The Dingonek is a Dicynodont!

Is the title suficiently sensionalist for you?

Anyways, the Dingonek is an African aquatic cryptid with long fangs, that Cryptozoologicon even reinterpreted as an aquatic sabertooth. The La Belle France cave in South Africa has a cave painting of a creature that does appear to a mixture of a walrus and a manatee… and recently, a study has found that the inspiration likely lies in South Africa’s Permian dicynodont fossils.

This is amazing because it is a rare case of a geomyth proven true. Things like griffins and dragons are often attributed to fossils, but as researchers like Mark Witton have pointed out numerous times, there just isn’t imperical evidence for that. By contrast, the La Belle France creature clearly maps to dicynodont anatomy, and shows that the San people of the region had an intimate understanding of animal anatomy and see fossils as animals.

The La Belle France painting is often used to justify the Dingonek, but may also be the source of the Grootslang, another South African mythical creature with tusks. While the Grootslang is thought to be derived from Dutch encounters with pythons, the tusked visage could hark back to San oral traditions.

Overall a win for both paleontologists and anthropologists.