Larian Studios Forums General Chat Chat (Anything) The animal game

THE EMELA-NTOUKA OF THE CONGO

Emela-ntouka The same Likouala swamp region of the Congo which is supposed to be home to the Mokele-mbembe may also contain another dinosaurian: the Emela-ntouka (literally "killer of elephants"). This stout rhinoceros-like creature is reputed to have a penchant for killing elephants with its single horn.
Lucien Blancou, chief game inspector in French Equatorial Africa in the 1950�s wrote of a ferocious creature, larger than a buffalo that was considered the most dangerous animal by the Kelle pygmies. "...the presence of a beast which sometimes disembowels elephants is also known, but it does not seem to be prevalent there now as in the preceding districts. A specimen was supposed to have been killed twenty years ago at Dongou, but on the left of the Ubangi and in the Belgian Congo." (translated by Heuvelmans, Bernard, On the Track of Unknown Animals, 1959.)

In 1981 Dr. Roy Mackal traveled to the Congo searching for the rumored sauropod dinosaur Mokele-mbembe. But he was surprised to hear reports of another mysterious animal called the Emela-ntouka or "killer of elephants". The natives in the northwest region of the Likoula swamp told how it would gore elephants with its single horn. Mackal contemplation that it was a ceratopsian was cast in doubt by the pygmies not recollecting a neck frill. The description, however, does not fit a rhinoceros which has a short tail and does not have a true horn composed of bone or ivory. It is fused keratin (hair) and it seldom comes of the winner in a confrontation with elephants. Mackal left open the possibility that the Emela-ntouka was a Centrosaurus ("pointed lizard"). This member of the Ceratopsian family (formerly the Monoclonius) sports a single large horn on the center of its head as seen on right. The ceratopsian identification has been strengthened by similar reports with a neck frill obtained by Genesis Park staff during a recent expedition to Cameroon. It also matches the classical authors� multiple references to a ferocious single-horned creature that spears elephants in the belly, and leaves them to bleed to death.