BIRD-HEADED FISH-MEN AND PIG-RIDING MAN-BEASTS - MORE PERPLEXING PORTRAYALS FROM THE CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

A red river hog (aka bush pig), a species of wild pig habitually ridden through the Central African Republic's forests by dwarf hairy man-beasts…allegedly! (© Dr Karl Shuker)

In my previous ShukerNature blog article (click here), I documented a remarkable drawing by the late artist Jean Claude Thibault, a Frenchman resident for many years in the Central African Republic (CAR). It depicts what appears to be the mysterious emela-ntouka or 'killer of elephants' – a horned aquatic cryptid also reported elsewhere in Africa under such names as the chipekwe and irizima.

Thibault's emela-ntouka drawing (© Jean Claude Thibault)

Moreover, this was just one of four pictures depicting intriguing CAR entities that had been drawn by Thibault (sometime during the early 1990s or late 1980s), and which were shown to me in August 2012 by Anette Stichnoth. She was working at that time for the Dzanga-Sangha Protected Areas (APDS) – a region of especial conservation significance in the CAR (check out its website here). The drawings had lately been displayed in an art exhibition held by the APDS, not long after Thibault had died (about three years ago), and Anette was enquiring about the entities illustrated in them. A year later, she received some illuminating information concerning these entities from a CAR local who was very knowledgeable about his country's traditional lore and legends.

So now, with Anette's kind permission, this present ShukerNature blog article exclusively unveils Thibault's three other drawings online, accompanied by the information that she received concerning them, together with my own thoughts.

The mondjoli-mbembe - a bird-headed fish-man from the folklore of the Central African Republic (© Jean Claude Thibault)

Above is the first of these drawings. It depicts a truly bizarre entity known as the mondjoli-mbembe or, more simply, the fish-man. According to Anette's CAR informant, this bird-headed humanoid is a paranormal being that lives in marshes and swamps, feeding upon fishes, from which he obtains his mystical powers that enable him to vanish from one place and appear instantly somewhere else. Sometimes, moreover, he makes fishermen disappear who want to fish in the watery terrain that he inhabits. When he kills fishes, he leaves them in a heap, and if a fisherman should find that heap the mondjoli-mbembe has no objection to the man taking half of the fishes away. But he must not take all of them – otherwise the angry mondjoli-mbembe will follow him to his village and take his revenge, which is not a pleasant sight to behold!

Red river hogs, with one of them ridden by a pig genie (© Jean-Claude Thibault)

This second drawing by Thibault depicts a hairy bipedal humanoid entity of diminutive stature riding a species of central and western African wild pig known as the red river hog or bush pig Potamochoerus porcus (not to be confused with the closely-related and similarly-named but less visually-colourful bushpig P. larvatus of eastern and southern Africa). According to Anette's CAR informant, such entities as this individual are supernatural dwarf beings known as pig genii or pig ghosts, which act as pig-herds to the red river hogs, walking in front of them in the forest, and even riding on their backs. Moreover, should a hog refuse to allow one of these beings to ride it, the pig genie will punish it, and chase it away from the other hogs towards the traps set by human hunters.

The third Thibault drawing presented here also depicts pig genii, but this time they are about to take part alongside some humans in a ritual known as boyebe. Before human hunters set out on a foray, they supposedly perform boyebe, which consists of dancing around a fire with the pig genii, because the men believe that this will ensure that they achieve success in their hunting.

Human hunters and pig genii about to take part together in the pre-hunting ritual of boyebe (© Jean Claude Thibault)

There seems little doubt that the mondjoli-mbembe is entirely mythical, a grotesque, composite bird-man equipped with magical powers and confined exclusively to the CAR's corpus of traditional folklore. Conversely, the pig genii are very similar indeed in basic form to a number of dwarf hairy bipedal man-beasts of possible hominoid identity reported widely across tropical Africa. These include such cryptozoologically familiar forms as the agogwe of Tanzania and Mozambique, the fating 'ho of Senegal, the Congolese kakundakari, and the séhité of the Ivory Coast.

Les Bêtes Humaines d'Afrique (front cover illustration © Alika Lindbergh/Plon Publishing)

According to veteran cryptozoologist Dr Bernard Heuvelmans, who devoted a major section to them in his book Les Bêtes Humaines d'Afrique (1980), these primate cryptids could variously be surviving gracile australopithecines (early bipedal African hominids known to have existed from 3.9 million to 1.7 million years ago), proto-pygmies, and/or proto-bushmen. Other suggestions include chimpanzees Pan troglodytes that have become more bipedal than is typical for their species, or bonobos P. paniscus – which walk upright quite commonly anyway. Some of these entities are deemed by their superstitious human neighbours to be preternatural, but descriptions of them given by Western eyewitnesses suggest otherwise – that they are corporeal yet highly elusive, currently-unclassified hominoids, exactly as proposed by Heuvelmans.

The CAR pig genii may well fall into this category too, with their pig-riding, pig-herding proclivities and their fire-dancing, pre-hunting rituals alongside humans owing rather more to native imagination than to ethnological interaction. Interestingly, according to traditional lore in Brazil a short hairy man-beast inhabiting its jungles and called the curupira (click here to see a painting depicting it) is said to ride those wild pig-like ungulates known as peccaries and even small deer called brockets or mazamas. So such folklore motifs are clearly not confined to Africa.

If any ShukerNature reader has additional information concerning the CAR entities depicted in Thibault's drawings, I'd welcome any details that you could send me or post here – thanks very much!

Restoration of Australopithecus africanus, a species of gracile australopithecine that existed from around 3.03 million to 2.04 million years ago (© Nachosan/Wikipedia)

THE SPINY-BACKED CHIMPANZEE – A CONGOLESE CHUPACABRA CHIMP!

Reconstruction of the spiny-backed chimpanzee (Tim Morris)

In an ongoing occasional series, previous ShukerNature posts have documented a number of once- and still-controversial forms of chimpanzee – the pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo (click here), the koolookamba (here), Ufiti (here), ape-man Oliver (here), and the Bili ape (here). None, however, is as bizarre as this series' latest example – the little-known yet truly extraordinary spiny-backed chimpanzee reported from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The only information concerning this anomalous anthropoid currently known to me is a short account that appeared in Philippe Coudray's self-illustrated book Guide des Animaux Cachés (2009).

According to Coudray, a member of a unit from the United States Navy who wishes to remain anonymous has claimed that during a mission to the Democratic Congo sometime between 1997 and 2002, the unit's team encountered 13 bipedal chimpanzees that were attempting to kill another animal. Standing 4.5-5 ft high, they were uniformly grey in colour, but by far their most distinctive feature was the series of spines running down each chimp's back, which stood up like porcupine quills whenever the chimps became agitated.

Coudray also stated that the team actually shot a three-minute video film of these extraordinary apes, but that it remains a military secret. The precise location of this sighting is unknown, but as the team was from the US Navy and the Democratic Congo is virtually landlocked, it may have been somewhere close to Lake Tanganyika.

The possession of genuine spines by these apes seems highly improbable, but perhaps they sported distinctive manes or even erectile tufts of hair that superficially resembled spines. Moreover, manes have also been reported from certain other bipedal crypto-primates, including the batutut of Borneo (closely resembling the Sumatran orang pendek), the brown-furred Congolese kakundakari, and the Central American dwendi. Indeed, were it not for the chimps' grey fur, they might even have been one and the same as the kakundakari, although kakundakari eyewitnesses generally claim that this latter entity is humanoid rather than anthropoid in form, and smaller than the spiny-backed chimps.

The potto (ltshears/Wikipedia)

Among known primates, the only species that can in any way be described as spiny is a small loris-related African prosimian known as the potto Perodicticus potto. Its neck bears a series of small tubercles covering its elongated cervical vertebrae, which have sharp points and almost pierce its skin, and are utilised as defensive weapons. Needless to say, however, these do not even begin to compare with the quills described for the spiny-backed chimps discussed here.

The bipedal nature of these chimps is very noteworthy too, as chimpanzees do not normally exhibit such behaviour as a habitual activity.

With so little information and no hard evidence to examine, and not even any eyewitness names to pursue, however, there seems little else that can be said in relation to the Congolese spiny-backed chimpanzee. Could it simply be a hoax, or a figment of poorly-viewed or imperfectly-reported observations? Or might there really be a singularly astonishing strain of spiny chimp out there, still awaiting formal scientific disclosure - a veritable chupacabra chimpanzee, in fact?!!

Philippe Coudray's own illustration of the spiny-backed chimpanzee

THE BILI (BONDO) APES – UNMASKING THE CONGO'S GIANT CHIMPANZEES

This photograph of a shot Bili ape appeared in Vol. 1 of Adolf Friedrich Herzog von Mecklenburg’s tome Vom Kongo zum Niger und Nil: Berichte der Deutschen Zentralafrika-Expedition 1910/1911, which was published in 1912 – more than a century before this highly distinctive ape form’s reality was formally recognised by science

Here's the latest in my occasional series of ShukerNature cryptozoology articles re anomalous and controversial chimpanzee forms (click here for my account of the pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo, here for the koolookamba, here for Ufiti, and here for 'apeman' Oliver).

Until quite recently, even amid the many remote regions of darkest Africa, the possibility of an unknown form of anthropoid existing there yet still eluding scientific recognition seemed ludicrous - but then came the Bili (aka Bondo) ape.

The saga of this remarkable, highly controversial primate began more than a century ago, when in 1898 a Belgian army officer returned home from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo with some gorilla skulls obtained by him in a forested region near the village of Bili, on the Uele River in northern Congo's Bondo area - even though no other gorillas had been found within hundreds of miles of Bili before (or since). He donated them to Belgium's Congo Museum in Tervueren, where in due course they were examined by its curator, Henri Schouteden. He was sufficiently struck by their anatomical differences from other gorilla skulls as well as by their unique provenance (roughly halfway between the extreme edges of the western and eastern distribution of any gorilla populations) to classify them as a new subspecies of gorilla, which he dubbed Gorilla gorilla uellensis.

Less convinced of their separate taxonomic status, conversely, was mammalogist Prof. Colin Groves, whose examination of these skulls in 1970 led him to announce that they were indistinguishable from western lowland gorillas. Thereafter, the Bili ape sank back into obscurity - until 1996, when Kenyan-based conservationist and wildlife photographer Karl Ammann, intrigued by its strange history and apparent disappearance, set out on the first of several Congolese quests to rediscover this mysterious primate.

And rediscover it he did, bringing back such compelling evidence for its presence that several other notable investigators launched their own searches, and returned with equally fascinating clues concerning the Bili ape's nature. Such researchers included primatologist Dr Shelly Williams from Maryland's Jane Goodall Institute, Dr Richard Wrangham from the Leakey Foundation, Dr Christophe Boesch from Leipzig's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Dr Esteban Sarmiento from New York's American Museum of Natural History, and Dr George Schaller from New York's Wildlife Conservation Society.

What made their various finds so especially interesting was the ambivalent identity that they collectively yielded for the Bili ape - because, uniquely, it deftly yet bemusingly combines characteristics of gorillas with those of chimpanzees, creating a shadowy anthropoid that is at once both yet neither. For instance: if the Bili ape is a chimpanzee, it is a veritable giant, because videos of living specimens and photographs of dead ones suggest a height of 5-6 ft - a mighty stature supported by the discovery of enormous footprints, some measuring almost 14 in long, and therefore nearly 2 in longer even than those of the mountain gorilla!

A dead Bili ape, revealing its noticeably large size (http://www.factzoo.com/mammals)

Also, very large ground nests constructed by Bili apes have been found that compare with those created by gorillas; normal chimps build smaller, tree-borne nests. Further evidence of the Bili ape's great size comes from local Bondo hunters, who distinguish two distinct apes - 'tree-beaters' (normal chimps) and 'lion-killers' (the Bili apes). The latter earn their name from their combined size and ferocity, a mix potent enough to ensure their terrestrial safety even in a jungle profusely populated by lions and leopards.

Indeed, so unafraid of these great cats are the Bili apes that according to media claims they hoot loudly when the moon rises and sets - an activity unknown among normal, smaller chimps, who avoid doing so in case they attract predators. However, these latter claims have been denied by Amsterdam University field researcher Cleve Hicks, who spent a year with colleagues tracking Bili apes during from mid-2005 to June 2006, followed by a second study spanning July 2006-February 2007.

Particularly noticeable is the presence of a pronounced sagittal crest running along the top of one of the original skulls collected by the Belgian army officer, and also on a Bili ape skull found by Ammann in 1996 - because this crest, normally an indication of powerful jaws as the jaw muscles are attached to it, is characteristic of gorillas, not of chimps. Conversely, the facial anatomy of the Bili skulls is decidedly chimp-like, not gorilla-like. In addition, hair samples taken from Bili ape ground nests have been shown to contain mitochondrial DNA similar to that of chimps, and the fruit-rich content of examined faecal droppings is again consistent with a chimp identity - although, perplexingly, the droppings themselves outwardly resemble those of gorillas.

So what is the Bili ape - a gorilla-sized chimp (freak population?/new subspecies?/new species?), an aberrant form of gorilla (freak population?/new subspecies?/new species?) that has evolved certain chimp-like anatomical and behavioural characteristics, or even possibly a genuine chimpanzee-gorilla hybrid? No confirmed crossbreeding between chimp and gorilla has ever been recorded, but the two species are sufficiently similar genetically to engender viable offspring. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down exclusively from the maternal parent, so if such interspecific matings are indeed occurring they must involve female chimps and male gorillas, to explain why the mitochondrial DNA from the Bili ape samples is chimp-like.

Happily, however, the Bili ape's identity was eventually unmasked. Comprehensive DNA analyses, including nuclear DNA (thus shedding light on both the maternal and the paternal lineages of the Bili ape), had been underway since autumn 2003 at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, under the auspices of conservation geneticist Dr Ed Louis, and involving DNA comparisons with gorillas, chimps, and also bonobos (pygmy chimps).

So too had analyses of mitochondrial DNA taken from faecal samples conducted by Dr Cleve Hicks and other Amsterdam University colleagues, who had also examined these primates' behaviour in the field. And in 2006, this latter team announced that their findings all confirmed that the Bili ape belongs to a known subspecies of chimp – the eastern chimpanzee Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii. Presumably, therefore, the Bili ape's very distinctive morphological features have evolved through its population's isolation from others of this subspecies but involve relatively little change at the genetic level. After years of mystery and intrigue, the riddle of the Bili ape had at last been solved.

This ShukerNature post is excerpted from my book The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals (Coachwhip: Landisville, 2012).

'APE-MAN' OLIVER - THE CHIMP THAT MADE A CHUMP OUT OF SCIENCE

Frequently-reproduced media photo of Oliver from the mid-1970s (Associated Press)

Welcome to the latest in my occasional series of ShukerNature articles regarding controversial forms of chimpanzee from the past and the present (click here for my article on the bonobo, here for the koolookamba, and here for Ufiti):

Among the great and the good who died in 2012 was one very notable celebrity of the non-human, cryptozoological persuasion. His name was Oliver, or, to give him an oft-used media appelation, Ape-man Oliver, and he was, quite simply, the chimp that made a chump out of science for several decades. Having said that, however, nothing was ever quite simple about Oliver, as we shall see...

Oliver first came to widespread public attention in 1976, when newspapers and magazines worldwide became interested in the strange chimpanzee that New York attorney Michael Miller had bought off a travelling animal-act owner called Frank Burger, allegedly for $10,000. Oliver was about seven years old at that time, and had reputedly been obtained in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). The first clue suggesting that Oliver may not be as other chimps was the reason why Burger had sold him.

Early newspaper report re Oliver, showing him standing bipedally (click it to enlarge it for reading) – Reveille, 2 July 1976 (Reveille)

According to media accounts, Oliver had never been accepted by Burger's other chimps and could not be trained to perform with them in their stage act. Instead, he preferred to walk on his hind legs, sit cross-legged on a chair, and help Burger's wife, Janet, with the chores around the house.

Oliver also made it clear that he fancied her. Not surprisingly, Janet issued her husband with an adamant proclamation concerning her pesky paramour: "I'm not putting up with this. He's going or I'm going." So Oliver went - sold by Burger to Miller.

It was not only his behaviour, however, that distinguished Oliver from other chimps. Much was made in media reports of his strange morphology. Although his black fur and pinkish-brown skin were run-of-the-mill characteristics of the common chimpanzee Pan troglodytes, great emphasis was placed upon his bald, seemingly small, egg-shaped cranium (in normal chimps, this is more commonly hairier, larger, and flatter), the unexpectedly reduced prominence of his jaws (thereby yielding a somewhat humanoid appearance), his pointed (rather than rounded) ears, and even his freckles.

A further Reveille article re Oliver, dated 14 July 1976 - click it to enlarge it for reading (Reveille)

Conflicting accounts were given regarding Oliver's body odour. Some media reports described it as very strong; yet after explorer Lieutenant Colonel John Blashford-Snell had examined him at the 1976 Explorers Club Annual Dinner in New York, he announced in his book Mysteries (1983) that Oliver had little or no body odour.

Odour or no odour, the media bloodhounds pursued the scent that something was not quite right with Oliver. It was claimed (but never substantiated) that, when Miller took Oliver to Japan in the mid-1970s, blood tests conducted by scientists had shown that Oliver had 47 chromosomes - one more than humans, one less than chimps.

Inevitably, these contentious claims (eventually fully disproved) prompted all manner of bizarre identities for Miller's egg-headed enigma. If Oliver were a Down's Syndrome chimp, as some asserted, he would have possessed an extra chromosome (i.e. 49), not one chromosome less than normal for chimps. Others suggested that he might be a mutant form of chimp, or a new subspecies or even species of chimp. Scaling ever further up the ladder of improbable identities, some wondered if Oliver might be a hybrid of common chimp Pan troglodytes and bonobo (pygmy chimp) P. paniscus; a specimen of the elusive hairy man-beast of West Africa termed the séhité, or even a crossbreed of chimp and séhité; and there were even queries as to whether he was some form of mini-bigfoot or yeti! Most radical of all was media speculation as to whether Oliver could be the offspring of a chimpanzee-human mating, i.e. a veritable humanzee. In an item on African mystery primates in the Reader's Digest compendium volume Man and Beast (1993), I opined that Oliver was merely a western African chimp - but with much more dramatic options on offer, the media never paid much attention to this in their reportage.

A bonobo (Dr Karl Shuker)

During the late 1970s and through the 1980s, Oliver vanished from the headlines, but was often exhibited as a freak or 'missing link' at various sideshows. In 1977, Michael Miller sold him to Ralph Helfer, partner in a Californian theme park called Enchanted Village. When the park closed down later that year, Helfer continued exhibiting Oliver in a new venture, Gentle Jungle, which changed locations a few times until it closed down in 1982. Oliver was transferred to the Wild Animal Training Center at Riverside, California, owned by Ken Decroo, but he was allegedly sold by Decroo in 1985. The last trainer to own Oliver was Bill Rivers.

In 1989, Oliver was purchased by the Buckshire Corporation, a Pennsylvanian laboratory leasing out animals for scientific and cosmetic testing. Mercifully, he was never used in experiments, but for the next seven years his home was a 7 x 5ft cage, whose restricted size resulted in his muscles becoming atrophied so much that his limbs trembled.

Still bipedal, Oliver during late 1990s (Associated Press)

Happily, in 1996, Oliver's confinement came to an end, when he was retired to an animal sanctuary at Boerne in Texas's Hill County. Called Primarily Primates, it offered spacious accommodation and allowed Oliver to return to good health. He even gained a female chimpanzee companion there, named Raisin. And as to the news headlines, the sanctuary's director, Wally Swett, was determined to solve the mystery of his celebrity guest's taxonomic identity once and for all.

Swett asked Chicago University geneticist Dr David Ledbetter to examine Oliver's chromosomes, which he did in autumn 1996. His studies revealed that Oliver had 48 (not 47) chromosomes, thus disproving the earlier claim and confirming that he had a normal chromosome count for a common chimpanzee. Swett, however, desired further analyses to pin-point Oliver's precise status. Accordingly, he persuaded DNA analysis expert Dr John J. Ely from Texas's Trinity University and cytogeneticist Dr Charleen Moore from Texas University's Health Science Center to conduct the most extensive genetic studies ever undertaken with Oliver. Their results were published in 1998 by the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and disclosed the following details.

 

 

Footage of Oliver from the 1990s UK TV show Fortean TV showing him walking fully upright bipedally (Luke Campbell (director)/Rapido TV/Channel 4 - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Standard chromosomal studies fully supported Ledbetter's findings that Oliver had the diploid chromosome count expected for chimpanzees (i.e. 48, in 24 pairs). They also revealed that his chromosomes possessed banding patterns typical for the common chimpanzee but different from those of humans and bonobos, thereby excluding any possibility of Oliver being a hybrid.

Moreover, when they sequenced a specific portion (312 bp region) of the D-loop region of Oliver's mitochondrial DNA, they discovered that its sequence corresponded very closely indeed with that of the Central African subspecies of common chimpanzee; and the closest correspondence of all was with a chimp specimen from Gabon in Central-West Africa. This all strongly suggests that Oliver also originated from this region and is simply a common chimp - an identity entirely consistent, therefore, with my own little-publicised opinion from 1993.

Oliver in later years (Traci Goudie)

After decades of mystery, Oliver's identity had finally been uncovered, exposed by his genes. But what of his external idiosyncrasies? Fly and Moore's paper contained some eye-opening information dating back to the 1970s, but which was presumably not sensational enough to attract the interest of the media and thus had not previously received publicity.

For instance, although media accounts had noted that Oliver was toothless (his teeth had been pulled), they had not revealed that primatologist Dr Clifford Jolly had examined Oliver as long ago as 1976. Jolly found that the reason why Oliver did not share the strikingly prognathous (projecting) jaw line of other chimps was due to resorption of the alveolar bone, plus a shortened maxilla and premaxilla (upper jaw bones), and underdeveloped temporal musculature. Jolly had concluded that these features were in turn caused by Oliver's toothless condition. He also concluded that Oliver's habitual bipedal gait was due to conditioning.

As for Oliver's cranial morphology, ear shape, freckles and baldness, these were nothing more than individual variations, well within the range of variability exhibited by the common chimpanzee - a species that presents, in the words of primatologist Prof. W.C. Osman Hill: "a bewildering variety of individual variations".

Another early media photo of Oliver (photo source unknown to me)

Although no longer special in taxonomic terms, Oliver was destined forever to remain a classic example of how media hype and sensationalist publicity can create with Frankensteinian fervour a veritable monster from the most mundane of animals. Happily, however, Oliver was able live the remainder of his days in peaceful retirement and security at Primarily Primates inside a spacious open-air enclosure with his chimp girlfriend Raisin, far away from the unwelcome media glare that had blighted this mild-mannered, highly-intelligent being's often traumatic and tumultuous life.

On 2 June 2012, Oliver died of old age. He was approximately 55 years old. His body was cremated and his ashes spread over the grounds of Primarily Primates. The decision to cremate him caused some dismay among certain scientists who had hoped to conduct further tests upon his physical remains. I for one, conversely, feel that Oliver had endured more than enough speculation and scrutiny during his turbulent life, and that with the conclusive findings of Ely, Moore, and Jolly concerning his taxonomic identity on record, it was both timely and fitting that in death he should finally be granted the tranquillity, privacy, and dignity that he was never permitted in life. RIP Oliver.

A sketch I prepared depicting Oliver's distinctive facial features (Dr Karl Shuker)



GOING APE ABOUT THE KOOLOOKAMBA

Late 19th-Century engraving of Mafuka, the most famous koolookamba specimen

Not a single verified example of a hybrid between a chimpanzee and gorilla has ever been recorded by science - which is why the koolookamba is such a controversial creature of cryptozoology.

This mystery ape was first brought to European attention by the explorer Paul du Chaillu, who shot what he initially assumed to be a large adult male chimpanzee in Gabon's Ashankolo Mountains during April 1858. However, its head was rounded, as was its bare black face, its eyes were large and set wide apart, it had well-developed eyebrow ridges, a flat nose, and elevated, projecting cheekbones - which are all characteristics more typical of a gorilla (two species of which are recognised today - the western gorilla Gorilla gorilla and the eastern gorilla G. beringei, of which latter species the mountain gorilla is a subspecies, G. b. beringei).

19th-Century engraving of a koolookamba

Consequently, du Chaillu stated that he considered his specimen to be totally separate from both chimp and gorilla. So too did the local native people - who claimed that this strange type of 'intermediate' ape lived exclusively in the mountains, never inhabiting lowland regions. They even had a special name for it - the koolookamba ('that which speaks 'kooloo''), after its distinctive call, 'kooloo' (and also spelt variously as koolokamba and koolakamba). Accordingly, in 1860 du Chaillu formally christened his newly-created species Troglodytes koolokamba - the first of several different scientific names, and identities, that would be applied to this ambiguous ape.

Left side of Mafuka's head – engraving from 1896

Over the years, a number of other koolookambas have been obtained from Gabon and elsewhere in equatorial West Africa. Some have even been displayed alive in zoos. Perhaps the most famous captive koolookamba was 'Mafuka' (also spelt 'Mafuca' in some sources) - a large aggressive female brought from Gabon's Loango Coast and exhibited at Dresden Zoo in the 1870s. Another fierce individual from the late 1800s was 'Johanna' - displayed at the Barnum Bailey World Show after four years at Lisbon Zoo. In the 1980s, the Holloman Air Force Base's chimpanzee colony at Alamagordo, New Mexico, contained two adult female koolookambas - 'Minnie' and 'Sevim'.

Mafuka's face – engraving from 1896

In short, it is clear that koolookambas exist. Far less clear, conversely, is their identity - just what is a koolookamba? The complexity of this question is exemplified by the intense deliberation that took place in 19th-Century zoological circles regarding Mafuka's identity.

The most conservative school of thought claimed that she was just an unusual chimpanzee. In contrast, some zoologists were persuaded by her heavy brows, fairly small ears, wide nose, and powerful, projecting jaws to classify her as a small gorilla (the confirmed identity of a female koolookamba sent to Basle Zoo in 1967). Certain others, echoing du Chaillu, felt sure that she represented a separate third species - one that subtly combined characteristics of chimpanzee with those of gorilla but remained taxonomically distinct from both.

Engraving of the right side of Mafuka's head

Most dramatic (yet most popular) of all, however, was the opinion voiced by zoologist Dr Richard Lydekker among others. Namely, that her interspecific combination of features showed that Mafuka was actually a crossbreed - resulting from a mating in the wild between a chimpanzee and a gorilla. Indeed, in 1881, German game hunter Hugo von Koppenfels alleged that he had positive proof that such hybridisation did occur (and these two ape forms are certainly closely related), but no such proof has ever been accepted by zoologists.

The fundamental problem responsible for the dilemma of the koolookamba's true identity is the extraordinary diversity in outward and cranial morphology exhibited by the chimpanzee across its wide geographical distribution. This explains why, by 1919, at least 20 different species of chimpanzee had been distinguished and accepted as valid by some zoologists. These included such distinctively-named forms as the soko (native to the jungles west of Lake Tanganyika) and the nschiego mbouvé (native to Gabon, like the koolookamba).

19th-Century engraving of a Gabonese nschiego mbouvé, based upon a stuffed specimen

Since the extensive taxonomic researches published by German primatologist Dr Ernst Schwarz during the 1930s, however, only two species have been recognised by most authorities.

One of these is the pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo Pan paniscus - yet another identity lately proposed for Mafuka by some researchers (click here for a separate ShukerNature article devoted specifically to the fascinating history of the bonobo).

Pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo (Dr Karl Shuker)

The other is the common chimpanzee Pan troglodytes, which is usually split into four subspecies - P. t. verus (West Africa), P. t. schweinfurthi (Central Africa), P. t. ellioti [=vellerosus] (Nigeria and Cameroon), and P. t. troglodytes (Central West Africa). One of several former full species included by Schwarz within the last-mentioned subspecies was the koolookamba - but this was one puzzling primate from the past that would not be laid to rest quite so easily.

In 1967, primatologist Professor W.C. Osman Hill reclassified the koolookamba as an additional chimpanzee subspecies in its own right, dubbing it P. t. koolokamba. Nevertheless, many researchers do not support the koolookamba's revived claim to independent status.

Painting of Pan troglodytes koolokamba ( (c) Josef Smit)

As pointed out by gorilla expert Don Cousins and American anthropologist Dr Brian Shea, individuals displaying the koolookamba's distinctive morphology arise spasmodically in totally separate populations of chimpanzees - thus indicating that the koolookamba is merely the product of a chance assemblage of genes, rather than a segregated form that breeds true.

Having said that, there does seem to be a link between koolookamba occurrence and montane habitat. And as its distinguishing features happen to be much the same as those that delineate eastern Africa's mountain gorilla G. beringei beringei from eastern Africa's lowland gorilla G. b. graueri, could the koolookamba therefore constitute an incipient mountain-favouring race of chimpanzee?

Sepia-tinted engravings of Mafuka

In the absence of further research (preferably incorporating comparative DNA analyses featuring 'typical' chimps, koolookambas, and gorillas), however, it seems likely that the koolookamba will be monkeying around with zoological opinion for a long time to come!

Nor is this anomalous anthropoid the only controversial chimpanzee on record. Others include the Bili ape, the mystery chimpanzee of Yaounde Zoo, the ufiti of Malawi, 'ape-man' Oliver, thumbless chimps, chocolate-coloured chimps, and, most extraordinary of all, the spiny-backed chimpanzee – but these must wait for future ShukerNature posts!

An engraving of Mafuka the koolookamba appearing on this Liberian postage stamp issued in 1906

THE BONOBO OR PYGMY CHIMPANZEE - A NEW APE, INCOGNITO

A bonobo at Twycross Zoo (Dr Karl Shuker)

One of the highlights of my visit yesterday to Twycross Zoo in Leicestershire, England - famous worldwide for its very comprehensive collection of primates and its excellent record of success in breeding and conserving endangered species - was viewing its breeding group of bonobos or pygmy chimpanzees Pan paniscus, led as is normal for this species by an alpha female (in the common chimp, conversely, it is an alpa male who acts as group leader).

Our own species' closest living relative (putative living Neanderthals excepted!) together with the much more familiar common chimpanzee P. troglodytes, the bonobo is visibly different from the latter species in several ways - which makes it all the more remarkable that its separate taxonomic status was not even suspected, let alone recognised, until the 1920s, i.e. less than 100 years ago. The history of the bonobo's official scientific discovery and classification as a valid species of great ape in its own right is a major success story for cryptozoology, and makes fascinating reading, which I have documented in all three of my books on new and rediscovered animals - The Lost Ark( 1993), The New Zoo (2002), and The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals(2012), and is now reproduced here on ShukerNature:

The bonobo is visibly different from - and much more human-like than - the common chimpanzee (Dr Karl Shuker)

Until the mid-1920s, science only accepted the existence of one species of chimpanzee, the familiar common species Pan troglodytes, generally divided into three subspecies. In 1928, however, zoologist Dr Ernst Schwarz was examining some specimens at the Congo Museum in Tervueren, Belgium, when he came upon a series of skeletons and skins of a chimpanzee type that appeared very different from any that he had seen before.

Two bonobos at Twycross Zoo (Dr Karl Shuker)

Obtained by a M. Ghesquiere, they revealed that this strange form of chimpanzee was smaller in size than the common species, and was much more slender in build. Its head was smaller too, but its face was longer and narrower, its dense fur was also long and was uniformly black except for a small white patch on the rump, and it lacked the common chimpanzee's familiar white beard. Schwarz discovered that these odd-looking chimps had been collected in an area of tropical rainforest on the south bank of the Congo River - all previously recorded chimpanzees had been obtained from localities north of this river.

Until viewing Twycross's specimens yesterday, I had not realised just how gracile, or relatively long-limbed, the bonobo is in comparison with the common chimpanzee (Dr Karl Shuker)

Evidently, the southern chimps comprised an important find, and their distinctive morphology persuaded Schwarz that they represented a currently undescribed subspecies. Hence in 1929 he formally documented it within the museum's journal, naming this new ape P. t. paniscus - the pygmy chimpanzee. Five years later, it was elevated to the level of a full species - P. paniscus.

Bonobo - the leggiest member of the great apes (Dr Karl Shuker)

Once science became aware of this freshly-found primate, investigations uncovered that the Tervueren examples were not the only specimens of pygmy chimp to have been collected without recognition of their separate taxonomic status. The British Museum's collections had contained one in 1895, for instance, and a living example of what was almost certainly a pygmy chimp had been on show for a time in 1923 at New York's Bronx Zoo. Similarly, John Edwards, a zoological historian and Fellow of London's Zoological Society, has kindly brought to my attention a picture postcard in his private collection depicting a chimp housed in Amsterdam Zoo, again during the early 1920s, which was quite obviously a pygmy chimpanzee.

John Edwards's historically significant postcard, depicting a bonobo maintained at Amsterdam Zoo before the separate taxonomic status of its species had been recognised (John Edwards)

Since the species' 'official' discovery, specimens (correctly identified) have been exhibited at several zoological gardens, particularly in European collections such as Antwerp Zoo and Vincennes Zoo. In 1962, Frankfurt Zoo succeeded in breeding pygmy chimps for the first time in captivity, and has repeated this feat on a number of occasions since then. Studies of captive individuals such as these have revealed that the pygmy chimpanzee is much more docile and even-tempered than its less placid, better-known relative.

Bonobos are able to stand upright on their hind legs and are adept at walking bipedally too (Alan Pringle)

There has been a fair amount of controversy concerning the pygmy chimpanzee's precise taxonomic identity. Whereas some experts are so convinced of its distinct specific status that they have even placed it within its own genus, as Bonobo paniscus (bonobo is its native name), certain others still prefer to treat it merely as a subspecies of the common chimpanzee. Recent biochemical and genetic comparisons between common and pygmy chimps, however, indicate that the latter ape is certainly sufficiently distinct to justify classification as a separate species (though whether separate generic status for it is warranted is still a matter for conjecture).

When viewing a photograph like this one, it is not difficult to comprehend that the bonobo is our own species' equal closest living relative (Dr Karl Shuker)

It seems surprising that a wholly new species of ape could remain undetected by science until as recently as the late 1920s, especially when specimens were actually preserved in scientific museums and exhibited alive in zoos. In fact, there is an even more ironic twist to this tale. Following extensive researches on the subject, Vernon Reynolds revealed in the 1960s that the individual designated by Linnaeus way back in 1758 as his type specimen for the common chimpanzee was actually a pygmy chimpanzee!

The bonobo - now recognised as a wholly discrete, second species of chimpanzee after centuries of taxonomic obscurity (Dr Karl Shuker)

For many more remarkable histories of animal discovery and rediscovery, please check out my latest book, The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals: From Okapis to Onzas - and Beyond (Coachwhip Publications: Landisville, 2012).