Case file · Cryptid
Schomburgk captures the 'legendary' pygmy hippo
In 1912 the German explorer Hans Schomburgk captured live pygmy hippos in the Liberian forest for Carl Hagenbeck's zoo, proving an animal that many Europeans had dismissed as a hunter's tale.
1912 CE · 6.60, -9.60 · status: explained
The account
The species had been described from skulls in the 1840s, but no live animal had been seen by outsiders, and some zoologists doubted reports. Schomburgk's five animals reached Hamburg in 1913. Cryptozoologists cite it as a model case. The plotted point is approximate.