Lake Monster Potpourri

BTW, I had mentioned to Tyler that there were some sightings of what seemed to be shorter-necked Plesiosaurs represented at different freshwater locations at different times. This is an illustration of one such from a site describing a Russian Lake Monster: unfortunately, no reports or specific details were given to go with the illustration so it is difficult to gauge how much like the reports the illustration might be. It is not a well-known Lake Monstter location and in fact there might not be anything substantial to the allegation.

An early depiction of "Cadborosaurus" looking suspiciously very much like a Chinese Dragon.


This is another one of those SeaMonster illustrations which looks as if it might be based upon a moose's head.

I have no doubt that the head shown in this illustration did not come from this witness' account but was supplied from other sources. In this case the antlers are shown with definite brow-tines (a couple of which are shown at the end of the nose) and then the palmate part at the back of the head. In the moose, the palmate part can dissolve into another set of tines and in some populations that is the more usual pattern. There are depictions of "Ogopogo" which also show the antlers as divided into the brow-tines and the palmate part: often the palmate portion is shown as a large "Fin" at the back of the head on either side. Sich depictions are known from Scandinavia, Mongolia and South Siberia, and then on to include Manchuria, Korea and Northern China, and in many of the depictions the resemblance to moose (elk) antlers is very striking. The "Cadborosaurus" here also has the lop-eared look mentioned in some of the reports, and the beard (bell), both of which were features regularly ascribed to "Ogopogo" in the early years reports were made.

The elongated body is once again mistakenly assumed from the appearance of the wake.

This case the illustration is meant to go to might even be a legitimate case: I rather suspect that it actually IS. But the illustrator made a composite using other reports and in doing so it seems he let on what those other reports actually WERE a bit more than he would have liked to.


This is a representation from Wikipedia meant as a scale depiction of one of the giant eels from Crescent Lake, Newfoundland, to one of the witnesses. The article under "Cressie" only speaks of the eels as being about as long as a human being is tall: this drawing is showing a type of eel 20-30 feet long, a foot to 18 inches in thickness and with a head approximately a yard long.
I Have done a little cleanup of the wikipedia drawing to make the lines of the eel creature smoother and more consistent in width. The original was a little crude. Below is a map showing generally where freshwater reports of giant eels seem to be better substantiated (grey areas). These freshwater reports correspond to the smaller category of "Megaconger" as seen at sea, and on the whole "Megacongers" are seen closer to the continents and in shallower waters associated with the continental shelves.



Giant Eel Candidates Range Map For North America.


Dark line in Gulf of Mexico indicates an unlikely secondary type. Dubious reports of a giant green moray eel in the region probably have no relevance to reports made further inland.

Scale Mockup showing "Megaconger" type giant eel and LongNecked Sea-serpent types as shown at the same scale. Both the maps and the pasteups are my own work.































Two very definite LongNecker reports with some similarities between the two: the first is from a different Crescent Lake, in the state of Washungton and just off of Puget Sound, and the other depiction is from Lake Selwin and represents "Selma" in an extremely close encounter with two men in a rowboat.


This is a map illustrating the locations where there is more likelihood that some of the reports could legitimately turn out to be LongNecked Sea-serpents gone inland. The presence of longnecked reports is actually very rare and should not be assumed lightly. Therefore a report of a "periscopoe" only 3-4 feet tall is not sufficient to assume that the creature actually IS Longnecked-but reports of necks as long as 10 to 20 feet certainly are. In this case, nearly ALL of the verifiably Long-Necked reports hug the coast and otherwise only go inland by way of the really big rivers. The Native reports of the "Great Horned Serpents" follow this pattern likewise except that I have a feeling some of the Natives were also fooloed by reports of swimming moose, since the annals of later reports DO have similar reports derived from swimming moose sightings as made either by White Men or Red Men. Which is not to say that "Great Horned Serpents" never existed as cryptids, only that the mistaken view due to sightings of swimming moose was always a factor in the descriptions. On the other hand, I do not doubt that the majority of hunters that were actually experienced with swimming moose were not prone to making the same mistake!


Finally here is an illustration from the Patagonian Monsters site which shows how an unidentified petroglyph might be an attempt to portray a surviving giant groundsloth. To the contrary, it looks as if it might be a stick-figure attempt at portraying a "Patagonian Plesiosaur" since South America is a place where some VERY Plesiosaur-shaped petroglyphs are known, and some of them are very old indeed. However there are other petroglyphs which could mean to represent represent giant ground-sloths either on all fours or standing erect, as rather odd-looking "Anthropomorphic figures"


Best Wishes, Dale D.