The Makanga of Central Africa still believe that witches are capable of transformations into leopards, crocodiles and hyenas. In the 1930's members of the Anyoto tribe belonging to a secret society of leopard men went on a killing spree in the Belgian Congo. Dressed in costumes of bark painted with black and yellow spots they stalked their enemies in the jungle slaughtering them with claw-shaped knifes.

In 1946 another group of leopard-men terrorized a village near Lagos and a year later stories appeared in London newspapers about a group of Lion-men in Tanganyika who had killed 50 victims before being captured.