Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

(2) An oversized, all-black Ratel (Mellivora
capensis). This lumbering, black-and-white
badger grows to about 2 feet 6 inches long
(with a 1-foot tail) and will occasionally raid
small livestock. All-black animals have
occasionally been reported, while others
have only a narrow band of white. Bernard
Heuvelmans attributes several sightings
(Toulson’s, Hislop’s, and Anderssen’s) to a
melanistic ratel. Its plantigrade feet make
composite, oblong tracks.
(3) A Spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) of
unusual color or size. Though primarily a
timid scavenger, it will kill slower mammals
for food and is occasionally a bold attacker.
This hyena grows to 5 feet 10 inches in
length, with a 2-foot tail. Reginald Pocock
suggests a red variation as the source of
Nandi bear reports. In 1929, the skin of a
young female Sabrookoo killed at an
altitude of 8,000 feet in Uganda near
Mount Elgon was examined by Charles
Pitman. Its fur was blackish-brown dabbled
with white, and it had a coarse, pale mane.
He identified it as an aberrant spotted
hyena with dark coloration. A stray or
escaped Brown hyena (Hyaena brunnea),
normally found only in South Africa, might
also have played a part in the Nandi bear
legend.
(4) An Aardvark (Orycteropus afer),
suggested by Bernard Heuvelmans for
Charles Stoneham’s sighting. This animal
has a pig’s snout, huge ears, coarse brown
hair, and a powerful tail. Its footprints may
also have caused confusion; when it stands
on its hind legs, it puts its sole flat on the
ground and leaves a five-toed print with
deep claw marks. However, it only eats ants
and termites.
(5) An unknown anthropoid ape, though
apes are largely herbivorous and timid and
thus do not fit the alleged ferocity of the
Nandi bear. However, there have been
reports of unknown PRIMATES and GIANT
HOMINIDS, such as the GERIT in Kenya,
that might contribute to the legend.
(6) Baboons have the temperament for
violent attacks, but the male Savanna
370 NANDI BEAR
baboon (Papio cynocephalus) of East Africa is
not much more than 3 feet 3 inches long
and less than 2 feet at the shoulder. The
Olive baboon (P. anubis) is larger, with a
maximum length of 3 feet 8 inches and a
shoulder height of 2 feet 4 inches. The
Chacma baboon (P. ursinus) of South Africa
and the Gelada (Theropithecus gelada) of
Ethiopia are a bit smaller. The Mandrill
(Mandrillus sphinx) of Gabon grows to 3
feet 4 inches long and a shoulder height of
2 feet, but its distinctive coloration would
betray it. The Nandi bear is at least a third
larger than any of these.
(7) A surviving Giant baboon (Theropithecus
oswaldi), an ancestor of the gelada that lived
in Kenya 4 million–650,000 years ago. The
male was roughly the size of a female gorilla
and weighed 250 pounds. It was too big to
live in trees and could not use its long
forearms for swinging. Early Paleolithic
peoples may have hunted it to extinction.
Another candidate might be the large fossil
baboon, Dinopithecus ingens, discovered by
Robert Broom in South Africa in the 1930s.
It lived 3–1.5 million years ago and is
possibly related to the ancestors of the
mandrill.
(8) A surviving Short-faced hyena
(Pachycrocuta brevirostris), a lion-sized
carnivore that lived in Southern Europe and
West Asia during the Middle Pleistocene. It
had a short muzzle, strongly built jaws, and
massive teeth, making its profile more
bearlike than that of modern hyenas. Karl
Shuker thinks this active predator would
make an excellent Nandi bear.
(9) A surviving chalicothere, a member of a
family of fossil ungulates that lived 45
million years ago, in the Eocene, and
survived in East Africa until 12,000 years
ago. These animals were horselike mammals
with large retractile claws instead of hooves,
long necks, rearward-sloping backs, and
elongated front limbs that were much longer
than the hind legs. They browsed on tree
leaves and probably knuckle-walked like a
gorilla, with claws curled inward. Evidence
that a chalicothere may have survived into