moha moha

Miss Lovell's first report (quote below) spelt the creature moka moka, but in her second it was moha moha (also below).

moha moha (plural not attested)

1. (cryptozoology) A type of sea creature reported seen by a Miss Lovell and others at Sandy Cape in South-East Queensland, Australia, on 8 June 1890. She described it as some 30 feet long with a turtle-like neck extending from a rounded body some 8 feet across, and a long fish-like tail.
   • 1891 S. Lovell, Tempus omnia monstra, in Land and Water, London, 3 March 1891 (quoted by Malcolm Smith, Bunyips and Bigfoots, Millennium Books, 1996, →ISBN, who was unable to obtain the original and so quotes from Bernard Heuvelmans, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, 1968, who in turn apparently quotes from Antoon C. Oudemans, The Great Sea-Serpent, 1892).

     Native blacks call it 'Moka, moka' and say they like to eat it, and that it has legs and fingers.

   • 1891, S. Lovell, Land and Water, 25 April 1891 (again Malcolm Smith from Heuvelmans etc).

     The blacks, who had not seen it the day I did, named it at once from my sketch, which must, therefore, be pretty accurate, and called it 'Moha, Moha', and laughed and said, 'Saucy Fellow, Meebee' – in English, 'dangerous turtle'.

• Chelosauria lovelli