Nandi Bear

koala · Site Admin Joined: 12 Oct 2006 Posts: 712

The so-called Nandi Bear is a scientifically unrecognized animal said to live in Africa. Frank W. Lane wrote, "What the Abominable Snowman is to Asia, or the great Sea Serpent is to the oceans, the Nandi Bear is to Africa. It is one of the most notorious of those legendary beasts which have, so far, eluded capture and the collector's rifle."Westerners have reported Nandi Bears from the early 1900s.

The creature takes its name from the Nandi people who live in western Kenya, near where the Nandi Bear is supposed to live.

The Nandi people call it Kerit. It is believed that the animal would kill and only eat the brain.

Other than the extinct Atlas Bear, no bears live in Africa, so the term "Nandi Bear" may be something of a misnomer.

Descriptions of the Nandi Bear are of a ferocious, powerfully built carnivore with high front shoulders (over four feet tall) and a sloping back; somewhat similar to a hyena. Some have specualted that Nandi Bears are in fact a misidentified hyena (or an unrecognized hyena subspecies). Louis Leakey suggested that Nandi Bear descriptions matched that of the extinct chalicotherium.