An interesting paper was published in December 1998 by Fordham University biologist David Barney and Madagascar archaeologist Ramilisonin in the journal American Anthropologist. The authors analyzed the evidence they collected during July-August 1995 in the remote fishing village of Belo-sur-Mer in southwestern Madagascar.
Locals described two scientifically unidentified creatures. They are now known as kilopilopitsofy, which translates from Malagasy as "hanging ears".
The eyewitnesses were interviewed independently of each other, and scientists tried to avoid leading questions that could push people to certain answers whenever possible. Every effort has been made to obtain the most accurate and reliable information. The testimonies of seven major eyewitnesses were tabulated.
The most authoritative and informed was a local old man named John Nelson Pascoe, who was literate and had a sharp eyesight. He claimed to have seen kilopilopitsophi more than once; the last time, and very close, was in 1976.
According to his description, it is a nocturnal creature the size of a cow, but without horns, with a very dark skin, with pink spots around the eyes and mouth, and rather large hanging ears. Assuming that this is just a fabulous interpretation of the stories about African elephants, which were once told to the old man by sailors who sailed from the mainland, Pascoe showed a drawing of an elephant, and he readily recognized it as kilopilopitsophi.
True, he argued that the local animal was smaller, without a trunk, but with a wide mouth full of large teeth, and when it was frightened away, it ran away into the reed thickets, grunting loudly. In the end, the silhouette of a hippopotamus was chosen as the closest to the portrait of kilopilopitsophia.
Similar descriptions were given by other eyewitnesses. Barney and Ramilisonin note that the mysterious animal is very reminiscent of the Madagascar pygmy hippopotamus, officially declared extinct, or perhaps even the smaller, but also long-extinct Madagascar pygmy hippopotamus.
Pascoe, who turned out to be a connoisseur of the voices of wild animals, skillfully imitated them. Scientists asked him to reproduce the voice of kilopilopitsophi, and the old man made a series of deep, stretched sounds, very much like the grunt of an ordinary mainland hippo.
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And yet, if this mysterious animal is a surviving representative of an extinct Madagascar species, how to explain its completely non-"hippo" ears?
Zoologists say that in fact it could be drooping cheeks and jaws, mistaken for ears in the night darkness. On the other hand, some zoologists believe that there may have been several species of the pygmy Madagascar hippopotamus, and one of the species may have large ears that helped it dissipate excess heat.