Jon Downes has announced that his Center for Fortean Zoology will attempt to track down recent accounts of “dragons” or monitor lizards in West Africa.

In early July 2006, a six-person team from the North Devon-based UK group is travelling to Gambia to investigate these folktales. They may find the trail a little cold.

Back on June 12, 1983, 15-year-old amateur naturalist Owen Burnham discovered the fresh carcass of a strange beast on the remote Bungalow Beach in Gambia. The stranded dead cryptid was around 15 feet long and looked like a cross between a crocodile and a dolphin.

Owen Burnham is today an accomplished wildlife photographer and author on African biology.

Realizing that it was something unknown to science, Owen, a missionary’s son, made detailed sketches of the creature. He and his family then buried it in the hot sand above the tide line, hoping that the dry sand would preserve the body.

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Owen made a detailed map. But the Burnhams never re-discovered the site, and the identity of the cryptid has been a hotly debated topic in cryptozoology for years, many considering it an unknown beaked whale, a misidentified dolphin, or an unknown reptile. The Centre for Fortean Zoology has a copy of the map and intends to try to find, dig up, and examine the cryptid’s body.

The group also plans to track down the source of the stories of a swamp-dwelling dragon known as Ninki-nanka. The 30-feet-long beast is said to lurk in deep riverbank holes and emerge into the swamps at night. In this way, it overlaps with the reported behavior of the Cameroon-Congolese reports of Mokele-mbembe. As recently as the early 1990s, Ninki-nanka allegedly is reported to have killed people.

Cryptozoologist Richard Freeman thinks Ninki-nanka may be a giant, semi-aquatic monitor lizard. Related to the celebrated Komodo dragon, the African reptile would be three times as long, perhaps as big as a very large crocodile. The team hopes to interview witnesses and venture into the deep mangrove swamps on the trail of the beast.

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The team members are, as pictured, left to right below:
Suzi Marsh, computer specialist;
Dr. Chris Clark, engineer;
Chris Moiser, biologist and team leader;
Lisa Dowley, first aid and security expert;
Oll Lewis, ecologist; and
Richard Freeman, cryptozoologist.

The expedition’s progress can be charted on the CFZ website.