Bawokozi or Steytlerville Monster is a Shapeshifter cryptid reported from Karoo in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.
Sightings[]
Around March 2011, two individuals attending separate funerals witnessed the first sighting of this strange creature.
On April 19, Eastern Cape police announced that rumors of the shape-shifting monster were spreading among residents. Warrant Officer Zandisile Nelani stated that local residents had reported seeing a man in a suit turn into a pig and then into a bat, and that the next time this appeared, witnesses should take pictures.
On the evening of April 24, a man named Nozipho, who was walking near a tavern with a friend, encountered a shapeshifter. He saw a man in a black jacket standing there, and thinking he might be in some kind of trouble, Nozipho approached him, but the man in the jacket did not have a head. The headless man transformed into an enraged dog the size of a cow, and upon seeing this Nozipho and his friend ran away. A similar monster was seen by another group walking in the vicinity, and this time the monster turned into a super-sized monkey and disappeared.
On the morning of April 26, three local farmers were found dead, their bodies cruelly torn apart, and attributed to Bawokozi.
Explanations[]
Since the story was first picked up by a tabloid and its web page, which carries dubious information, it is very likely to be a hoax.
A cryptid book written for kids published in Japan suggested that the true identity of the creature was a colony of bacteria with the property of mimicking other organisms, but this idea is not plausible.