The Search for the Last Dinosaur?

In two days, the Newmac Expedition will head to the Republic of Congo. The members hope to find something that will stun the world. Do Africa’s deepest jungles conceal mokele-mbembe, the last of the dinosaurs?

Background on the Newmac Expedition

The Newmac Expedition consists of five young explorers. Using Kickstarter, they raised $28,925 from 750 backers in order to categorize “plant and animal species in the vastly unexplored Republic of the Congo.” They describe the Congo Basin as “a region of Central Africa larger than the state of Florida, more than 80% of which has been totally unexplored.”

“Our first expedition will be dubbed The Newmac Expedition. It will be a preliminary three month (or as long as our health allows) four man venture. We’ll launch on June 26th and we anticipate discovering hundreds of new insect, plant, and fish species during the course of our research and work in the area. There is also the legitimate hope of discovering many reptile and mammalian species as well. We have received reports from week to two week expeditions in the region of eye witnesses seeing canine sized tarantulas, large river dwelling sauropods, and a species of man eating fish (which was recently discovered on river monsters).” ~ Stephen Mccullah, Newmac Expedition

Large River Dwelling Sauropods = Mokele-mbembe?

Good lord. Canine sized tarantulas? Man eating fish? And what’s this about sauropods? Sauropods were dinosaurs. They possessed long necks, giant tails, and rather tiny heads. Their ranks included the Diplodocus and the Apatosaurus (better known as the Brontosaurus). Like all dinosaurs, the sauropods are believed to have died out 65.5 million years ago in the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event. The exact cause of the K-Pg extinction event is unknown. Many scientists blame it on the asteroid that caused the Chicxulub crater in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. But this is controversial to say the least.

“However, not everyone believes the official story. These individuals point to the fact that dinosaur bones become less frequent as they approach the K-Pg boundary. Also, there is a “fossil gap” since no bones have ever been found within the boundary itself. Taken together, these things indicate that the extinction predated the impact at Chicxulub. If this is the case, then dinosaurs were probably killed off more gradually, by things such as a volcanic winter, the Deccan traps, falling sea levels, and/or climate change.” ~ David Meyer, What Killed the Dinosaurs?

Could a living, breathing sauropod exist today? It seems unlikely. Dinosaur bones have never been found above the K-Pg boundary, which is a layer of sediment in the earth’s crust marking the switch from the Cretaceous Period (K) to the Paleogene Period (Pg). This indicates that non-avian dinosaurs became extinct at or before the creation of this boundary.

Guerrilla Explorer’s Analysis

However, that hasn’t stopped the stories. According to native tribes, a mythological creature known as mokele-mbembe (“one who stops the flow of rivers”) exists in the Congo Basin. Many cryptozoologists believe this creature could be a real-life sauropod. However, no one has ever found definitive proof of its existence.

Does the mokele-mbembe exist? Is it a sauropod? Curiously enough, in 2009, the television show MonsterQuest claimed to have seen sonar images of long, serpent-like creatures in the Congo Basin. Of course, sonar imagery is always problematic. But still…

 

Guerrilla Explorer’s Coverage of the Newmac Expedition

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