The Nandi Bear of West African folklore is probably not a bear.
This phantom of the jungle, with a long face, shaggy mane and gorilla-like clawed arms is most likely a distant descendant of one of two large extinct species ... but we'll come to that.
The beast in question is to West Africa what the Sasquatch is to North America or the Loch Ness Monster to Scotland: a folklore phantom of nightmare - a human sized bogey man with shaggy mane and vicious claws which steals children at night from their beds.
Yet, from a scientific viewpoint, this intriguing animal - for which there is no physical evidence beyond eye witness accounts dating back generations - is certainly very intriguing and it does seem to have made a strong impression on numerous 19th Century explorers and industrialists (particularly those building the Madadi Railway) who provided accounts with numerous overlapping details - details which have led numerous scientists to identify the Nandi Bear with the extinct species of animal known as chalicotherium which lived during the Cenozoic era between 10 and 20 million years ago.
This large ancestor of both the horse and the rhinoceros dwelt in North America, Asia, Europe - and yes, Africa - and though a herbivore had a fairly intimidating set of claws on its long powerful arms, presumably used in both feeding and defense.
So could the incredibly elusive creature attested to by both Westerners and native Africans be a long lost descendant of those huge, oddly proportioned animals, (or perhaps a giant extinct hyena, another likely candidate), or are they just a myth, constructed from sightings of a whole host of different animals glimpsed at distance and in the dark by overly anxious and somewhat fertile minds? Who know! But like the Yeti of Nepal, the Drop Bear of Australia or the Almasty of Siberia, until one is found, it will doubtless live on as fuel for monster-hunters and fiction writers alike!
For me, the fact that several scientific minds have mused on the concept of an Ice Age beast clinging on in those dense highland forests is certainly intriguing - and whetted my appetite enough to make me give paleontologist Eve Wells the opportunity to see one in the flesh in my latest installment of the Deeper Realms fantasy series.
As Eve's concerns about time traveler Ravena Friere's motives deepen, the paleo-artist finds herself called upon to help identify a creature a group of documentary making cryptozoologists are trying to track, and finds herself caught in a situation that is more than merely a dangerous hoax ...
Catch up with Deeper Realms 5 'The Nandi Bear' in both ebook and paperback format (and the previous installments of the Deeper Realms series) here:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RT64GCJ?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420
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