FAMOUS AFRICAN CRYPTID FOUND REAL

COURTESY OF R. LEWIS VIA CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE

Originally published May 6, 2022

WARNING: The contents of The Canine Comical are purely fictional and intended to be humorous, satirical. Readers are advised not to confuse them with real incidents.

After surviving the African jungle, Logan Zoola found something he never expected to find, a new creature to describe and publish.

While on a trip to Africa to experience its wildlife for himself, Zoola got lost in the jungle and came across a lake filled with unknown creatures.

“When finding them, I was both ecstatic and scared at what they could do, but I was able to take some good notes,” Zoola said.

The animal found seemed to be a hybrid of an elephant, a rhinoceros, and a stegosaurus, with a sauropod-shaped trunk.

“All scientists, including me, were shocked at how it was able to both survive and not be found for so long.” zoologist Brian Ceros said

When deciding on what to name it Zoola was reminded of what a local tribe told him about that section of the jungle.

“'Beware of the territory of the Mokele-Mbembe’, the tribe leader told me,” Zoola said, “so when I needed to name it, I called it the Mokele-Mbembe.”

Further checking under the location where the Mokele-Mbembe was found showed more interesting discoveries.

“The fossils of the Mokele-Mbembe show it started existing during the Neogene period of the Cenozoic era.” intern paleontologist Laura Pato said

Unfortunately, one hour after Zoola published his findings, poachers started flocking to its territory to collect trophies from it.

“I was honestly surprised at how many poachers were there in Africa.” poacher Tim Phant said. “1,999,990 to be exact.”

It only took one day for the population of the Mokele-Mbembe to drop from least concern to extinct in the wild.

“Learning of the population dropping from 2,000,000 to 10, I honestly feel bad for hunting one down.” Phant said.

With many Mokele-Mbembes falling dead, taxidermies of the creature were easy to find.

“I and other taxidermists made many Mokele-Mbembe taxidermies,” taxidermist Bella Stego said, “then we sent them to museums and schools across the world.”

Choosing museums to send the taxidermies to was easy to do, but choosing schools was more difficult.

“We sent taxidermies to the University of Washington, MIT, Auburn High School, Riverside, Mt. Baker Middle School, and a few more.” Stego said.

The taxidermy sent to MBMS is being used in science teacher Anti Ferri’s class in the 000 hall.

“It’s nice to use the taxidermy in class,” Ferri said, “when I’m not using it, I keep it in my basement next to the fridge.”

All the living Mokele-Mbembe are living at The Pacific Northwest Zoo in the Africa section of the zoo.

“We had to build a giant enclosure for them because we are the only zoo breeding them, helping them continue to live in this precious world.” zookeeper Tina Potomas said.

Right next door is one taxidermy of the Mokele-Mbembe at The Pacific Northwest Museum in their biology section.

“The taxidermy is nice to have and use to teach museum curators.” professional child Jimmy Seum said.

At Ceros' labs, some experiments may lead to more Mokele-Mbembe in the future.

"We are going to put DNA from some Mokele-Mbembe bones and put them in platypus eggs." Ceros said.