Mngwa (the strange one) or Nunda is a gigantic, ferocious, gray feline, said to stalk the East African country of Tanzania. Described as, "the size of a donkey," Englishcontact with this animal first began in the 1900s. In 1938, an open-minded discussion of this animal appeared in the then-world-famous British scientific journal Discovery.William Hichens, a British administrator working in Tanzania reported that several natives were attacked by this animal. He thought it to be a giant, man-eating lion that was responsible, but both fur-samples and tracks were different from those of a lion (Welfare & Fairley, 1981).
In Frank W. Lane's 1954 issue of Nature Parade, Patrick Bowen, a hunter who tracked the Mngwa at one time, remarked that the animal's tracks were like those of the leopard but much larger. The Mngwa was also described to have brindled fur that was visibly different from that of a leopard. Lane believed that the attacks reported in the 19th century by the Chimiset, associated with the Nandi Bear, might actually have been attacks by the Mngwa.
Bernard Heuvelmans speculated Mngwa to be an abnormally colored specimen of a known species, or that it may even be a larger subspecies of the African golden cat (Profelis aurata).
The Mngwa, which means the strange one, is described as an overly aggressive, unknown, big cat roughly the size of a donkey reported to roam the East African country of Tanzania. The natives of the area have known of the Mngwa for centuries but it wasn’t until the 1900’s that the English first became away of this powerful creature sometimes referred to as the great grey ghost. In the 1930’s and 1940’s the Mngwa was commonly referred to by the name of Nunda, but because of two books, written by Gardner Soule, The Mystery Monsters and The Maybe Monsters, along with the help of Bernard Heuvelmans, the name Mngwa is now more frequently used.
In 1954, in Nature Parade, romantic naturalist Frank W. Lane wrote of his interview with a hunter named Patrick Bowen who claimed to have once tracked a specimen of Mngwa.
Bowen noted that the Mngwa were similar to a leopard but much larger with fur that was brindled but visibly different from a leopard’s. Bernard Heuvelmans later theorized that the Mngwa may have been an abnormally colored specimen of already known big cat, several of which call Africa home, he also added that the Mngwa may be a larger subspecies of the ground hunting African golden cat, Profelis aurata.<
The Evidence To date no physical evidence has been discovered to support the existence of the Mngwa.
The Sightings It is not specified if hunter Patrick Bowen actually saw the Mngwa he tracked or simply heard the creature’s descriptions from locals. No other documented sightings of the creature could be found at this time.