J’Ba Fofi
By Cole Herrold
Arachnophobia was never something that I
experienced growing up; in fact, as a child, I've always loved spiders. As a
boy, I used to collect the various wolf spiders and orb weavers that existed
around my house in old jars and containers and used to feed them and keep them
as pets. One of my father's friends used to raise tarantulas and, on occasion,
would give me the molted exoskeletons for show and tell, so spiders never
disturbed me growing up. So, when I became really involved in researching
Cryptozoology, one of my personal favorites was the J'ba Fofi. Now the J'ba
Fofi is a colossal cryptid and tends to go rather under the radar as opposed to
the other infamous cryptids said to live in the Congo, such as the
Mokele-Mbembe or Emela-Ntouka. This cryptid lives primarily in the jungles and
is said to be a large spider-like brown tarantula in description but with a
diameter anywhere between 3-5 ft and with a leg span rivaling that to even
exceeding to that being larger than a human being. The range of this cryptid is
traditionally associated with the region of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo and Cameroon, yet sightings of the same or at least a similar type
creature have been reported in areas outside of the Congo Basin, such as
Mozambique and Uganda.
The J'ba Fofi was first brought to the
attention of the Western world through Cryptozoologist William J. Gibbons, who
became aware of the existence of giant spiders in the Congo through Ms.
Margaret Lloyd of Potters Bar, England in 2000-2001 for she was the daughter of
two such witnesses of the creature. In 1938 Reginald Kenneth Lloyd and his new
wife Marguerite Lloyd, who was from Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), had decided to go to
the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) to engage in a
safari for their honeymoon. While they were driving down an old bush trail,
they noticed a large dark figure in the middle of the road ahead of them. They
at first thought that this object was some large jungle cat or a large monkey
hunkered down on all fours. Yet as they proceeded to get closer to the oddly
shaped figure, they soon realized in abject terror that what they were seeing
was not a primate or feline but a monstrous spider with a 4-5ft leg span. This
spider was dark brown in color, and that it also was eerily reminiscent of a
tarantula in form. Marguerite screamed in abject terror at this colossal
critter, and this caused Lloyd to stop the old Ford truck that they were seated
in. Lloyd seeing the naturalistic importance that this creature signified,
reached down to grab his camera in an effort to document this surprisingly sized
specimen, but as he looked up with camera in hand, he could see that the
creature had quickly begun to scuttle away into the dense underbrush.
Eventually disappearing completely from sight all in a matter of a few seconds.
This encounter so shook Marguerite that she instantly demanded to cut the
honeymoon short and return to Rhodesia. Once the Lloyds had returned home, they
told only a selective group of friends about their run-in with this absurd
arachnid. This encounter is often cited as the very first encounter of
non-natives seeing the creature, yet interestingly enough, there have been
reports of colossal spiders from the general vicinity predating it by some 40
years.
The earliest encounter with the J’ba Fofi
by non-natives occurred in 1890 by English Missionary Arthur Simes as well as
the rest of his company. As the group was traveling through the dense forests
of Uganda, they came into an area near Lake Nyata that was filled with dense webs.
These monstrous webs were extremely bizarre, and the group was completely
unsure as to what they were as there was no way these were normal webs due to
their colossal size. The most notable of these webs were so large that it
stretched between two massive standing trees. As the group continued to maneuver
through the area, several members of the group became ensnared in the webs and
began trying to cut the strands in an effort to free themselves. The webbing,
however, was extremely strong, and seeing that they could not cut the webbing
with any of the objects on their persons, they immediately began to cry out for
help. As they did so, however, at least two colossal spiders that were larger
than 4ft began to come near the captured men. Simes seeing his comrades
ensnared, attempted to reach his pistol in an attempt to fire at the creepy
crawlers. He, however, was not able to grab it in time, and he and the rest of
the party could only watch as the spiders proceeded to bite the men. Simes
eventually was able to get a hold of his weapon and proceeded to fire it, yet
he was unable to hit any of the creatures; instead, the spiders began to
retreat back from whence they came. They were then able to run over and slowly
managed to free the men, yet as the day progressed, the men began to feel
feverish and delirious; this then escalated to their extremities swelling up,
and a short time later, all of the men who were bit died.
Aside from the 1890 missionary encounter
with the J'ba Fofi, other non-natives did have encounters or at the very least
know of the existence of giant spiders in the area. One such explorer who went
to the Congo in the 1960s met tribe members who told him to be careful on the
path that he traveled, for there were giant flying reptiles like creatures as
well as giant spiders about 3ft in diameter in the area he was headed. The
tribes also told the explorer to be wary as these colossal spiders laid
countless eggs and that you could tell the hatchlings from the adults because
they were bright yellow with a purple abdomen.
These hatchlings would also be brought up
by other tribes to William J. Gibbons in November 2003 while he was in Cameroon
to search for Mokele-Mbembe. On this particular trip, he had decided to ask the
Baka pygmies and bushmen about whether they knew of any colossal spiders like
the ones R.K. Lloyd and his wife witnessed in 1938, and the tribes said that
they did and that they called such animals J'ba Fofi. They claimed that this
animal, due to its size, typically makes a ground lair from leaves and webbing
and that its lair makes the same shape as one of their huts. These spiders are
master web builders and also have a unique way of acquiring prey; they will
create tripwires from their webbing and will attach them between small trees to
cause large prey to fall into more sturdier web structures around. This method
has allowed these spiders to capture animals as large as a duiker (a kind of
antelope). These spiders will also string webs in-between trees to capture
birds, and that one of Gibbons informants, Bruno Abolo, did a drawing in the
dirt of a life-size web of the creature and stated that on the drawing that he
did that the body of the spider could take up the entire size of the web and that
the threads of the web were extremely strong. The tribes also brought up how
these spiders laid white peanut-sized eggs that yellow spiderlings with purple
opisthosomas (the posterior part) and that as these spiders age, they darken
and turn brown in color. The tribes also claimed that these spiders were once
extremely common in the area but that they now have become rather rare for
several reasons, some of which is due to deforestation and the other is that
these spiders are frequently killed by the Baka as they are extremely dangerous
due to their venom. Yet the natives, as they were telling him, stated that they
were in the area as recently as July 2003.
No further sightings of the creature have
since gone unreported, yet this is not the end of the story, and in fact, this
is one of the few cases that actually might have some sort of evidence of its
existence. The piece of evidence I am referring to is a brief piece of footage
that was claimed to of been captured via trail camera in 2014 in an area around
the Maptualand area of Mozambique by some campers who had heard stories from
locals in the area about giant burrows and webs in the area. The campers
proceeded to, before going to sleep in the area, put up a trail camera in a way
of seeing if there was anything strange in the area. This footage was released
only originally by CryptoDragon UK and was uploaded to YouTube on
September 12, 2018. Now I need to stress when it comes to footage, this is one
of the most incomprehensible pieces out there, and when I first came across CryptoDragon
UK's video, it took at least four views of it to even get an idea of what I was
supposed to be seeing. Thankfully a better and more detailed analysis of the
footage was done by Crash Course Cryptozoology, and they were able to
salvage the footage and bring up some interesting points to the creature
captured in the footage. The footage shows a forested area with some sort of
water source, and at around 40 seconds in, a strange scuttling figure comes in
at the far right corner between two trees that then abruptly stops and then
quickly scuttles towards its left, ultimately disappearing from view. The
figure is interesting, to say the least, and does seem to be some sort of
arthropod, and I feel that's the best way of putting it if the figure in the
footage is real and not some sort of photoshop or edited in image. There is
some issue as to just how the figure enters the frame, for if it enters facing
the camera, then when it turns left, it does a sidestep which is something most
spiders cannot do. If the creature, however, is seen from the side, however,
this is in the range of normal spider mobility. This gets into some of the
other hypotheses as to just what the J'ba Fofi is, which I will get into in a
little bit. I have included both the original video source and the Crash
Course Cryptozoology video in the works cited section of this article and
really encourage anyone to check out specifically the Crash Course
Cryptozoology video for an excellent breakdown and enhancement of the
footage.
Now, of all the various hypotheses that
exist for some of the other topics that I’ve covered on this site with
creatures like this, there are really not many possibilities that it could be.
Going off the most skeptical possibilities, these tales of the J'ba Fofi could
be some sort of mythical tale by locals to offer as a warning of the danger of
the jungle or that these are stories created by cryptozoologists or other
explorers as ways of raising money for their expeditions. Yet while certainly
there are and has been issues with researchers misinterpreting at best or
causing cultural appropriation at worst in regard to these creatures with the
J'ba Fofi, this does not seem to exactly be the case, nor does this creature
have the same draw or pull as say other creatures in the area like the
Kongamato or the Mokele-Mbembe or Ngoubou cryptids that researchers already use
to get people to fund their expeditions so to use a J'ba Fofi as a kind of bait
or claim to get more money simply seems a bit overkill. Also, there is confirmation
from the natives as they, when asked about the creature, proceeded to make images
of the creature and its web, implying that they have a true belief in the
animal.
Now aside from the skeptical side, the
only real possibility for this creature is that they are an undiscovered
species. Now from this hypothesis, there are two possibilities; the first is
that this is an as of yet undiscovered species of spider that is something akin
to either a Goliath Birdeater or something like a trapdoor spider or getting
into one possibility seen with the Mozambique footage even though it’s unlikely
a new and if so groundbreaking new species of crab spider since if the footage
is of a spider moving sideways it would have to be some kind or a relative of
crab spiders. Now, of course, there are some problems with this hypothesis; the
biggest deals with the fact that spiders now do not grow to the size reported
with the J'ba Fofi. Spiders have a
tracheal respiratory system which is a respiratory system that consists of a
network made up of small tubes that carry oxygen to every cell in the animal's
body. This system prevents insects and other arthropods of this kind from
growing to colossal sizes mainly because the trachea does not transport oxygen
well enough for a creature of colossal stature. Yet with that said, history has
had colossal insects for during the late Carboniferous period and early Permian
period, there were giant insects like the Meganeura, a colossal dragonfly with
an almost 3-4 ft wingspan. The problem, however, is that during this time in
earth's history, the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere was far greater than
what it is today, and because of this, spiders and other insects became unable
to continue to grow to such sizes. The tracheal respiratory system is commonly
seen in the larger spiders, whereas an alternative form of respiration is seen
in smaller spiders which are book lungs which are flattened organs that allow
passive respiration. Currently, neither system would be able to allow them to
grow to the colossal sizes; however, if these species are, in fact, spiders,
then they are revolutionary for clearly, they evolved vastly different and with
a completely far more complex and advanced respiratory system.
The other possibility with this species is
that what is being seen is not a spider but, in fact, a kind of crab. Now while
webs are not associated with crabs, there are several species of crabs that do
bear a strong resemblance to a land crab. There are a group of crabs known as
terrestrial crabs that can grow to incredibly large sizes. One of the most
likely in connection with the J'ba Fofi is the Coconut Crab; these crabs are
reported on islands of the Pacific and the Indian Ocean and can reach a leg
span of three feet with a body length of a little over a foot. These species
are known to be highly opportunistic and aggressive and have been known to eat
kittens and were also believed to be responsible for the disappearance of
Amelia Earhart or simply her body after her plane crashed. When one looks at
these creatures, there is a very strong similarity to reports of the J'ba Fofi
in description so perhaps what is being seen is some species of Coconut Crab or
a similar species that is landlocked in the jungles of Africa. If this is the
case, much like the giant spider hypothesis, this would be revolutionary and
perhaps has developed features or abilities that might be reminiscent of what
one would compare to a spider's web, which could explain the conflation with a
spider. However, as with the spider hypothesis, this is mere speculation.
Giant spiders are something that are
frequently reported around the world and have appeared particularly in areas of
jungle locations such as South America and Papua New Guinea and reported by
tribes and pygmies and cultures extensively removed from excessive contact with
the outside world. It's from this that one has to wonder why cultures isolated
and removed from “society” would all have tales regarding similar creatures
that in many ways are extremely similar. If these reports came from, say, the
united states or England post-1960, I would be more skeptical as to these
reports as one could easily recreate such a story from pulling from J.R.R.
Tolkien's The Hobbit or The Two Towers. Its from this, I tend to
feel that this is one of the few cryptids that most likely exists as a true
species now just how and why it came to be one can speculate, but until that
day that one is captured or killed, we can only hope that they only dwell in
isolated pockets of the jungles and away from where children and pets are.
Quick Facts:
Species/Potential Species: Arachnid, Crustacean,
or similar Arthropod
Location: Cameroon, Uganda, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Mozambique
Sighted: Native encounters- July 2003
Works Cited:
Mirabilis By Karl P.N. Shuker
Mokele-Mbembe: Mystery Beast of the Congo
Basin By William J. Gibbons
Brent Swancer “Mysterious Giant Spiders of
the Congo” Mysterious Universe. September 2, 2015. https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/09/mysterious-giant-spiders-of-the-congo/.
Accessed July 21, 2021.
Dr. Karl P.N. Shuker “Giant Spiders-
Monstrous Myth or Terrifying Truth” Shukernature. July 30, 2014. http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2014/07/giant-spiders-monstrous-myth-or.html.
Accessed July 20, 2021.
"J'ba Fofi" Encyclopaedia of Cryptozoology. https://cryptidarchives.fandom.com/wiki/J%27ba_fofi. Accessed March 20, 2021.
Crash Course Cryptozoology. “The
Mozambique Footage” December 10, 2021. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTVN2-nJ0MY
CryptoDragon UK “J'BA FOFI CAUGHT ON
CAMERA! {ENHANCED VERSION/SHORTENED}” Sep 12, 2018. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgGEeDPWBeo&t=0s
Unexplained Mysteries “3 Mysterious J'ba
FoFi Giant Spider Encounters From The Congo That Can't Be Explained” April 22,
2021. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwCW4uJ30FY
MonsterQuest.” Monster Spiders”
Season 2 Episode 17. October 22, 2008. History.
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