ShukerNature: THE GRUESOME GBAHALI – LURKING IN LIBERIA?

Illustration of the gbahali primarily based upon
eyewitness descriptions (© Tim Morris)

Since
1900, the West African nation of Liberia, nonetheless plentifully provided with
coastal mangrove swamps and inside rainforests, and lengthy deemed a
biodiversity hotspot by zoologists, has been the scene of no less than 4 main
zoological discoveries of species new to science or rediscoveries of species
believed extinct. Specifically, the enormous forest hog Hylochoerus meinertzhageni, the pygmy hippopotamus Choeropsis liberiensis, Jentink’s duiker
Cephalophus jentinki, and the
Liberian mongoose Liberiictis kuhni.

All of
these are mammals, in fact, however there’s additionally some thought-provoking proof
to recommend {that a} fifth main zoological discover continues to be ready to be made right here
– and this time of the reptilian selection.

West Africa’s dwarf crocodile, observe its quick
snout (public area)

4
species of crocodilian are recognized to exist in Liberia. These are the Nile
crocodile Crocodylus niloticus, the
dwarf crocodile Osteolaemus tetraspis,
the West African slender-snouted crocodile Mecistops
cataphractus, and the West African or sacred crocodile C. suchus (solely fairly not too long ago delineated from the Nile crocodile
as a sound distinct species in its personal proper). The primary two are restricted to
this nation’s coastal swamps, and are thought-about uncommon, as is the third (a
little-studied, human-avoiding species), whereas the fourth one, which happens
additional inland, is sort of widespread.

Nevertheless,
native Liberians additionally communicate of a fifth crocodile-like creature, presently
unknown to science, which they seek advice from because the gbahali (pronounced ‘bar-hye’),
and think about to be bigger and extra harmful than even the Nile crocodile –
itself a extremely aggressive, infamous man-eater that may develop as much as 21 ft lengthy.

The
gbahali first attracted widespread Western consideration on 20 December 2007, when
veteran American cryptozoologist Loren Coleman revealed on the thriller beast
web site Cryptomundo a communication
that he had acquired the day past. It was from a correspondent named
John-Mark Sheppard (some accounts spell his surname as Shephard) – an American
missionary working at the moment with a global aid and growth
organisation in northernmost Liberia’s Lofa County, close to this nation’s border
with Guinea.

In his
communication, Sheppard revealed that he had learnt from the indigenous individuals
there about a number of unusual, unidentified creatures which may be of potential
cryptozoological curiosity, together with the gbahali. He had spoken to a variety of
alleged eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen the latter thriller beast in
latest years, and in keeping with their testimony, as documented by Sheppard:

It’s described as being like a crocodile or monitor
lizard, however a lot bigger (as much as 25 or 30 ft lengthy). It has an armored again with
three rows of serrations operating down it, a robust tail, and a brief snout
with many massive tooth. It’s recognized to be an ambush predator, carrying its prey
underwater to drown earlier than approaching shore to eat it.

Sheppard
even travelled to a village deep within the Liberian rainforest the place the fishermen
claimed to have truly caught gbahali specimens, utilizing nets to seize them
and shotguns to kill them, earlier than butchering their carcases for meat, which
they then offered at native markets. That they had even preserved the cranium of 1 such
specimen, which had been retained within the village till rebels invaded it throughout
this nation’s civil conflict (which resulted in 2003) and set it ablaze, destroying
all the pieces there, together with that scientifically-precious gbahali cranium.

When
interviewing the villagers, Sheppard confirmed them varied illustrations of
modern-day and prehistoric crocodilians and crocodilian-like animals that he
had downloaded from the web. Of those, the creature that they thought-about
most comparable in look to the gbahali was a creative reconstruction of the
probably look in lifetime of a prehistoric reptile from North America’s Late Triassic
Interval, generally known as Postosuchus. This
very sizeable beast, as much as 6 m lengthy, belonged to a long-extinct taxonomic
household whose members, generally known as rauisuchians, had been associated to crocodilians.

The
locals said that the top and physique of Postosuchus
as depicted within the inventive reconstruction resembled that of the gbahali,
however that its legs had been extra erect (i.e. supporting its physique from beneath) than
the gbahali’s, that are allegedly semi-erect in stance (i.e. extra sprawling),
like these of crocodilians.

Persevering with
his narrative, Sheppard said:

The river through which these creatures are stated to reside
may be very distant, passing by way of massive areas of uninhabited forest. They’re stated
to primarily be seen through the wet season, once they journey upstream to look
for meals. They’re tremendously feared by the native inhabitants, as a result of they’ve
been recognized to kill individuals.

Certainly,
in keeping with Sheppard one such incident could have occurred as not too long ago as
November 2007, only a month earlier than he had despatched his communication to Coleman. A
man had been attacked and killed by a potential gbahali close to a village named
Gelema, on that selfsame river. When the United Nations police had been despatched there
to research this incident, all that they may discover was the sufferer’s head
and some physique elements that the creature had left behind on the river financial institution. This
ties in with native claims talked about above by Sheppard whereby the gbahali
drowns its sufferer, then comes ashore with their lifeless physique to devour it there.

Worthy
of observe, by the way, is that again when Gelema’s official city assembly home
was constructed, its size was intentionally constructed in order to correspond with
that of a gbahali that had been killed there some years beforehand.
Consequently, this grim thriller beast would certainly seem like native to the
space encompassing Gelema.

Additionally
of curiosity, as particularly identified by Sheppard when concluding his
account of the gbahali, the native individuals don’t think about this beast to be in
any approach magical or supernatural. As a substitute, they merely look upon it as simply
one other regular, abnormal animal native to their locality (albeit a really massive,
harmful one), nothing extra – which in flip tends to lend plausibility to
their testimony regarding it.

Sheppard
ended with a tantalizingly temporary point out of {a photograph} that had supposedly
been taken of a gbahali someday within the earlier 10 years throughout an try to
seize this creature, however he made no point out of what had occurred to it,
at all times assuming in fact that such an image had certainly been obtained.

After
spending a few years behind the digicam as a first-rate, highly-acclaimed movie/TV
cameraman and cinematographer, in 2017 Paul ‘Mungo’ Mungeam stepped in entrance of
it to current a brand new cryptozoology-themed TV documentary present entitled Expedition Mungo. Every of its episodes
(filmed in 2016 and early 2017) noticed him and his personal movie crew go to a special
location world wide allegedly inhabited by a mysterious creature
seemingly unknown to science. Certainly one of these episodes noticed them in Liberia’s Lofa
County, in search of the gbahali, and the place they really interviewed Sheppard on
display.

Mungo’s
gbahali expedition centered its consideration upon the Kahai River and its
tributaries, the place this greatly-feared creature is understood by the locals to exist
and the place, due to this fact, they keep away from as a lot as potential until it’s completely
important to cross from one riverbank to a different or to hunt for meals there. One
villager named Momo knowledgeable Mungo that he and his brother had encountered a
ghahali on land as soon as whereas they had been searching on the Kahai River, however as soon as seen
it disappeared into the water.

Discounting
the likelihood that it was merely a crocodile, Momo said that its head was
lizard-like however with its eyes positioned far again on it, a trait usually exhibited by
aquatic animals, and its tooth had been interlocking. Furthermore, though it walked
on all fours like a crocodile, its physique was raised up, held off the bottom to a
better diploma than a crocodile’s is. He additionally talked about to Mungo that one such
creature had killed and devoured three males who had been trying to cross the
Kahai on a raft at nightfall.

Equally,
one other alleged gbahali eyewitness interviewed by Mungo, a person named Isaac from
Monena, a distant Liberian frontier village, recalled an oft-told claimed
killing of a person in a shallow river by a gbahali. The person had been trying
to cross the river on foot to succeed in a celebration of fisherman mates on the far
financial institution. His mates advised him to not cross, as a result of a gbahali had been seen there
earlier that very same day, however he ignored their recommendation and proceeded to wade
throughout. Earlier than he may attain the opposite facet, nonetheless, a gbahali surfaced,
seized the person, and dragged him beneath the water, by no means to be seen once more.

As for
Isaac’s personal sighting, which had occurred not lengthy earlier than Mungo had arrived at
Monena in early 2017: similar to Momo, Isaac had been fishing along with his personal
brother on the river close by when he noticed one thing swimming in direction of his brother:

He rotated and stated:
“It appears to be like like a crocodile”. I stated: “Hey, that isn’t a
crocodile, that’s an animal greater than a crocodile”. We’re speaking about
the Gbahali…The mouth was within the type of a lizard.

Isaac
estimated the gbahali to have measured round 20 ft lengthy, and insisted that it
was very totally different in look from a crocodile.

Additionally
interviewed by Mungo at Monena was fisherman Seiku, who divides his time
between this village and a camp on an much more distant stretch of the Kahai.
Seiku claimed to have seen a gbahali twice throughout his travails alongside this route
in September 2016, once more not lengthy earlier than Mungo’s arrival right here.

A number of
different villagers interviewed by Mungo at Monena additionally claimed to have seen a
gbahali, however as Sheppard had found earlier throughout his personal investigations,
they didn’t think about it to be in any approach magical or paranormal, only a regular,
abnormal creature like the entire different animal species inhabiting this
locality.

Sadly,
Mungo and his group didn’t have any sightings of their very own, but when, as
fervently averred by Liberia’s Lofa County hunters and fishermen, the gbahali
is certainly an actual, flesh-and-blood beast, what would possibly it’s?

The
most conservative identification is the Nile crocodile (Liberia’s different three
crocodile species are a lot too small and/or cautious of human proximity). Though
formally confined to this nation’s coastal swamps, maybe some stragglers
have penetrated additional inland, reaching rivers, tributaries, and surrounding
terrain containing loads of appropriate prey, enabling them to thrive and
set up viable populations there, and presumably finally attaining better
sizes than their coastal ancestors, their elevated weight readily buoyed by their
watery habitat.

But
the locals are adamant that the gbahali isn’t any abnormal crocodile, or perhaps a
crocodile in any respect, emphasizing its short-snouted, lizard-like head and its extra
erect limbs as notable differentiating options. Additionally, its claimed behaviour of
killing its prey within the water by drowning it however then bringing it onto land to
devour it differs from typical crocodile feeding behaviour, through which the prey
is often eaten within the water, the latter being utilized as a method of
softening the prey’s carcase for simpler consumption.

Liberia
is residence to some sizeable monitor lizards (varanids), together with the West African
Nile monitor Varanus stellatus, as much as
7.2 ft lengthy, whose heads, extra erect stance than crocodiles, and terrestrial
consumption of prey recall the gbahali. Nevertheless, the latter’s nice measurement (even
permitting for exaggeration upon the a part of its frightened eyewitnesses) and its
very distinctive armoured, tri-serrated dorsal floor don’t.

Now
for the Postosuchus risk. On
the one hand, as famous earlier right here, when it comes to each form and measurement a
reconstruction illustration of this creature was in contrast fairly favourably with
the gbahali’s alleged look by the villagers to whom Sheppard confirmed it.
Additionally, its fossils have been present in areas believed to have hosted again in
the time of Postosuchus an
setting much like the present-day habitat in Liberia the place the gbahali
apparently exists, i.e. tropical, moist, and plant-plentiful, well-supplied with
rivers and different expanses of freshwater.

Conversely,
Postosuchus belongs to a
long-extinct, wholly prehistoric household of reptiles recognized solely from what’s now
North America, and present through the late Triassic Interval, i.e. roughly
201-237 million years in the past – none of which bodes effectively for it being a believable
identification for the gbahali.

True,
we can’t completely rule out the prospect that the latter constitutes a
modern-day Previous World descendant of Postosuchus
that has someway completely evaded scientific detection (like its presumed fossil
antecedents right here), particularly in such a heavily-forested distant area as
northern Liberia. Nonetheless, the additional again in time that the unique
creature existed, and the additional away geographically-speaking that it existed
from the place its postulated descendant does at this time, the much less probably such an
instance of prehistoric survival is, by definition.

In
addition, primarily based upon its shorter forelegs, Postosuchus
is these days generally deemed to have been no less than partly, if not
completely, bipedal, whereas the gbahali is wholly quadrupedal. Additionally, Postosuchus is believed to have been
terrestrial, quite than aquatic or no less than amphibious in way of life because the
gbahali is said to be.

Postosuchus depicted in bipedal stance and in contrast in measurement with a human
(Dr Jeff Martz-NPS/Wikipedia, launched into the general public area)

One other
putative prehistoric survivor that has been thought-about as a potential gbahali
candidate is a few type of modern-day descendant of Kaprosuchus saharicus. This was a 20-ft-long semi-aquatic species
of mahajangasuchid crocodyliform that sported an armoured snout for slamming
its prey down, plus three pairs of sizeable tusks for tearing the latter’s
flesh. These tooth have earned for it the nickname ‘BoarCroc’, resulting from their
superficial resemblance to the tusks of untamed boars.

In contrast to
Postosuchus, Ok. saharicus, as its title signifies, did reside in Africa (its
fossilized stays have been excavated in what’s at this time Niger), however
roughly 95 million years in the past, through the Late Cretaceous. Consequently,
it’s beset by a lot the identical chronological points as Postosuchus when into account as a believable instance of
prehistoric survival.

If
solely there could possibly be a recognized, historically-recent creature resembling and
behaving quite just like the gbahali. In truth, there’s – or was. The mekosuchines
represent a taxonomic clade of crocodilians that included sure
representatives which persevered into the present-day geological epoch, the
Holocene (starting lower than 12,000 years in the past), on varied Pacific island
teams, together with Fiji, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia.

Certainly,
one genus, Mekosuchus, survived on
these islands till no less than as not too long ago as 3,000 years in the past, presumably even
longer (as late as 1720 BP, i.e. 300 AD, within the case of the youngest species, M. inexpectatus), earlier than apparently
being exterminated when people arrived there (though, tellingly, there isn’t a
direct proof for this, solely hypothesis primarily based upon the fates of different island
endemics as soon as our personal species reached their insular domains). Numerous different,
older mekosuchine genera, corresponding to Quinkana,
in addition to earlier Mekosuchus
representatives, previously existed on mainland Australia.

M. inexpectatus specifically was
notable for its quick snout, and like its different historically-recent Mekosuchus kin is believed to have
adopted a way more upright stance and mode of strolling than any of at this time’s
recognized crocodilians, all of which attracts comparisons with the gbahali. So too
does the consensus that M. inexpectatus
in all probability inhabited tropical rivers and streams, similar to West Africa’s
present-day dwarf crocodiles, presumably coming onto land at evening to feed.

In
stark distinction to the gbahali, nonetheless, mekosuchines had been of solely very modest
dimensions, usually not more than 6 ft in whole size, generally even shorter
than that. Additionally, simply as Postosuchus is
recognized solely from the New World, mekosuchines are recognized solely from Oceania; there
is none on document from Africa, or wherever else on the earth.

Even
so, the mekosuchines are related to the gbahali saga inasmuch as their
existence, albeit far-removed geographically from the latter cryptid, confirms
that no less than some crocodilians of comparable look to it (excluding whole
size) are certainly recognized from fashionable occasions, thus offering a notable precedent
– and that might not be all.

Convergent
evolution is a well-known phenomenon whereby animals in extensively disparate
geographical localities and sometimes of solely distant taxonomic affinity
nonetheless rework by way of time into outwardly comparable creatures resulting from
sharing the identical ecological habitat and area of interest. So may it’s that
ecologically-speaking, the taxonomically-distant gbahali has nonetheless
developed a mekosuchine morphology by present in a habitat corresponding to that of
the latter crocodilians, however has attained a a lot better measurement resulting from its
habitat’s distant location coupled with the worry that it generates amongst human
hunters, who usually desire to keep away from it quite than confront it?

In
quick (not like the gbahali itself, which is allegedly something however quick!),
may Liberia’s thriller reptile be a completely novel, in addition to a presently
undescribed, species of African crocodilian?

Alternatively,
turning full circle by way of the succession of identities thought-about right here, would possibly
this cryptid merely be an unusually massive type of Nile crocodiles in any case?
The rationale that I’ve returned to this feature is that I’m effectively conscious that there
is a typical tendency amongst native non-scientific individuals who intimately share
their lives alongside massive, doubtlessly harmful creatures to present a
utterly separate title to exceptionally massive specimens of such a species
from the title that they offer to normal-sized specimens of that very same species,
treating the outliers as a essentially totally different animal sort from their
typically-sized brethren.

So
would possibly it merely be that experiences of gbahalis are nothing greater than experiences of
exceptionally massive Nile crocodiles which were given this separate native
title?

The
drawback with such a proposed decision to the gbahali thriller, nonetheless, is that
we are able to solely settle for this by conveniently ignoring the opposite morphological, and
behavioural, variations from regular Nile crocodiles that the locals ascribe to
the gbahali – which in my view could be very unwise.

Historical past
has proven repeatedly how, by taking heed of native, native testimony,
extraordinary animals hitherto dismissed by Western zoologists as mere folklore
have been formally found and revealed to be exceptional species completely
new to science.

So,
would possibly the gbahali sooner or later show to be one other one? In view of the enormous forest
hog, pygmy hippo, Jentink’s duiker, and the Liberian mongoose, I would need to
suppose greater than twice earlier than betting in opposition to such a prospect.

For full particulars in regards to the discoveries
of the 4 Liberian mammals famous above, make sure you try my three books
on new and rediscovered animals: