or identified". Sightings of the Nandi bear decreased with time. In 1905, Richard Meinertzhagen speculated the creature may have been an "anthropoid ape now extinct on account of decreased rainfall."

Scientific evaluation

There is no scientific evidence supporting the existence of the Nandi bear. Alleged sightings are suggested to be misidentifications of known species.

In 1923, Charles William Andrews suggested the Nandi bear may be a surviving representative of the extinct Chalicothere. In the 1930s, Louis Leakey also suggested Nandi bear descriptions matched the Chalicothere, though those extinct creatures were herbivores. The Chalicothere hypothesis was widely abandoned by the close of the 20th century, with palaeontologist Louis L. Jacobs commenting: "if chalicotheres existed now, they would have been found out just like the giant forest hog was." He concluded that "if there is anything to the Nandi bear story besides imagination, I suspect it may be the word-of-mouth description of gorillas passed across the continent from areas where they live to areas where they do not."

Zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock claimed reports of the Nandi bear were misidentified hyenas, specifically the spotted hyena. In 1932, the British Natural History Museum stated many reports of the Nandi bear have "proved to have been nothing more than a spotted hyena." Similarly, palaeontologist George Gaylord Simpson commented how the Nandi bear "turned out to be in most if not all cases a ratel [honey-badger], an animal which had been known to scientific zoologists since 1776."

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Huntingford, G. W. B. (1927). "Miscellaneous Records Relating to the Nandi and Kony Tribes". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 57: 417–461. doi:10.2307/2843712. JSTOR 2843712.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Jacobs, Louis L. (2000). Quest for the African Dinosaurs: Ancient Roots of the Modern World. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 250. ISBN 0-8018-6481-X.
  3. ↑ Wehr, Hans (1971). Milton Cowan, J. (ed.). A dictionary of modern written Arabic (3 ed.). Ithaca, N.Y.: Spoken Language Services, Inc.
  4. 1 2 "Journals and Magazines". The Lancet: 1052. 1914. ... it may be that the weird animal which has been named chemosit or nandi bear may prove eventually to have an actual existence. Anyway, Mr. A. Blaney Percival's short note on the beast is interesting. Stories in regard to the animal do not agree except in this, that it is fairly large, stands on its hind legs, is nocturnal, very fierce, and kills men or animals—by no means a scientific or illuminating description. Mr. C. W. Hobley has already in this journal referred to the 'unknown,' and gave a diagram of its supposed foot in an article on Some Unidentified Beasts, while Mr. G. W. Hickes has also mentioned an unknown beast seen on the Magadi railway which may or may not have been the elusive quadruped in question.
  5. ↑ Hobley, C. W. (1913). "On Some Unidentified Beasts". Journal of the East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society. 6: 48–52.
  6. ↑ Soule, Gardener (December 1961). "Nandi Bear". Boys' Life. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  7. ↑ Meinertzhagen, Richard (1983). Kenya Diary (1902-1906). Eland Books. p. 206.
  8. 1 2 3 Simpson, George Gaylord (1984). "Mammals and Cryptozoology". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 128 (1): 1–19. JSTOR 986487.
  9. 1 2 Pocock, Reginald I. (1930). The Story of the Nandi Bear. Natural History Magazine 2: 162–169.
  10. ↑ Wayland, E. J. (1934). Rifts, Rivers, Rains and Early Man in Uganda. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 64: 333–352.
  11. ↑ Leakey, Louis S. (November 2, 1935). Does the Chalicothere—Contemporary of the Okapi— Still Survive?. Illustrated London News 187: 730–733.
  12. ↑ Game Animals of the Empire. The Trustees of the British Museum, 1932. p. 46
  13. ↑ Jackson, Steve; Livingstone, Ian (1985). Out of the Pit. Fighting Fantasy Monsters. Puffin. p. 222. ISBN 0-14-034131-5.
  14. ↑ Hitchcock, Tim. "Chemosit". d20pfsrd. Pathfinder Adventures Path. Archived from the original on 8 June 2013. Retrieved 14 September 2019.