In Western Kenya, the Nandi people who have called the region home for hundreds of years have spoke of terrifying creatures. And throughout the 20th century, a large number of sightings have came in speaking of giant beasts resembling bears, animals that are not known to call modern Africa home.
If you are interested in other Kenyan Cryptids, check out my video on the Dingonek of Lake Victoria:
https://youtu.be/2QW5I0xPwGA
If you want to learn about more bear cryptids, check out my video on surviving short faced bears:
https://youtu.be/J7sBJq5yWSI
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00:00-Intro
00:30-Setting the Stage – A Western Kenyan Tour
01:25-The Nandi Bear – The Fierce Monsters of Western Kenya
03:58-Sightings – More Than just a Safari
12:02-Explanations – Bears? Hyenas? Baboons? What Else?
23:31-Conclusion – End of Our Safari
24:45-Ending Yap
#cryptids #bear #africa #kenya #hyena #baboon #monster #story #paleontology
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When a creature has multiple names and descriptions I always try to seperate it out again by checking which names are more asociated with which description.
No glowing mouths or love of brains, very disappointed! I demand better Chemosit representation!
The DKC cave music was a nice touch. 😌
Hmmm, maybe Nandi Bear maybe an Africa Short Face Bear
Given that the family that Hyaenas belonged to(their group is very much like the caniforms in terms of features) used to be a lot more diverse before canids and the other caniform animals crossed into the old world then I could see them having had a late surviving bear-like Hyaena relative that lived in the area or may still live in the area but in limited numbers. It'd be pretty interesting if a bear-like hyena did exist, as there were dog-like hyenas that used to exist and the only ones left today(that we know of) are the bone-crushing hyenas.
Fun fact: Hyenas are closer to the feline than the canine. Stop mis-clasifying it, you bloody furries.
Relict dinocrocuta (bear sized cave hyaena
Unironically, I don't think the Nandi bear is even CLOSE to a bear, if anything it is probably a undiscovered and now extinct species of big cat, similar to that of the jaguar.
This is because of the way that jaguars and similar big cats kill their prey, they bite their skulls.
Whilst bears are more known for slashing and targeting the throat and major arteries, and hyenas just eat things alive. (Though it is to be noted that SUPPOSEDLY female hyenas have been known to kill cubs via skull biting.)
Though, chances are it is most likely just abnormally large hyenas.
Really interesting take on this creature! I personally think it could be similar to an Atlas bear or even an Ursus etruscus-like animal. Your video is so detailed, and I love how you went in-depth with the history. I also made a video on a similar topic, but I took a more humorous and shorter approach to it.
Sounds like a prehistoric bone-crushing dog. Those creatures were said to have features of both bears and dogs. Reminds me of waheela legends from Canada. Coincidentally, the waheela is also said to crush and eat the heads of its prey much like the nandi bear.
LOL, did I just see a monkey with glasses on???!
Shuelzu🪽
Great video, but I'll never understand the trend in cryptozoology to pick whatever extinct animal kinda fits the description and choosing it without any consideration for how long it's been extinct
4:08
Richard MINOR-TAKING!?
Remember reading about the Nandi back in the 1970's in my high school library. It howled. Bears don't howl. It could possibly be a remnant of the prehistoric Bear Dogs.
AMPHICYON Bear Dog.
Love this story! Happy New Year. Please make a doco on Moa sightings in New Zealand.
Love the Donkey Kong soundtrack
It looks like the rare hyenasquatch.
A bear there was, a bear, a bear!
All black and brown and covered in hair!
Unlike other cryptids like the Loch Ness Monster, you can count the Nandi Bear sightings as ZOOLOGICAL since there is no dramatization from the witnesses and they never called it a certain name but that they'd seen a weird animal and tried their best to identify it.
Even one of them thought it was just a large hyena until he noticed something was off. The Nandi Bear is one such cryptid that can easily be discovered/rediscovered by a scientific expedition since it is more of an unknown species, unlike the previously mentioned Loch Ness Monster, which has a claustrophobic mess of details.
My personal hypothesis is that the Nandi bear is a relic population of dinocrocuta gigantea
An episode about pre-British colonial East Africa with its facts selected for fact not woke, including the slavery period preceding this, and African independence activities and subsequent environmental destruction & minor genocides, political stability (compared to British Administration) would offset the un-facts & bias (insert subtle A-hole snide comment).
It should reveal another couple of Cryptids, including Leopard men, Bakara, Mau Mau members, and Amin & friends, all a fertile imagination (full of fertilizer) could sensationalise. And whose factual basis is established, not imagined or fabricated.
A list of sightings of bigfoots, thylacines & UK/Australian/NZ black panthers would reveal the vagaries of human witnesses of pussycats, and that so-called professionals & experts aren't immune from distorted memory. Although there might just be something out there….
Notably, one British Uganda resident shot what several keen biologists interpreted as a Nandi Bear, but he insisted it was a standard Hyena with an oddish skull for its age/size. Not a new species, just a "sport". And incidents of Hyenas man-eating are on sound record, breaking into huts and eating heads (carnivores love brain). So the Hyena interpretation has plenty of factual support.
Wouldn't the Malawi terror beast count as a nandi bear also, despite the distance from Kenya?