[...] I asked "What is the kongamato?" The answer was, "A bird." "What kind of bird?" "Oh, well it isn't a bird really: it is more like a lizard with membranous wings like a bat." [...]
[...]
Further enquiries disclosed the "facts" that the wing-spread was from 4 to 7 feet across, that the general color was red. It was believed to have no feathers but only skin on its body, and was believed to have teeth in its beak: these last two points no one could be sure of, as no one ever saw a kongamato close and lived to tell the tale. I sent for two books which I had at my house, containing pictures of pterodactyls, and every native present immediately and unhesitatingly picked it out and identified it as a kongamato. Among the natives who did so was a headman (Kanyinga) from the Jiundu country, where the kongamato is supposed to be active, and who is a rather wild and quite unsophisticated native.
The natives assert that this flying reptile still exists, and whether this be so or no it seems to me that there is presumptive evidence that it has existed within memory of man, within comparatively resent days.
Melland, Frank H., In Witch-Bound Africa, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1923, pp. 237-238.
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