Since Scott Mardis was doing his comparisons with Plesiosaurs on Loch Ness Monsters and
Lake Champlain Champs, I decided to do a few of the same with the Plesiosaurian Sea serpent Sighting sketch by L.S. Larkin from Ivan Sanderson's files to some of the standard sea-serpent sightings composites.
Oudemans' model from The Great Sea Serpent, 1892
The comparison to Oudemans' Sea Serpent from above and then a comparison to Sanderson's model in profile. Unfortunately, Sanderson does not provide a view from above for his composite. Except for the great length of tail allowed by Oudemans, the relative lengths of the head and neck, body and tail are all in the same general comparative proportions. The real differences are in the size and placement of the flippers and in the width of the body. Larkin seems to have exaggerated the relative widths of the neck and back to something approaching caricature. Below is the comparison to my composite model (Final composite, all Longneck sightings worldwide, final average statistics)
My composite has been run on this blog before, This time I chose to darken it in, but it seems to have made a problem with the photoshop. Nonetheless the results are similar: longitudinal measures are similar but Larkin has exaggerated his relative widths, and there is an ambiguity about the size and the placement of the limbs. Larkin says he had trouble making the limbs out because of the movement in the water. And because we have made note of another couple of particularly Plesiosaur-shaped Sea Serpents on this blog before, I reproduces them below for further comparison.
The Alvin (Submarine) one below differs somewhat in having a larger head and longer tail than usual, but these might only be false impressions due to poor viewing conditions. I do have one report of what sounds like a legitimate Plesiosaur-Sea-serpent corpse washed ashore and which was reported to me personally, and the witness said it looked like The Alvin Plesiosaur (Charles Berlitz got duplicate documents as stated on my copies)
Are longnecks observed to have tailfins as shown in your composite reconstruction of sightings worldwide? There is possible evidence to suggest that some plesiosaurs had tailfins.
ReplyDeleteActually this is something which Heuvelmans pointed out: in order for some "Cadborosaurus" sightings to have included a jagged dorsal surface on the tail necessarily meant the tail's upper edge must be bulged upwards away from the usual tail, which more ordinarily be lying submerged lying flat lower in the water. A vertical tailfin would do it. And when Roy Mackal was considering Plesiosaurs as candidates for the Loch Ness Monster, he counted the possible tailfin as a positive correlation. His composite had included the vertical tailfin also, although very much larger than mine to scale.
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