Hello there! My name is Stephen McCullah (the one above on the left). I was born in Springfield, Missouri and like a lot of people I figured out what I wanted to do in my teens (14 to be exact). I wanted to study Biology and I wanted to explore the world. Well I consider myself incredibly blessed as I've been able to do both to an extent. I've been able to pursue some great endeavers, but on this latest project I'm going to need a little help.. Along with my colleagues (who have a firm background in Biology) I'll be launching one of the first expeditions in this century with the goal of categorizing plant and animal species in the vastly unexplored Republic of the Congo. Our hope is to discover a wide variety of new species along the way. The Congo Basin is a region of Central Africa larger than the state of Florida, more than 80% of which has been totally unexplored.

The few expeditions that have gone into these jungles in the last three decades (approx 15) were smaller, shorter, and much less technologically advanced, but because of the abundant plant and animal life and the fact that it is largely unexplored most produced great results.

Operation Congo took place between December 1985 and early 1986 by "four enthusiastic but naïve young Englishmen," led by William Gibbons, Although the party found no evidence of the Mokèlé-mbèmbé (the large reptile which they were searching for), they discovered a new subspecies of monkey, which was later classified as the Crested mangabey monkey (Cerocebus galeritus), as well as many fish and insect specimens.

In November 2000, William Gibbons returned back to the region and did some preliminary research in Cameroon for a future expedition. He was accompanied by David Wetzel, and videographer Elena Dugan. While visiting with a group of pygmies, they were informed about an animal called Ngoubou, a horned creature. The pygmies asserted it was not a regular rhinoceros, as it had more than one horn (six horns on the frill in one eyewitness account), and that the father of one of the senior members of the community had killed one with a spear a number of years ago. However, the locals have noted a firm dwindle in the population of these animals lately. The pygmies identified the animal from a picture shown to them by Gibbons as a Styracosaurus. An animal previously thought to be extinct.

Our first expedition will be dubbed The Newmac Expedition. It will be a preliminary three month (or as long as our health allows) four man venture. We'll launch on June 26th and we anticipate discovering hundreds of new insect, plant, and fish species during the course of our research and work in the area. There is also the legitimate hope of discovering many reptile and mammalian species as well. We have received reports from week to two week expeditions in the region of eye witnesses seeing canine sized tarantulas, large river dwelling sauropods, and a species of man eating fish (which was recently discovered on river monsters).

Our first trip will be recorded via an accompanying camera man. We'll be recording 12+ hours per day of the experience and putting the footage together for a future documentary.