If you have heard of the giant ghosts of the Congo, it is likely that you have also heard about cryptozoology , a branch of culture that studies cryptos , animals considered by science as surely non-existent .
The mysterious giant ghosts of the Congo: J'ba Fofi
The Cryptids, a term cradled by John Wall in 1983 to refer to animals not confirmed by science, includes famous characters such as the Loch Ness monster, or any other dinosaur surviving the meteor of 65 million years ago, Bigfoot, the Yeti, the Chupacabra and other animals less known worldwide, but present in almost all cultures and civilizations of the globe, and among which would be the J'ba Fofi , better known as Congolese giant arana , an animal with a size of about two meters in diameter that mainly inhabited in the jungles of the Congo.
Some literal translations speak of six-meter aranas, but it would be a confusion caused by the Anglo-Saxon unit of measure, since there are five six feet in diameter, which would amount to just two meters.
If the Congo's giant spiders exist, they would be significantly larger than the Goliath tarantula ( Theraphosa blondi ), considered the largest arana of the world, with an approximate diameter of fifty centimeters.
But is a arachnid of such size possible? The J’ba Fofi would be bright yellow and had a purple abdomen in her youth, and predominantly brown when she became an adult; would live in caves made under the roots of large trees, make nests of leaf litter and spread cobwebs between two large trees, capable of capturing large mammals, such as deer, wild boars and even humans .
It would have large fangs, prepared to cross a person's neck, and its numerous eggs would have the size of a peanut.
During the first explorations of the jungles of the Congo several sightings of these spiders were mentioned by part of the natives, who were declining over the years, apparently due to the disappearance of forests due to the expansion of agriculture and livestock, but certainly there are no photographs or remains of a arachid of such size that can confirm the existence of the J'ba Fofi.
The most recent report of a sighting of giant aranas from the Congo would have been in 2013, when a night surveillance camera captured the silhouette of a possible J'ba Fofi from a couple of meters near a water well.
However, this spider that nobody would want to trip over, still belongs more to the world of cryptozoology popularized in social networks, than to that of modern biology.
Do you know any other animal just as mysterious? Share it with us, and surely you would like to read about 5 gigantic bugs of our planet and the pyrosome, a really strange creature.
Images: Only J., Broken window, Commons Wikimedia
Comments
Post a Comment