Mokele-mbembe Expeditions — Congo Basin, Central Africa (2001–present)

Since the early 2000s, a series of expeditions to the Congo Basin in central Africa have searched for Mokele-mbembe, a creature described in local tradition as a large, long-necked, herbivorous animal inhabiting the remote swamps and rivers of the Congo. The description — a creature roughly the size of an elephant with a long, flexible neck, a small head, and a powerful tail — has led some cryptozoologists to speculate that Mokele-mbembe could be a surviving sauropod dinosaur. The Republic of the Congo's vast Likouala Swamp, one of the largest and least explored wetlands on Earth, is the primary focus of searches. A 2001 BBC expedition explored the Likouala region, interviewing local Aka and Boha people who described encounters with a large, aquatic creature that inhabits deep river pools and overturns canoes. In 2006 and 2009, teams led by various researchers conducted extended expeditions into the swamps, deploying camera traps and recording witness testimony. While no physical evidence has been obtained, the consistency of local descriptions across multiple ethnic groups and geographic areas — and the fact that these descriptions have remained stable since the earliest European accounts in the 1770s — has sustained scientific curiosity. The Likouala Swamp's extreme inaccessibility means that large sections have never been surveyed by zoologists.