San Francisco Sea Serpent

Jay Cooney and I were having a discussion about this sighting at the Zombie Plesiosaur Society and he indicated the witness drawing at top. I cut out just the black part showing above the surface and said "Looks like the two humped conformation with flippers tilted up on the far side" and Jay's reply was "Yes, I was actually just looking at that myself. Would support the idea of its [the prolonged "body" at the rear] being an illusion of the water with an unknown animal present." and I am pretty sure that was only the wake.
http://home.access4less.net/~sfseaserpent/
an excerpt describing this sighting posted by Tabitca for the CFZ included this information:
http://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2010/04/san-francisco-bay-sea-serpent.html

in 1985 two brothers Robert and William Clark were sitting in a car near the sea wall. This is their story of their experiences and there is a link to their site at the end of the blog post where you can see stills of the film they took etc :

We have had 8 sightings of a sea serpent in San Francisco Bay during the period 1985-87. The first and closest sighting was only 20 yards away. We were parked in our car at 7:45 a.m. looking north at San Francisco Bay just east of the Golden Gate Bridge and west of Alcatraz Island. The water was dead calm and we saw some sea lions playing about 150 yards from us. We saw what we thought was another sea lion swimming towards them from the west. When it was a few yards away the head and neck raised out of the water at least 10 feet straight up. It then lunged forward and attacked the sea lions. The sea lions fled towards where we were parked with the creature following right behind them. We could see the creature create vertical undulations in its neck as it swam through the water. Then it went underwater. The sea lions swam right in front of us leaping in and out of the water in an attempt to escape the creature. We didn't know it until the next day when we examined the area at low tide but the sea lions swam over a ledge with rocks on it that protruded 20 yards into the bay. The water went from 40 feet deep to only 3 feet deep above the ledge. Suddenly, 20 yards in front of us we saw what looked like half a truck tire break the surface with a long neck and head just under the surface of the water in front of it. A second arch broke the surface of the water behind the first and then we watched what we thought was a huge black snake swim by but when we expected it to end it got wider. Then there was a splash and a crashing sound as it stopped dead in the water. Immediately, we saw it lift its neck quickly out of the water and it pulled itself backwards to get off the rocks. It splashed back into the water and disappeared. instantaneously, the rest of the neck came out of the water in a corkscrewing manner as it tried to pull itself off the rocks and into the deeper water. As it corkscrewed it exposed the midsection and the underbelly above the water and we got an excellent view. the midsection had hexagonal scales that did not overlap but were connected to each with a common side. They varied in size from the size of a dime to the size of a silver dollar.. We had 7 more sightings in the next 2 years and were able to get 6 photos.

In view of the scepticism they received , they issued the following challenge:

We (Bill and Bob Clark) have had several sightings of sea serpents in San Francisco Bay since 1985. On February 5, 1985 we saw a sea serpent beach itself only 20 yards from where we were parked in our car and we saw the entire animal expect the tail. On January 26, 2004 we took a 3 1/2 minute video which we claim contains images of several sea serpents swimming in SF Bay. We had 2 independent analyses of the video done. One was done by BSM Associates (expert image analyst Clifford Paiva and physicist Dr. Harold Slusher) and the second was done by marine biologist Bruce Champagne. Both analyses concluded that our video contains images of several large unknown serpentine marine animals swimming in SF Bay. We invite all skeptics to provide us with the expert of their choice who is willing to do an in-depth analysis of our video and we will send them a free copy. We only request that they agree not to post any portion of the video on the internet or anywhere else without our permission and if the conclusion of their analysis disagrees with the Paiva/Slusher analysis and the Champagne analysis that they provide us with their supporting documentation. We can be reached at our email address sfseaserpent9@hotmail.com.

 My comment was that the part of the sighting actually seen above the water was consistent with a Longneck and its behavior toward the sea lions was also consistent with other reports made previously in other places, including off Vancouver Island. And I suspected already then that the very long extended body was only the appearance caused by the disturbed water in the wake, and any appearance of humps in that disturbed water was only caused by waves in the water..

I was not convinced the sections of skin as mentioned actually represented scales as opposed to regular creases in the skin, something which has been reported in other cases especially at the joints around the flippers, and here the creases are often said to resemble an elephant's hide. The way the neck moved, the size of the neck, and the way that it curved over and struck at the sea lions, are all consistent with Longnecked Sea Serpent reports otherwise.

Seaweed Mane Explanation From Jay Cooney

Re-post
 Green Renaissance's Photos · Green Renaissance's Page

The Mary River turtle (Elusor macrurus) with a green mohawk of algae. It's suggested that the algae helps provide camouflage. Jay Cooney just sent me a copy of the photo and made the suggestion Apparently the turtles do this as camouflage. A longneck doing this could definitely explain the seaweed-like "hair"[in the "mane"]!   And actually that is a quite good explanation. the seaweed (algae) would also be growing in seasonally, in both saltwater and fresh (with different species) and also could look either greenish or reddish brown, and so it fits all of the broad criteria. Furthermore, the animals could be tearing it off of each other by mouth without doing each other any harm, and the photos do show other patches of growth on the face in the area where "ear fins" and "whiskers" [even "green whiskers"] are rarely and irregularly reported So I am going to pencil that in a strong possibility and in fact I now rank it as a strong possibility,  a higher possibility than Bernard Heuvelmans' and Ivan Sanderson's suggestion that vascularized fibers make up the "Mane." I do not have it as the default yet but it might well be the explanation that stands the Occam's Razor test the best. Best Wishes, Dale D.

Longnecks and Cryptoclidus

I was jus sent this pasteup by Jay Cooney and I thought our comments were worth sharing.

Jay: I just realized the Rines–O'Connor connection today [photo collage above]

Dale: Hey great, I never saw them together in a package before, I think I'll run that.

Jay: Yes, my thoughts exactly. They complement one another! Not to direct scale but they all have similar appearances

Dale: Yes, and you can make an interesting point about the apparent length of the neck when angled head-on and then again when angled tail end on Its almost a sort of optical illusion

Jay: That skeleton is the best Do you know what species it is?

Dale: Its a basic Cryptoclidus oxoniensis, isn't it?

Jay: If it, then excellent

Dale: Isn't it the same as the AMNH mounted skeleton reversed (this from The Plesiosaur Directory)? http://plesiosauria.com/images/photographs/cryptoclidus_newyork3.jpg

Jay: Fantastic! Cryptoclidus oxoniensis seems to fit longnecks to a t!

Dale: Good sturdy utility taxon, I've learned to appreciate it

Jay: Matches the Rines photographs, O'Connor photograph, Bodette footage, upturned boat humps, split tails, rhomboidal flippers, "muppet heads", land sightings, and more!

 

 

Dale: Thanks I think I'll quote you on that! .

Jay: Add more to that if you want, we're basically on the same page as to this stuff .
        Mostly, that is .

Dale: Im fine with that "mostly", believe me.

Jay:  Good .
         Makes more sense for our snake-headed New England sightings too .

Dale: Big lot of those too, actually(starting in the 1700s): only thing is the older ones tended to have
       some confusions with the wake. But you even have New England rock art that looks that way

 

Cryptoclidus and Mansi Photo at Lake Champlain

 

 

Arthur Grant Land Sighting at Loch Ness and Cryptoclidus from Walking with Dinosaurs

 

Both Jay and Dale are now working on longer articles developing this idea but Dale thought it

 would be informative for others to see the way the idea was coming together for the two of us.

Loch Ness Monster Linnean Binomial

Roy Mackal in The Monsters of  Loch Ness (1976), from the Epilogue, pages 219-220

...The name mentioned by Zug, Nessiteras rhombopteryx, was given to the animal by Robert Rines and Sir Peter Scott in their paper published in the scientific journal NATURE (December 11, 1975 issue). The generic term Nessiteras combines the name of the Loch with the Greek word teras meaning marvel or strange creature [ie, Monster-DD]. The specific name rhombopteryx is a combination of the Greek rhombos, a diamond shape, and pteryx meaning fin or wing.Translated, then, we have the Ness monster with a diamond-shaped fin. The Rines-Scott name wisely avoids the risk of implying any zoological affinities, inasmuch as no actual type specimen is in hand; that is, we are dealing with [presently] unknown animals possibly [probably] new to zoology. However the naming of an animal based on a single feature (photograph of an appendage) is an equally risky business although permitted by the International code of Zoological Nomenclature [Emphasis added-DD]... 

In any case, for better or for worse, we will now be able to refer to the animals in Loch Ness by a scientific binomial designation, which at least in some quarters will lend credence to the belief in the existence of these creatures.
[Footnote] It is possible, of course, that the name Nessiteras rhombopteryx may not finally be accepted as the official lable for the animals. For example, perhaps it could even be preempted by Nessiesaurus o'connori, a name given earlier to the animals...and published in 1961 in Tim Dinsdale's Loch Ness Monster. O'Connor refers to "the water reptile Nessiesaurus o'connori, which is (it is understood) the name the Northern Naturalists Organization gave to the creature shown in the photograph on June 10th, 1960" 

In this case, the name Nessiteras refers to a characteristic part (a flipper) seen in a photo taken in conjunction with a large midwater sonar contact (it was not near the floor of the Loch and the photo cannot actually be of any part of the floor of the Loch, which was very much deeper) and the name Nessiesaurus refers to a different characteristic view of presumably the same creature, looking vaguely turtlelike but with a soft pudgy back and the almost "Muppet-like" face in front. So it is a problem of which aspect the experts will eventually consider to be the best designator for the species. [Maurice Burton tried particularly hard to get the O'Connor photo branded as a hoax but none of the evidence he amassed at Loch Ness has any proveable connection to O'Connor and both Costello and Mackal reject his assertions. The evidence which was gathered by Burton had only an alleged association to Costello (on the say-so of a local guide, who could have been lying) and was not gathered under any strictly controlled conditions: any or all of it could have been planted without O'Connor's knowledge]

BOTH Nessiteras rhombopteryx and Nessiesaurus o'connori are properly proposed and recorded scientific names as suggested by proper scientific authorities and they are scientifically valid.
 So once again it is not a problem that the creatures are actually Cryptids unknown to science, it is a controversy about their acceptability to other scientists. they fall into the borderline category of "disputed" species, which is something else again. And since it is generally accepted that Longnecks around the world are one species, and so they all receive whatever name is approved whenever it is approved, at sea or in any of the other lakes they might inhabit.


The Nessiteras Rhombopteryx Anagram Controversy

Sir Peter Scott of the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau participated in the 1972 expedition that produced the flipper photo. Feeling that the photo provided proof that some kind of large creature existed in the loch, he decided to give the animal a scientific name: Nessiteras Rhombopteryx (which meant "the Ness wonder with a diamond fin"). Scottish politician Nicholas Fairbairn pointed out that if you juggled around the letters in this name, you got the phrase "monsster hoax by Sir Peter." This was unquestioningly (but prematurely) taken as evidence that the flipper photo had been a deliberate hoax: Sir Peter Scott denied it. Dr. Rines countered by pointing out that if you juggled the letters around a bit more, you could spell "Yes, both pix arre monsters." Since both supposed anagrams can only be made to fit by including one extra letter each, and neither one is intrinsically any more reasonable than the other, this disqualifies the whole notion of the anagram being valid in the first place [The initial notices did print them just this way, later retellings moved the extra letters to the ends of the messages]. Essentially, the only way the interpretation can be made to fit is by cheating. In other words, even bringing the matter up is dirty pool and the critics should be ashamed of themselves for stooping so low. It is amazing that the whole matter was discredited on the strength of a bad joke made by a politician.

Consider the type of jokes in horribly bad taste a name such as Homo erectus evokes and you will see that any such jokes have no validity against the continued use of the name in scientific literature. As Mackal writes, "But of course, the saner approach typically got buried" (footnote page 219)

The aftermath is that critics almost invariably quote the first anagram story only and imply that it is a valid reason to ignore the proposed name and the recognition of the Loch Ness Monster as a valid species since it was "an obvious hoax". They almost never mention that there was a reply (implying that there was no effort to deny the claim) nor yet that an alternative anagram that was just as valid gave a completely opposite meaning. This is because the critics are not interested in the truth, they are interested in winning an argument, by deceit and innuendo if necessary. Anybody that repeats the claim that the name Nessiteras rhombopteryx  itself "proves the whole thing was a hoax" is being deceptive and underhanded. It proves no such a thing. it means no more than if a bratty schoolchild gets out a picture of you, draws on a black eye and blacked-out teeth, and then says "this is you". Anybody that shows the picture thereafter saying "this is you" is being deliberately malicious on top of being untruthful. It is intellectually dishonest and it is a manifestation of the bullying mentality.

 

http://www.njan.org/camp1.php

Below, Dale's redrawing of the illustrations, which are more consistent with the proportions stated in the reports. See also the colour version of the illustrations added to this blog earlier, which are also more consistent with the drawings below rather than to the ones in the actual article above.

 

Sea Giraffes Appendix

We had discussed the matter on the blog before at

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/06/update-on-sea-giraffes.html

But Jay Cooney and I had been discussing the matter again more extensively and these are some of my illustrations I had sent to him then. They had been waiting here unpublished until now.

Giraffe like "Caddy" (Off the West Coast of NA) compared to Corinthian SS (Off East Coast of NA)

Both of these sightings compared against Oudemans' composite model

Newspaper drawing of Corinthian SS (Inaccurate) compared to Oudemans SS composite reconstruction
Below, my statistical averages drawn from thousands of Longneck reports worldwide as matched against Hutchinson's SS, Bay of Meil in the Orkneys, 1910

Plesiosaur neck inserted for purposes of comparison
(Plesiosaur skeleton shown at bottom)

Hutchinson's SS off Orkneys (Scotland) is as high as the whole giraffe, not just the neck. That makes the neck approximately twice as long as the giraffe's neck and probably more. Below, Hutchinson's diagram of how he figured the height of the sea serpent "Periscope" by judging it against the mast of their boat and triangulating. Mr Hutchinson had submitted his report directly to Tim Dinsdale in 1960.

Below, Corinthian, Meil Bay, and my composite "Merhorses" (Mine in the brown colouration phase, both redbrown and greenish or olive brown both being regularly noted in such sightings with the reddish brown seen much more commonly. The giraffe-like mottled effect is one infrequent variation on the brownish one) Please note that in opposition to Heuvelmans' "Merhorse" description, the mane is stiff and stands up like a "fin"and the eyes are not large. The "Horns" appear to me to be the same material as the "Fins"

 

 

Neck Flexibilty possible in the long-necked Plesiosaur Muraenosaurus,

 from an illustration supplied by Scott Mardis

 

In the case of these sightings showing the whole length of the neck above the surface, the body can be assumed to be almost vertical below the surface.

 

 

Loch Ness Monster Emerges at Magnetic Island, North Queensland, Claim Beachgoers

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/517665/20131029/loch-ness-monster-nessie-lake.htm#.Um_yUdzD-1v

Loch Ness Monster Emerges at Magnetic Island, North Queensland, Claim Beachgoers

By Athena Yenko | October 29, 2013 10:52 AM EST

On Oct 25, beachgoers at Magnetic Island, off Townsville, claimed that they saw "a distinctive long, curved neck bobbing up and down off the coast," AAP reports.
The beachgoers were quick to associate the image they saw to the mythical creature Loch Ness monster or most popularly called Nessie
Locals of the Magnetic Island were now desperate to find answer or a name to the image that they saw.
"It was bobbing up and down in the water and at first I thought, what's that? Someone yelled out 'it looks like a Loch Ness monster. I've never seen anything like it - it could be anything. We are all wanting to know what it is," David Herron, a marriage celebrant told AAP.
Mr Herron was able to photograph the "monster" from a 200 metres distance.
However, marine biologists who have seen the photograph taken by Mr Herron said that the object bobbing up and down off the coast could be a piece of a tree or boat.

Glen Chilton, James Cook University biology professor, echoed what the marine biologists said. "It's probably a piece of a tree or piece of a boat which has somehow broken away," he told AAP.

But Australian cryptozoologist and self-proclaimed "yowie man" Rex Gilroy took the locals' side saying that "it's hard to say from the photo" whether the image seen was just that of a piece of tree or a part of a boat.
Mr Gilroy said that he had known 800 sightings of creatures resembling the Loch Ness monster. Some of these sightings were from the Magnetic Island and Townsville area. In fact, in Oct 2012, a local fisherman saw a grey coloured creature emerging from waters off the Magnetic Island.

The mystery about the Loch Ness monster, Nessie, had been being told over and again for 80 years now.
The story started as far back on Apr 14, 1933, when a couple - John Mackay and his wife - saw something strange as they drove past the Loch Ness Lake in Scottish Highlands. According to accounts, the couple described what they saw as something resembling a whale.
The story of Mr and Mrs Mackay had since then gave birth to more sightings of the Loch Ness monster. To date, there is still no concrete evidence to support the sightings.

Scientists even consider the mystery of the Loch Ness monster as a myth and hoax to drive tourism to the lake.


[Related Reference:

 

The descriptions bring to mind the classic Longneck's arching-over fishing posture. The logo for the Champ Search echoes that shape and so also does a recent photograph said to be Champ showing his neck in a similar posture, This photo is also hotly disputed, however--DD]

Wiwiliámecq’ and the New England Whale-Eater

                                (Photo credit, Gerry Biron: 2 of them are shown)

 

I found something interesting while surfing the net and unfortunately it involves another ambiguous use of "Monster" names
http://www.native-languages.org/weewillmekq.htm

Name: Weewillmekq
Tribal affiliation: Maliseet, Passamaquoddy
Alternate spellings: Wiwilomeq, Wiwilmekw, Wiwilmeku, Weewilmekq, Wiwillmekq', Wiwilameq, Wiwilemekw, Wiwila'mecq, Wewillemuck, Wiwiliamecq', Wiwil'mekq, Wiwilmeku, Wee-Will-l'mick, Wee-wil-li-ah-mek, Wee-wil-'l-mekqu'
Pronunciation: wee-will-uh-meck-w
Type: Lake monster, serpent
Related figures in other tribes: Axxea (Cheyenne), Apotamkin (Passamaquoddy) Axxea Although this monster features in several Wabanaki tales, little information about it has survived. It was certainly a water monster, but is variously described as resembling a giant snail, leech or slug, worm, or alligator. Some Wabanaki people believe Weewillmekq was actually the same creature as Kci Athusoss, but in other legends the two monsters were said to fight one another.
[Kci-Athussos is an underwater horned serpent, common to the legends of most Algonquian tribes. It is said to lurk in lakes and eat humans. Its Maliseet-Passamaquoddy name literally means Great Serpent.]

Weewillmekq Stories

The Magic of the Weewillmekq' The Dance of Old Age:
    Stories about the magic healing powers of the horns of the Wiwilomeq.
How a Woman Lost a Gun for Fear of the Weewillmekq':
    19th-century story about a boastful woman who was not as brave as she claimed to be.
Jipijka'm and Weewillmekq':
    Tales about the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet horned serpents.
Weewilmekq and Kitchi-at'Husis:
    Story of a fight between two Wabanaki water monsters.

Recommended Books of Related Native American Legends

Giants of the Dawnland:
    Good collection of Wabanaki legends told by a Penobscot Indian author.
On the Trail of Elder Brother:
    Another good book of traditional stories told by a Mi'kmaq author and illustrator.
Algonquian Spirit:
    Excellent anthology of stories, songs, and oral history from the Maliseet and other Algonquian tribes.
When the Chenoo Howls:
    Eerie collection of Native American ghost stories and monster tales.

In this case we do have a traditional Horned serpent which is alternatively said to be like a snail or a worm, the horns in this case meaning to be like snail's horns. The length of this one is given as approximately 30-50 feet and it is probably based on the standard Longneck (although mistaken impressions of other natural phenomena and other traditions got grafted onto it). The other component is the Alligator like form that was one of the originally different things that got grafted onto the tradition, and the Alligator like one is the one depicted in the carving at the top of this entry. It is twice the length of the other, 60-100 feet long according to other references.

George Eberhart's Mysterious Creatures describes the creature in this way:

Wiwiliámecq’

FRESHWATER MONSTER of northeastern North America.
Etymology: Abnaki-Penobscot and Malecite- Passamaquoddy (Algonquian), “snail.” Variant names: Weewilmekq, Wiwil’mékq, Wiwilmeku.
Physical description: Serpentine. Length, 30–40 feet. Soft horns. Behavior: Lurks under waterfalls. Habitat: Both freshwater and saltwater. Distribution: Boyden Lake, Maine; New Brunswick, Canada. Significant sighting: The eighteenth-century Penobscot shaman Old John Neptune (or, more probably, a similarly named ancestor) battled an enemy Micmac warrior who took the form of his familiar spirit, a huge water snake, on the east side of Boyden Lake. Sources: Charles Leland, Algonquin Legends of New England (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1884), pp. 324–329, 345–347; Albert S. Gatschet, “Water-Monsters of American Aborigines,” Journal of American Folklore 12 (1899): 255–260; Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, Old John Neptune and Other Maine Indian Shamans (Portland, Me.: Southworth- Anthoensen Press, 1945), pp. 39–48.

In other words the battle would have looked like THIS:

 

And both types of Sea Serpent are reported in the Massachussets Bay area. We have had a few mentions of the situation recently with this as an outstanding example:

 

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/08/more-sea-serpents-from-ivan-sandersons.html

 #72: South Pacific [position undisclosed (Actually NW of the Marquesas)], 1852. A whaling vessel [The Monongahela-DD] encountered something that captain and crew did not recognize as being any sort of whale. It was black, serpentine and moved with a snake-like motion. After some debate, they decided to chase the thing as they would a whale, harpooning it and killing it. It was 103' long. with a 6' diameter neck, widening to 8' at "shoulders". The body was about 16' at its broadest. The tail diminished to a point. The head was flat-topped and elongated. Its tongue was tipped with a "heart-shape". It had 94 teeth. Two spout holes, and four webbed paws. The back was black, the sides brown, and the belly yellow. They dismembered the thing as they would a Whale, but decided not to try to bring any of the bulk of it home. [I believe that some accident also occurred which flushed the evidence-ITS]. Oh well, such is Cryptozoology. [The Monongahela was later wrecked with a loss of all hands after the message was sent home by another ship in a parcel of letters. The authenticity of the letters was vouched for by the captain's surviving relatives and the letters together with the accompanying affidavits are now in the archives of the New Bedford Whaling museum. Several important points which needed to be specified!-DD]

#73: New Bedford, MA, 1964. An animal 50' long was seen just 50-100' off starboard. Water was "Flat and calm as a mill pond". The head was shaped alligator-ish, with lumps all along its midline, like camel humps. Head was also huge, about 20' long. The thing had a blow-hole, but was without a discernible neck. Body was dark but with white spotting. Its tail was like a lobster's and it flapped it upon the water. It paralleled the boat for some time and seemed "friendly". [Hey boys, come on in; the water's fine...]. [This one sighted by the Blue Sea was likely a whale but it is usually included together with the next one because both have "Alligator heads"-DD]

#74: New Bedford, MA, 1957. A creature with a very large body [of which 40' could be seen out of the water], was estimated at weighing over 35-40 tons. It had a seal-like shaped body but a long neck which held its head 26' out of the water. The head was "alligator-ish". It sported a mane of bristly hair.[The Noreen report, probably a "Whale-Eater" or the same as the Monongahela creature, and the midline crest is more ordinarily called a fin-DD]

The head and neck Periscope of the Whale-Eater type is commonly estimated to measure 25 feet, 10 feet of neck and 15 for the head, and this is also given in the case of the Monongehela creature. Hence it is not really the long neck that is so distinctive as it is the big head. Sightings of creatures with the head "the size of a rowboat" are uncommon but are on record off both New England and also Scandinavia, and sometimes in association with trains of the very large humps that could be due to pods of whales (hence the very largest "Super-otters" of absolutely fantastic dimensions) So once again we have our Whale-eater out chasing whales.

Plesiosaurs Killing Seals and People

A sea serpent described as being like a huge eel with antennae was seen at the Skidegate Narrows, Queen Charlotte islands, in July 1939. It was throwing seals up into the air to kill them by breaking their necks, something which killer whales are also well-known for doing. (Mary Moon, Ogopogo, 1977, p. 162)  Apparently about 30 feet of the dark-coloured "Eel" was visible and Bernard Heuvelmans would definitely classify this as a Longneck because of the "antennae."

 In the case of the Plesiosaur-shaped creature off Cornwall related in Tim Dinsdale's book Monster Hunt (above), the creature was also seen fighting seals from above, and in a similar tradition relating to the Icelandic Skrimsl, the monster was characteristically said to decapitate seals. Putting these observations together, it seems that Longnecks can feel antagonistic (territorial? defensive?) against seals and sea lions, and it deals with them by throwing them up into the air to break their necks.

snap!

 

Since a common type of Sea serpent sighting seems to be a fishing posture striking down from above, it is not too unusual that the usual depiction of Longnecks attacking humans shows the creatures bearing down on the humans from above and grabbing them headfirst by their mouth

 

This also seems to be the usual attack mode of the congo dragons. Fairly early on I read in On The Track of Unknown Animals that such creatures as the Mokele-Mbembe were often said to kill humans but not eat them and to leave the bodies untouched. I wondered then if the peculiar emphasis on leaving the bodies untouched meant that they bit the heads off. Later on I did get confirmation from other traditions in other parts of Africa which stated explicitly, "He takes the head off and then hurls the rest of the body away from himself in disgust, since he wants nothing more to do with it" This is putting the matter rather more plainly and I suppose the more common version wants to put the matter more delicately than that because it is a matter distressing to the listeners. However back in the 1970s when I first noticed the odd statement I also noticed that the Icelandic water monster the Skrimsl (Comparable to the Loch Ness Monster) was stated by Heuvelmans characteristically to "decapitate seals and sink ships" There seemed to me to be a connection between the way the Longnecked creatures treated seals and the way they treated people.

 

Mesoamerican Khan (Snake) and Quetzalcoatl depictions also showed them attacking people by taking them in the mouth headfirst. Yet for all of the intimations that Longnecks are dangerous creatures one thing seems to be true: They can't eat people or more precisely, they cannot swallow them, because their throats are not large enough to get a person down. And they can't eat things like seals, whales or manatees either, which probably is the reason why the Congo dragons are also said to kill any number of other things like crocodiles, hippos and even elephants but not eat them. It was a sort of a blanket rule in some places and probably got confused with other kinds of animals, too.

 

As another line of evidence confirming this, many kinds of dragon depictions, both from the Orient and from Europe, show the dragons with human heads or skulls (ONLY) in their mouths.

 

What I think is happening is this: similar to great white sharks and some other large predators, Longnecks do not see much difference between humans and seals, since they are about the same size and shape in the water. Because of that, the Longneck's preferred method of attack against humans is to seize them headfirst and hurl them violently through the air  to break their necks. This apparently can lead to decapitation of the victim. In the case of either seals or people, the Longneck thereafter cannot actually  eat the body and so then ignores it. which leads to the very peculiar reputation the Mokele-Mbembe and other Congo Dragons have of regularly killing things but not eating them

 

Longneck Seal-killing move as applied to the human body can lead to accidental decapitation

Bonus: chart of the seals, sea lions and walruses of the world for reference.

Sea Serpent Reconstructions and the problem of the Longnecks' Necks

My original statement made about Longnecks was made back in 2009 under the heading

 "TWO Long-necked sea creatures"

on the CFZ blog:
 http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2009/11/dale-drinnon-two-long-necked-sea.html

"This concerns two different long-necked animals reported as Sea-Serpents. The first is the Long-necked sea lion such as reported off the Island of Hoy in 1918 and the other is the larger more Plesiosaurian creature more commonly seen.




Parsons_1751_long-necked_seal

This (Top) would be the same type as the Hoy Island SS of 1918. It is a rather poor drawing of an exaggerated but fundamentally normal sealion type.

"There are more samples from the group Frontiers-of-Zoology. The Kivik Stone is in the files and has this description:

'Original for some of Holiday's creature drawings: showing a possible Scandinavian long-necked sea lion of unknown type.'

"However, that is not the only or even the more important of the long-necked Sea-Serpents. Tim Dinsdale's illustration from Monster Hunt shows one of the larger, longer-necked, smaller-headed, tailed creatures hunting seals (which it evidently kills but does not eat, and when they are said to kill human beings the same thing is said again).

'This is incidentally one of three such plain representations of a Plesiosaurian tailed creature seen from above that Heuvelmans must have known about: two other examples were in Sanderson's archives. A later and better-known example was the Plesiosaurian creature seen by the research submarine Alvin in the tongue-of-the-sea, off Grand Bahama.

"The larger collage [Lost by the CFZ in the original printing] is also from the files of the group and collects together several pre-contact representations of Plesiosaur-shaped creatures, from prehistoric rock art up until 'Primitive' art in more recent times. This is only a sample from the groups' photo albums. Specifically Plesiosaurian anatomy shows in several cases: sometimes the specific skeletal structure of the paddles and limb girdles is shown, sometimes even the characteristic Euryapsid openings at the back of the skull are clearly intended (Snakes have nothing like that)

greek-sea-serpent2, compared to Plesiosaur
E=Euuyapsid opening behind the eye, O=Eye socket, N=Nostrils, all in their proper places

"I presume that both types can wander inland but they do not make a career of it: and the two areas in specific where the long-necked seals wander inland are Ireland (Shannon River system especially) and Australia (where they are sometimes called Bunyips. Not the only things called Bunyips, either).

Grant Nessie sighting compared to the hypothetical long-necked sealion (above right)
And even more so for the Plesiosaur at bottom (Cryptoclidus from Walking with Dinosaurs)

 

"And personally I prefer maintaining the proposed scientific names of Megalotaria for the sea lion and Megophias for the more typical long-necked (and tailed) sea-serpent. My colleague Charles Paxton is, however, strongly opposed to the suggestion."

Megophias was the name given to the American Sea-Serpent in an unrecognizable description by Rafinesque but because of that Anton C Oudemans insisted it must be retained as the proper name when he wrote his own book , The Great Sea-Serpent (1892), and for which he made the following reconstruction of it. Beneath Oudemans' version are the reconsteuctions of Ivan Sanderson and then Tim Dinsdale from Loch Ness Monster (1960), with the humps on the back removed (As per his remark "They might as well have been left off")

 

These reconstructions are entirely comparable and the general feeling after Oudemans has been that he allowed too great a length for the tail. Sanderson allowed about equal thirds of the total length for the head-neck, body and tail, but later versions (and his own later versions) have tended to allow even less for the tail.

Tim Dinsdale states the data on the neck in Loch Ness Monster page 19: "Taking into account the angle at which the neck is held or the graceful arch when motionless in the water, and the consistent reference to a height of 5-6 feet above the water, total length of the neck must be 9 or 10 feet [With the neck at an angle, travelling forward at speed, and the cylindrical forepart of the neck evenly a foot thick according to the drawing on the opposing page,], and in view of its sinuous fexible movements it must be extremely muscular; a solid pillar of muscle springing from a tremendous breadth of shoulder, 2 or 3 feet thick at its base perhaps, then tapering down suddenly before continuing out to the head with an almost parallel thickness [Oudemans' reconstruction shows this also- DD] It is a very remarkable neck and if people are to be believed it is quite unlike that of any known living species- fish, mammal or reptile, and there is no doubt that irrefutable proof of its existence will provide a very tough morsel for scientists to chew upon"

 

My contention is that it is impossible for a mammal to have a neck that fits these specifications

Below is a diagram comparing Heuvelmans' model to Oudemans' (minus the tail) in order to point out the problem of a Long-necked mammal: Placental mammals including seals have  only the standard 7 neck bones (Seven vertebrae).

Dimensions of sample Sea serpents from Oudemans' chart page 492:
A) Length of head, 1 foot; length of neck 6 feet; length of trunk 7 1/2 feet: breadth of head,8 inches: thickness of neck , 4/9 feet, Dale says 6 inches and be done with it; Oudemans total is 28 feet, Dale's total is 20 feet.
B) Length of head, 2 feet; length of neck 11 2/3 feet, Dale says 12-13 feet; Length of trunk 15 feet; Breadth of head 16 inches, Thickness of neck is 8-9 inches (Dale says poss 1 foot);Oudemans total is 55 feet, Dale's total is 40 feet: this is close to the average of most sightings by both Dale and Dinsdale (And Heuvelmans if the estimation of 60 feet in most Longneck cases is equivalent to Oudemans' 55)
C) Length of head, 3 feet: length of Neck 17 1/2 feet: Breadth of head is 2 feet: Thickness of neck is 16 to 18 inches; Oudemans length is estimated as 83 feet, Dale's est is 60 feet, and this corresponds to the Daedalus' SS in 1845 according to Oudemans, one of the standards he uses to derive all the measures from. This might equivilate Heuvelmans' Merhorse, probably not so large really and Dale thinks not nearly so common as is often assumed. All of Oudemans larger estimates may be safely ignored and the largest estimates are probably mistaken sightings of whales according to Dale.

The proportions of the neck were also as specified by Sir Henry Rostron in an earlier blog entry and I took pains to draw attention to it then. Below are more views of the head and neck from Loch Ness Witnesses. (Torquil MacLeod to the left, Miss Margaret Munro top right, and the original nighttime sketch by Arthur Grant at right bottom. This last corrects the figure by Putting the tail back on the tail end after it had been drawn as separately in order to get it all on the same sheet of paper:

Below are some typical Sea Serpent head and  postures taken from many reports and in the first examples utilizing Bruce Champagne's sea-serpent models as being neutal to the debate; First is te fully erect periscope with a "Caddy" report inset as a crioss-reference. This is typically only assumed when the animal is fully stalled or is only moving forward very slowly: one or two reports of sea serpents at full erection swimming forward at good speed are suspicious for that reason alone and at least one of these may be describing a waterspout.

 

 

Next is the creature with the neck thrown forward and up at an angle, which can be assumed at a good rate of speed. N such occasions the creature seems to be alarmed at disturbances at the surface. A model for the New England Sea Serpent in the 1800s is the inset here, This posture will commonly throw up a standing wave in the wake, hence the "String of Buoys" effect in the inset illustration.

 

 

 

Above, two good Sea Serpent reports with the head and neck on the incline to various degrees. The Valhalla sketch has been flipped horizontally and the original is shown at the end of this article.

And finally there is the actually typical swimming posture with the head and neck down in the water and pointed straight ahead. on such occasions only the head at the end of the neck may break surface

 

 The following drawing taken from Tim Dinsdale's Loch Ness Monster but "Recognised" in Florida

has the neck bending about halfway along. It is because of this that a good many reports and most of the earlier authors underestimate the true length of the neck. I have indicated where I make the division of the length from snout to vent to be broken into halves of nearly equal length

 

 

The Morgawr photos off Cornwall may or may not be legitimate but they DO illustrate what is usually described as fishing posture with the neck in an arched shape. From the arched shape the neck can also move from side to side or forward to probe around, or it can plunge downwards.

 

 

And so below here are my mock-ups showing a Longneck as a Plesiosaur at scale to a human figure, illustrating these basic moves to the head and neck as are typically mentioned in the reports:

 

 

First the typical swimming posture with the neck pointed straight ahead and down in the water,

 

Secondly with an upward curve from usually the forward half of the neck,

and this can be a shallow S-curve

 

Next is the position moving ahead at speed on the surface with the neck inclined forward at an angle, evidently assumed when there is a perceived threat at or above the surface of the water

 

Next the arched neck posture assumed to be used in fishing

(Inset, the open mouth and tongue in proportion as also reported)

And the full periscope, which is rarest of all and usually assumed with little or no forward motion.

This is actually an s-shaped curve with the top 1/3 bending as much as the bottom 2/3, which is in good agreement to other indicators of the neck flexibility.

 

 

There are also occasions where the front part of the neck is making a curve at the top like the upper part of a C curve, and this old sighting of the New England Sea Serpent illustrates that curve:

 

 

This illustration of the Scandinavian sea serpent also shows the same position, also the size of the mouth (gape) when opened. The illustration intends to show the mane but the nature of the mane is described differently in different reports. Often it is said to be a fin or of a fleshy nature. 

 

Loch Ness Monster as reported in 2010

 

Now the point of all of this is that while the necks of Plesiosaurs are made up of many vertebrae with many cartilaginous joints between them, the necks of mammals ordinarily come with the seven neck bones (And the first one at the base of the skull does not count for much in any lengthening of the neck) Below we have a direct comparison between the skeletons of a giraffe's neck (Photo inset) and a Plesiosaur's neck (Public-domain drawing) Please note how long the individual vertebrae are in the giraffe's neck.

 

However the Longneck's neck is clearly NOT the same as the giraffe's neck: it is at the same size for the head, and the same thickness but at least double the length of the neck proportionately.

 

At this point the vertebrae are stretched to the length of more typical limb bones, being something like two or three feet long. The joints between them are more like elbow joints between the elongated bones. Please bear in mind that the vertebrae cannot bend in the middle, they can only bend at the ends. To compare again, here is the Zakariya al-Qazwini Bestiary Longneck from just after 1200 (One of the same series we have been looking at recently) This still has recognizably a littler curve at the top and a longer curve at the bottom, to make an overall stretched-S shaped curve

 (This one also shows the mane as spikes)

 

 

Already when you have a giraffe bend its neck, it does so stiffly and forming angles rather than smooth curves. In the photo below, the giraffe's neck folds over as a straight segment at the top because there is only one bone in there. It cannot make a nice continuous curve because it needs more vertebrae to do that. It cannot make anything comparable to a sea-serpent's S-curve or C-curves for that reason. There are not enough joints in the neck to make the curves go that way. Instead of a curve you get a set of angles.

 

 

Please refer to the reconstructions for Heuvelmans' and Oudemans' hypothetical long-necked pinnepeds at the top of this page: I have indicated where the vertebrae are going to have to be if those are going to be mammalian necks. The front half of the neck is going to have three vertebrae only at most, and those three vertebrae are not going to make a smooth curve. What you will have will be a series of angular kinks as I tried to convey to Darren Naish in my eatrlier drawing. For the kinds of curves we have frequently illustrated (and shown in samples above), my guess is that we would need two or three times the number of joints in the place of the hypothetical giraffe-like long pieces, in order to make the curves to have the sufficient bending for a smooth curve instead of a stiff bend at an angle. And once again, you are going to have to have vertebrae at least two feet long each in order to get the neck as long as you need it to fit these reports (Not a few reports but the majority of reports, worldwide and over the span of centuries) You are not going to get a nice tight circular curve over a five-foot length of neck such as the top of the Periscope or C-curve, what you will have will be two long pieces bent at right angles to each other for that same given length of neck..

 

Bending the longneck's neck: at 4 feet of neck the mammalian longneck has two vertebrae
to execute a tight curve but can only manage to fold at right angles (Left) at a 4 foot length of neck
with six vertebrae instead (Right), it is much easier to make regular curves in the neck. 

 

Below is Dale's plan drawing for a typical longneck using the statistical averages common in many reports and basically it is once again like the Oudemans, Sanderson and Dinsdale reconstructions, borrowing a little from each one but making more specifications including the larger flippes on this model. I have a later, improved version of the drawing that has made the numbers on it more readable

 

 

 

Below is a selection of Sea Serpent and Loch Ness Monster stills selected from many candidates by Scott Mardis, Jay Cooney, Dave Francazio, myself and some of our co-workers as being possible candidates for the Longneck category. The purpose here is not to dissect and criticize them but just to give a general overview of what the evidence looks like.

 

Two of the more controversial photos, from Loch Ness and from the "Patagonian Plesiosaur" Nahuelito

 

 

And the Valhalla illustration in its original orientation. It seems there are

different drawings of it pointed in either direction. 

 

ADDITIONAL:
My opinion was and is that some of the reports ascribed to the Mokele-MBembe are probably the same type of water monster as elsewhere and that in some cases, the reported dimensions match the Loch Ness Monster. That does mean specifically the reported dimensions of the neck. On this earlier blog posting:
 http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/11/reposting-congo-dragons-and-colossal.html

I included this depiction of a Mokele-MBembe which struck me as being more reminiscent of a Plesiosaur rather than a Sauropod dinosaur, and it definitely shows many vertebrae in the neck:

Furthermore there are many native depictions of water monsters and dragons the whole world over and not one of them shows only a few vertebrae in the neck, they always show many vertebrae in the neck. In this one the limbs are depicted oddly, but I think the idea is still that they are flippers rather than feet. In other depictions, the flippers are much more obviously so.

And here is the large file that the CFZ left off in the 2009 printing of the article

Native LongNecker Depictions Worldwide