Variations: Groot Slang, Big Snake, Great Snake, Great Snake of the Orange River, Ki-man
The Grootslang, literally “big snake” or “great snake”, dwells in or around the Orange River in the Richtersveld, South Africa, in association with fabulous diamond deposits. Its home may be in the Orange River itself, a pool underneath the King George Cataract, a big rock, or a semi-mythical cave known as the “Wonder Hole” or the “Bottomless Pit”. The cave is said to be the source of the diamonds of South Africa; from there they move down a pipe to the river, which carries them to the sea.
As its name implies, the grootslang is an enormous snake, big enough to take cattle at the water’s edge. It has huge diamonds in its eye-sockets, and its presence exerts an evil influence on all who see it. It is some forty feet long, and leaves a serpentine spoor on muddy river banks that is 1.5 to 3 feet wide. There are never traces of feet associated with the grootslang’s spoor.
Over time the grootslang has accumulated elephantine features. This stems partly from the cryptozoological desire to connect it to the mokele-mbembe and other such surviving dinosaurs, and partly from Rose’s description of it as “huge, like an elephant, with the tail of a serpent”.
References
Cornell, F. C. (1920) The Glamour of Prospecting. T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., London.
Green, L. G. (1948) Where Men Still Dream. Standard Press Ltd., Cape Town.
Rose, C. (2000) Giants, Monsters, and Dragons. W. W. Norton and Co., New York.
A Book of Creatures 
Cryptozoology really has done a lot more harm than good I’ve noticed
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To folklore studies and biology alike.
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I wonder what Dr. Karl Shuker or Loren Coleman think of all this
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Twinkle Eye snake!
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Ol’ Sparkleyeballs
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Also yes)
But I was making a My Little Pony reference:
http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/Category:Twinkle_Eyed_Ponies
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Once again cryptozoologists corrupt a legend. Can’t denie the elephant + snake fusion is cool.
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So the legend i know(The gods created Grootslang and split it) is a lie? I’m really curious.
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To the best of my knowledge. If you have a source that says otherwise, let me know!
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I found out on the internet wiki. Internat knowledge is not to be trusted either
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Turns out that “legend” was made up as the backstory for the Grootslang in one of the bestiaries for the Pathfinder RPG. I think pop culture is more at fault here than cryptozoologists.
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Thanks for the info, I wasn’t sure where that originated. Although to be fair cryptozoologists connected it to the mokele-mbembe, readers turned Rose’s description of “big like an elephant” into “like an elephant”, so there’s multiple factors at work here.
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He’s practically 🤑!
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I love how direct ‘Big Snake’ is.
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Finally, a mythical creature that is exactly what it says on the tin.
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Sounds almost exactly like the Boíuna/Cobra Grande of Amazon Basin folklore. Both names translate to “big snake” and both snakes have bioluminescent eyes. I wonder if there’s any cultural connection.
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Seems like a folkloric motif!
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Isn’t the legend that elephant and snake used to be same creature but this creature, grootslang was so powerful that gods went “nope” and split it into seperate creatures, elephants and snakes.
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I haven’t found any evidence for this one, it appears to be made up (as is the elephant-snake connection). If you have a reliable source for it though, I’d love to see it!
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