A
typically-patterned male northern bushbuck in Senegal (© Lucy Keith-Diagne/Wikipedia
– CC BY 4.0 licence)
Bushbucks are the smallest members of the
spiral-horned African antelope group, which also include the kudus, nyalas,
sitatunga, elands, and bongo. Traditionally, just a single bushbuck species has
been recognized, Tragelaphus scriptus,
albeit with numerous subspecies (some of which long ago were briefly deemed by
certain 'splitter' mammalogists to be species in their own right before being 'lumped'
into T. scriptus), distributed
through much of sub-Saharan Africa. More recently however, it has been split
taxonomically into two – the northern bushbuck, native to western and
northern/central Africa, which retains the binomial name T. scriptus; and the Cape bushbuck T. sylvaticus, native to southern and eastern Africa.
Moreover, in the Cape bushbuck both sexes
are generally brown, often with only limited coat patterning on the torso, even
in the more showy male (though more strikingly patterned individuals do
sometimes occur). Conversely, the northern bushbuck is the more familiar form,
patterned as its torso is (most especially in the adult male) with a diverse,
eyecatching arrangement of vertical white stripes on its flanks and often also a
horizontal lower flank stripe lying beneath them plus a couple of horizontal
shoulder stripes, all of them again white, as well as a series of white spots
on its haunches. The overall effect is as if this antelope is wearing a
harness, which is why a popular longstanding alternative name for the bushbuck as
a whole has always been the harnessed antelope, but which is nowadays applied
specifically to the northern species.
However, as will now be revealed, there
is one northern bushbuck specimen on record whose coat patterning is
dramatically different from that of any other bushbuck of any kind – so much
so, in fact, that veteran cryptozoologist Dr Bernard Heuvelmans deemed it
worthy of being investigated as potentially representing an entirely discrete
but currently undescribed species in its own right. In addition, its
extraordinary skin is apparently still preserved in a museum. Yet this unique,
fascinating individual and its very intriguing history have never been fully
documented in any English-language publication – until now, that is, via this
worldwide ShukerNature exclusive. So, let's begin at the beginning of this very
belated bushbuck revelation.
I first learned of this singular specimen
during the mid-1980s, when browsing through Heuvelmans's lengthy but thoroughly
engrossing paper 'Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals With Which
Cryptozoology is Concerned', a paper that I have since returned to countless
times during my own researches. It was published in Vol. 5 of Cryptozoology, the official scientific
journal of the now-defunct International Society of Cryptozoology, and in it Heuvelmans
briefly documented dozens of cryptids, many of which were very obscure and
hitherto-unknown to me, arranged geographically and via habitat, with each
cryptid's entry supplemented by one or more source references. Here is
Heuvelmans's entry for the mystery bushbuck:
A small, entirely spotted
bushbuck antelope, known only from an incomplete skin (preserved in the
Zoological Museum of Berlin University) from Liberia (Pathé 1940).
The reference cited by him is: Pathé,
Moritz (1940). Die Suche nach dem
Fabeltier [The Search For The
Mythical Creature]. Deutscher
Verlag (Berlin).
The
front of the dustjacket for Pathé's above-cited book, illustrated with one of
his own paintings – note the spotted bushbuck skin sticking partly out of one
of his cases (public domain)
Moritz Pathé (1893-1956) was a prolific
and very talented German artist and book illustrator,
specializing in animal pictures, and the author of several works,
documenting his travels in Africa seeking rare creatures to portray, but also
to hunt and trap.
Yet despite searching for more
information concerning Pathé's enigmatic antelope, I was unable to locate any,
and eventually it slipped from my mind. A few weeks ago, however, my interest
in it was revived when palaeontologist and fellow cryptozoological writer Dr
Darren Naish contacted me to enquire whether I had any information on file
regarding it. As I still hadn't, Darren's query inspired me to launch another
search, and this time, finally, I achieved success, thanks to two longstanding
friends who both share my enthusiasm for all matters of a cryptozoological
kind.
The first of these was French
crypto-scholar Michel Raynal, who kindly supplied me with a copy of the principal
chapter from Pathé's book in which he documented the Liberian spotted bushback
(the entire book featured it, as it was the mythical animal referred to in the
title, but this particular chapter contained the most significant information
concerning it). Although the text was in German, I would normally have experienced
no problems with translating it, but as various of you may know, for quite some
time now I have been afflicted with a close-up vision problem (happily, my
distance vision is unaffected) that makes reading and on-screen research
difficult at present (an operation to correct this condition should be taking
place soon). Consequently, translating many pages of German into English is presently
beyond my capabilities.
Moreover, because the font employed in
the book is a very ornate one that was commonly used in German publications
back in the days when Pathé's book was published, blocking and pasting the text
in sections into Google Translate and other translation sites also failed,
because its ornate font rendered the text unreadable by the online translators.
But then one of my German crypto-friends,
Markus Hemmler, came to my rescue, generously providing me with an immensely
useful English translation of the relevant chapter (annotated by him with some
very informative explanatory notes), plus other excerpts, as well as a copy of
a colour plate from it (as did Michel) that contained Pathé's own very detailed
illustrations of the skin, showing it dorsally and laterally, and which I've
included here, as you'll see below. Markus subsequently also supplied me with
an image of the full-colour illustrated dustjacket of Pathé's book (shown above
here), the illustration being one of the author's own paintings, plus some of
his line-drawings that appeared inside the book. All of these will be revealed
later here.
First of all, however, here is a summary
of the pertinent information regarding the spotted bushbuck as provided by
Pathé in the principal chapter of his book devoted to it plus some references
to it that appeared in subsequent chapters:
In 1937, Pathé was spending time in the West
African country of Liberia, with the express purpose of hunting, drawing, and
painting various of its more exotic animal species, in particular the pygmy
hippopotamus and the crowned eagle. But a fortuitous meeting with a youth
offering for sale a truly extraordinary albeit incomplete antelope skin changed
the course of his plans completely, so that much of his time there was instead
spent seeking a living example of this exceptionally elusive, ostensibly
mythical, yet (by virtue of the afore-mentioned physical, tangible skin)
unequivocally real creature, even inspiring the title of the book that he would
write about his adventures.
To quote from one of Markus's annotations
to his English translation of the relevant sections from Pathé's book:
At the beginning of the book
Pathé already is in Monrovia [Liberia's capital] and until page 92 he describes
some adventures like the journey from Monrovia (via Mesurado River, Stockton
Creek to St. Paul River, then over land to Royersville at the Po River and
beyond this river into the jungle) to Bangatown at the Lofa River [in
northwestern Liberia] and his experiences and exploration of the surrounding
area.
And so it was that one day during his
stay in Bangatown, Pathé received an unexpected visitor in the form of a native
youth named Jimmy, about 20 years old and hailing from a small village far
upriver in the neighbouring but still quite distant Gola region. Jimmy had been
hoping to sell the skin on behalf of his uncle to some people with whom his
father and uncle had done business before, but for various reasons he failed to
sell it to them. However, being mindful of Pathé's reputation as a hunter,
Jimmy had then brought the skin to him, in case he may wish to buy it, and as
Pathé had never seen anything like it before, he swiftly did so.
A
b/w illustration by Pathé from his book, depicting Jimmy holding the spotted
bushbuck skin (public domain)
According to Jimmy, who also had never
seen one like it before, the antelope had been shot by a native hunter
somewhere in Gola. Jimmy stated that he did not know specifically where, but
eventually revealed that the hunter had mentioned a distant spot on the Mahé
River, a tributary of the afore-mentioned Lofa River..
Pathé decided to hire Jimmy as his
hunting boy, offering him both pay and on-the-job training if he accepted, which
the youth instantly did, promising to return in a week's time and begin his
exciting new career, which again he did.
The book then digresses, pursuing other
topics such as the successful search by Pathé and Jimmy for a crowned eagle
that Pathé hoped to paint, but on p. 110 he returns to the anomalous antelope
skin, which becomes his principal focus thereafter. Yet what was so special
about it? Here is the earlier-mentioned colour plate containing three
illustrations of it by Pathé:
Three
colour paintings of the mystery spotted antelope skin, the first one being a
concept image of what it may have looked like with its legs still present; all
three prepared by Pathé (public domain)
As seen, the skin lacked its head and limbs,
but those were not relevant in relation to what instantly set it apart from all
known antelopes, which was its remarkable patterning. Although its species appeared
at the very least to be akin to the bushbuck, this skin lacked the latter's
characteristic white stripes and posterior white dappling. Instead, and
incongruously, its back and much of its flanks were heavily patterned with black
spots, which in its dorsal and upper dorso-lateral regions had coalesced and
congealed so extensively that a solid mass of black pigmentation had resulted.
Could this extraordinary creature
represent a hitherto-undescribed species in its own right, or was it a very
distinctive, aberrant specimen of the known northern bushbuck? Pathé personally
appeared far from sure, because during the course of his book his opinion
oscillated back and forth constantly between these two options.
When I first saw his paintings of it, I
immediately thought of two remarkable leopards that had been shot in the
vicinity of Grahamstown, South Africa, during the 1880s (click here to see my documentation and
pictures of them on ShukerNature; they are also chronicled in my three books on
mystery cats). Dubbed melanotic at that time (but a term rarely used today), in
each of these aberrant individuals the typical black-pigmented leopard rosettes
had broken up on the flanks into tiny but very profuse black spots that in the
upper dorso-lateral and dorsal regions had amalgamated into solid or near-solid
expanses of black pigmentation, just as was exhibited by Pathé's singular
bushbuck specimen.
In the case of the Grahamstown leopards
(similar cases are also on record featuring other leopards, tigers, and at
least one jaguar individual known to me), this abnormal patterning is nowadays
referred to as pseudo-melanism, distinguishing it from true melanism.
For in the latter condition (which is
responsible for all-black leopard specimens aka black panthers, and all-black
individuals in many other animal species too), the pelage's black rosettes of
the individual in question are unaffected but its background colour is
abnormally dark, so much so in fact that it often obscures the presence of the
rosettes. Conversely, as described above, in pseudo-melanism the background
colour of the individual's pelage remains its usual shade but is virtually
obscured dorsally and dorso-laterally by abnormal amalgamation and coalescing
of the black rosettes into large expanses of solid black pigmentation plus
intense black speckling elsewhere on the flanks.
Illustration from the 1880s depicting the dorsal
view of the second melanotic Grahamstown leopard's skin, clearly revealing its
remarkable pseudo-melanistic patterning, which is ostensibly reminiscent of the
spotted bushbuck's patterning (public domain)
However, the fundamental problem with
seeking to identify the spotted bushbuck skin as that of a pseudo-melanistic
specimen is that in typical bushbuck specimens their markings are white, not
black. So as bushbucks never normally possess any black markings at all, I
cannot conceive how pseudo-melanism could create this specimen's unique pattern
of black-pigmented spots and coalesced black spotting.
In contrast, it is possible that the skin
represents an example of incomplete true melanism, whereby instead of the pelage
of the individual in question being black all over, it exhibits melanism only
in certain body regions, such as its back and flanks, for instance. In some cases
involving very discrete, localized body regions, this is known as mozaicism,
with one famous example being that of Ranger, a male lion born during the 1970s
at Glasgow Zoo (then called Calder Park Zoo). His parents were of normal
colouration, but he exhibited a large black region on his chest plus another
one on his right foreleg (click here to see my documentation of Ranger
on ShukerNature).
Whatever the precise explanation for this
bushbuck skin's aberrant appearance, however, it is hardly surprising that Pathé
was so interested it – but he was not the only one.
A
sketch by Pathé of the spotted bushbuck's incomplete skin in dorsal view that
appears on the cloth binding of his book's front cover (normally hidden beneath
the dustjacket) (public domain)
Not long after purchasing the skin from
Jimmy, Pathé received a visit from a renowned big game hunter/explorer of
English-African-Indian heritage named Charles Sandiputt. He made a living from
shooting rare specimens for rich Western clients and then charging them steeply
for the privilege of acquiring these greatly-desired trophies, but he was currently
running low both on funds and on gun cartridges, and hoped to purchase some of
the latter from Pathé. While conversing, Pathé naively showed Sandiputt the
spotted bushbuck skin, and although the hunter tried to disguise his
excitement, it was clear to Pathé how very interested he was in it.
Sure enough, after examining the skin in
detail, Sandiputt offered Pathé a sizeable sum of money for it (despite having
pleaded poverty earlier), and also offered to go hunting with him in search of
additional specimens. This last-mentioned offer in particular was an abrupt
about-face to say the least, after just moments earlier having turned down
Pathé's own suggestion for them to go hunting together, but that of course was before
he'd seen the spotted bushbuck skin!
However, Pathé refused both of the
hunter's offers, having realized by now that he'd made a mistake in revealing
the skin's existence to Sandiputt, who departed not long afterwards without
having secured from Pathé not only the skin but also any specific details
regarding who had shot the animal itself and where. Some days later, however,
Sandiputt surreptitiously reappeared, and was caught by Pathé questioning his
native helpers on this very same subject, but having already been prompted by
Pathé not to divulge any details about it to anyone, they remained tight-lipped.
To cut a lengthy story short: After
Sandiputt had exited empty-handed a second time, Pathé soon sent Jimmy back to
his Gola homeland to find the hunter from there who had shot the freak bushbuck,
and secure his services in a search for living specimens, which Jimmy did.
Pathé dubbed the hunter Bill, who then led Pathé and his hunting party to the mountainous
regions upstream of the Little Mahé River in Gola. Here, with Jimmy serving as
translator, Bill claimed to have not merely shot the specimen whose skin was
now a closely-guarded possession of Pathé (he even took it with him on their Gola
hunt, in order to ensure that it was not stolen in their absence if left
unguarded back at Bangatown) but also to have seen several additional living
specimens.
However, the hunt for these elusive
antelopes proved unsuccessful, due in no small way to Pathé's alarming
discovery that Sandiputt was also seeking these creatures in this very same
vicinity and at the very same time as them, and that – in an example of devious
intrigue worthy of high politics or industrial espionage – Bill was a veritable
double agent. For he had already been contacted and cunningly hired in secret by
Sandiputt to tire out Pathé's party so that they would quit the search and
return to Bangatown, leaving behind Bill who would then lead Sandiputt in his
own search, assisted by the local villages' inhabitants to whom Sandiputt had
promised a big reward for a skin or information concerning where such antelopes
could be found alive. Furthermore, Bill was to steal Pathé's boat too for
travelling up the Mahé River, as Sandiputt didn't have access to one himself!
Bill
with Charles Sandiputt, drawn by Pathé (public domain)
Ultimately, however, Sandiputt's dastardly
ploy was all in vain, with none of his unscrupulous plans coming to fruition, because
the ever-loyal Jimmy had made sure that Bill did not steal Pathé's boat, and neither
party encountered any spotted bushbucks anyway (though Pathé did make a somewhat
paradoxical claim that he and Bill briefly spied two such creatures together,
only to directly contradict himself a little later in his book by saying that
he had failed to find any – very strange). Ultimately, however, everyone returned
home in apparent defeat, certainly with their respective quests for actual
skins unfulfilled. But even then, the story was not quite over.
For not long after Pathé had arrived back
in Bangatown with his party, his hut suffered an unexplained break-in, with no
fewer than four of his locked iron cases and trunks having been forced open, yet
nothing inside them had been taken. Bearing in mind that Pathé had been keeping
the precious bushbuck skin locked in just such a case (he had several of them
in his hut), he naturally suspected that whoever had broken in was seeking the
skin but had chosen the wrong cases. Presumably, moreover, as Pathé's remaining
cases (including the one that did contain the skin) had not been tampered with,
the would-be burglar(s) must have come close to being disturbed, causing them
to flee before having chance to force open any of the others.
Despite a thorough investigation taking
place, no culprit was ever identified or apprehended, but Pathé reflected extensively
upon the indisputable fact that when Sandiputt had first visited him, the
hunter had witnessed him taking the skin out of one of these cases, so Sandiputt
had been aware thereafter that this is where it was being kept. Moreover, Sandiputt
had reappeared at Bangatown just a short time before the burglary had taken
place (his excuse for doing so being that he wished to return Pathé's loaned
cartridges to him), so he was known to have been in this precise location at
that precise time. Coincidence?
After describing a feverish dream in
which he had shot a spotted bushbuck, only to wake up and find that it had all
been nothing more than a hallucination, and that it was now Christmas Day, Pathé
made plans to travel back to Liberia's capital Monrovia and thence to Germany, duly
arriving home in early 1938. Pathé had always planned to make his zoologically-valuable,
unique spotted bushbuck skin freely available to science, so although it took
him several months after returning to Germany before he actually did so, Pathé
finally fulfilled his vow by donating it to the Zoological Museum at the Humboldt
University of Berlin. In response, he received the following written
communication from the then head of its mammal department, the eminent German
zoologist Prof. Hermann Pohle (and which is translated here by Markus):
Dear Mr Pathé!
Thank you very much for sending me the fur from Monrovia.
At first glance, I could see that no wild animal from which it could have come
is known. A careful comparison then revealed that no domestic animal of this
coloration is known either. Therefore, it is an unknown species or breed.
Unfortunately, the fur is very incomplete; it is missing the head and legs.
Therefore, it is unsuitable for a new description. It would therefore be of
great value if you were able to travel to Liberia again and capture a complete
animal, at least the fur and skull of one specimen.
Needless to say, however, Pathé did not
do so, as WW2 would soon be changing the face of the world forever. Incidentally, Pohle's contemplation as to whether a domestic animal identity was tenable for the supposed spotted bushbuck pelt is intriguing, especially as there are speckled domestic goats, for example, whose torso pelts do recall that of the spotted bushbuck. Taking this line of thought further, one might even wonder if its head and limbs had been deliberately removed by its originator (Bill?) in order to disguise the fact that this is indeed all that it really was, just a domestic creature, not a wild animal at all. This certainly wouldn't be the first time that such subterfuge has happened with mysterious mammal specimens. However, Pohle seemed adamant that this was not the case here. and he was an extremely knowledgeable, experienced mammalogist, so I see no reason to disbelieve him - but recently ia much more serious issue has arisen regarding Pathé's specimen.
As is so depressingly frequent in sagas
of physical, tangible cryptozoological specimens, Markus made a worrying
discovery when he recently contacted the museum for information concerning the
skin. Can you guess what he discovered? Yes indeed, there was no entry either
for the skin itself or for the name Pathé on the museum collection's database! However,
as he did learn, the collection isn't fully digitized as yet, so the skin may
still turn up there, lurking meanwhile in anonymity somewhere within the museum's
capacious basement, perhaps? Also, the database isn't accessible online at
present anyway, after having gone offline in 2024 due to a cyber-attack, but
hopefully at some stage in the future it will reappear online, enabling external
researchers like Markus and myself to peruse it directly ourselves.
A sketch
by Pathé from his book, depicting how he conceived the spotted bushbuck might
have looked in life (public domain)
Also
of note is that Markus succeeded in obtaining from the archives of Berlin's
Natural History Museum seven pages of written correspondence between Pathé and
Pohle, but there was only a single very brief reference in them to the spotted
bushbuck. Namely, in a letter to Pathé dated 25 October 1946, Pohle expressed optimism that Pathé would soon resume travel
back to Liberia (now that WW2 was over), and stated: "It seems to me that
you must now finally find the mythical creature and bring it back, even if it
is only a domestic animal", but as already noted here, that never happened,
and given the unverified nature of its continuing presence in the Humboldt
University Zoological Museum's collection, Pathé's spotted bushbuck skin is an
even bigger enigma now than it was before!
And on that unsatisfactory,
unresolved note, with its very existence, let alone its taxonomic or genetic identiy, an ongoing mystery, we must bid adieu at least for the time being to the anomalous
antelope constituting the subject of this present ShukerNature article – the
most comprehensive coverage of it ever published in the English language. Markus
plans to prepare a German-language counterpart, which will be posted in due
course in his own blog, and when it appears there I shall add a clickable link
to it here.
Lastly, one of the most
unexpected aspects of this entire saga is that Pathé does not appear to have
actually stated anywhere in his book the precise year when his search for the
spotted bushbuck took place, but due to some masterfully Sherlockian detective
work by Markus, it seems safe to say that it was in 1937. This is because
Markus uncovered a short newspaper report published on 28 April 1938 by the Bergische Post, in which it mentions
that Pathé "has just returned from Liberia". Recalling that Pathé had
specifically referred in his book to spending Christmas there, just before leaving
Liberia to return home to Germany, this clearly identifies the year that he
spent in Liberia as 1937.
If any additional news regarding
the spotted bushbuck skin emerges, I'll include it here as an update.
Meanwhile, my sincerest thanks go to Markus Hemmler and Michel Raynal for very
kindly making so much relevant information available to me, thereby making my
preparation of this article possible.
A vintage photograph of Moritz Pathé, from his book Mit Büchse und Palette im westafrikanischen
Urwald (Franz Schneider Verlag: Berlin, 1944) (public domain)
.jpg)
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