Possible Medcroc Seen in Spain

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/9944445/Costa-Croc-seven-foot-alligator-on-the-loose-in-Spain.html

Note that the crocodylian in this story is said to resemble an alligator rather than a crocodile. We have heard that description before with the Medcroc reports.

Costa Croc: seven-foot alligator 'on the loose in Spain'

Police on the Costa del Sol are searching for an unusual fugitive: a seven-foot reptile - believed to be an alligator - that has been spotted in waterways near the popular tourist resort of Mijas.

Experts have predicted, using the tracks left by the alligator, that it is aged between 12 and 18 years and could weigh up to 11 stone Photo: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features

By Fiona Govan, Madrid

8:08PM GMT 20 Mar 2013

The beast, dubbed locally as the Costa Croc, was first sighted last month near a golf course east of Marbella.

This week officers from Seprona, a special nature protection unit from the Civil Guard, confirmed the presence of the large reptile after finding its footprints in undergrowth beside the Majada Vieja, an area of manmade lakes, just inland from the coast.

Authorities have posted red danger signs across the zone, a popular walking spot bordering a private golf course, warning: “Grave danger. Crocodile on the loose.”
Special police motorcycle units are patrolling the area in the hope of locating the animal, which estimated to measure between six and seven feet from nose to tail, as it basks in the sun.

Local expert Enrique Prieto, manager of the Crocodile Park in nearby Torremolinos was called in to help identify the exotic fugitive.
He said the tracks had been most likely made by an alligator aged between 12 and 18 years and weighing around 70 kilos. It had probably been released into the wild by an exotic pet collector after growing too big and becoming unmanageable.
”It is unlikely to pose a danger to humans unless they stumbled across it in the undergrowth,” Mr Prieto said, because at this time of year “its metabolism slows in the cold and it has no need to feed”.
But he warned that as the weather got warmer it would start looking for food. “If it hasn't been caught by May or June then human activities in and around the water should be banned.”
Despite the warning signs, visitors have reportedly flocked to the lakelands, a stone's throw from a residential development where many British expats own homes, in the hope of spotting the giant reptile.
Mario Calvente, a local gardener was the first to report seeing a large reptile after he spotted it dozing in the sun in a clearing beside the lake, last month.
”I know what I saw, and it wasn't an iguana,” he told a local newspaper, describing how the sound of his moped disturbed the reptile which slid off into the water as he approached.
”It was two metres long with a big snout and small eyes on top of its head. I didn't want to hang around.”

Scytho-Sarmatian Sea Monsters from the Ukraine

Following up on some recent postings on Scythians, Sarmations and the reality of Amazons on another blog, I have some illustrations left over relating to Water Monsters in Scythian and Sarmatian culture"Dolphin" but it is one that shows strikingly UN-dolphinlike features of the head and pectoral fins. I have always thought that in such depictions, the artist is really thinking of Beluga sturgeon.I believe that there are some very old Indo-European words which were ancestral to later "Whale" and "Dolphin" names such as the Greek Ketos (Cetus) but that the original reference was to Beluga sturgeonians, Sarmations and Proto-Indo-Europeans, this geographically relates to the modern Ukraine (Southern Russia)

A Water Horse or Hippocampus. this case once again I think this is based on a swimming moose: the forefoot in the middle seems to have cloven hoofs and I am thinking the "Rear Fin" represents a hind leg, also with a cloven hoof. unning "Minimal Seamonster" statistics in the "Longnecked" and "Waterhorse" categories and I was very surprised to find that the smallest-ize category of reports are describing a creature consistently between ten and fifteen feet long, sometimes as much as twenty feet long, but with a head and neck estimated as only four to six feet long, with a head two or three feet long-the whole creature very hoselike and with the head the size of a horse, and typically with one or two humps on the back. This minimum dimensions sighting is reported in Europe, Asia and North America, and offshore out to sea only slightly, and the dimensions match those of a moose (Elk) within a reasonable margin for error. This also matches the corresponding sightings on land, such as at Loch Ness up to 1934.

The Sarmatians were famous for using a dragon military standard that was a sort of an ornamental head with an attached wind sock. In this case the head is distinctively crocodylian and I can only surmise it depicts a Medcroc in the Black Sea end of the range (Historical reports from Turkey require that the crocs  entered the rivers via the Black Sea) and that the jagged comb on top of the head means to illustrate the ridge on its back and tail. This is nothing to do with the Pskov crocodiles as a Cryptid category, Pskov is in NORTH Russia.

Tarasque and Medcroc

The Tarasque is a specific sort of a dragon reported in the South of France and often traditionally identified as a sort of a crocodile. Fairytale book illustration is of recent vintage but the intention of the artist to show a crocodilelike beast is fairly clear. (Crocodiles are sometimes seen to "Blow water" like a whale upon emerging from the depths, a feature which has been used in the attempt to identify the Leviathan as a crocodile: The Leviathan was supposedly the Tarasque's father)

From Wikipedia;"A carved early Gothic column capital at the Church of St. Trophime in Arles, 14th century, depicting the Tarasque; it is one of several carvings here that show legends of local folklore as well as biblical figures"
Figure has been inverted and enlarged to show detail. Original is below text following.

Tarasque is evidently based on a very large crocodile that lives in the Mediterranean: different estimates of the size of the Tarasque range from "longer than a horse" to 30 to 50 feet long. It is also sometimes said to have "Horned" ears.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasque

Legend

Legend reported among others by the Golden Legend^[2] has it that the creature inhabited the area of Nerluc in Provence, France, and devastated the landscape far and wide. The Tarasque was a sort of dragon with six short legs like a bear's, an ox-like body covered with a turtle shell, and a scaly tail that ended in a scorpion's sting. It had a lion's head.

The Tarasque was said to have come from Galatia which was the home of the legendary Bonachus, a scaly, bison-like beast which burned everything it touched. Some speculate that the story of the Bonachus may be related to either that of the Unicorn or the Phoenix [It is not: the name means "bison" and the story about its incendiary farts laying waste to the countryside is basically only a very crude joke]. The Tarasque was the offspring of the Onachus and the Leviathan of biblical account; disputably a giant sea serpent.

The king of Nerluc had attacked the Tarasque with knights and catapults to no avail. But Saint Martha found the beast and charmed it with hymns and prayers, and led back the tamed Tarasque to the city. The people, terrified by the monster, attacked it when it drew nigh. The monster offered no resistance and died there. Martha then preached to the people and converted many of them to Christianity. Sorry for what they had done to the tamed monster, the newly-Christianized townspeople changed the town's name to Tarascon.
The story of the Tarasque is also very similar to the story of Beauty and the Beast and King Kong. The monster is charmed and weakened by a woman and then killed when brought back to civilization. A similar idea is found in the myths of Enkidu and the unicorn: both are calmed by sending them a woman. The description and legend of this creature is curiously similar to other dragons of French folklore such as Gargouille and Peluda.

A carved early Gothic column capital at the Church of St. Trophime in Arles, 14th century, depicting the Tarasque; it is one of several carvings here that show legends of local folklore as well as biblical figures

As of the 1500s and 1600s, the Tarasco was commonly depicted as a simple large lizard-shaped creature

The image shown on the church column at Arles being one of the earliest known representations of the Tarasque, it should be taken as the most authoritative. Although the number of legs is not shown, the notion of the creature having six legs instead of four postdates this representation by a century or two: furthermore I am in possession of a crocodile illustration from a bestiary which shows six legs also.

http://bestiary.ca/index.html

The really identifying features on the figure are the shape of the head from the top with bulging eyes and nostrils, and the broad back with an armouring of squared scutes, common among crocodiles. Unfortunately the tail of the creature wraps around the column and cannot be seen from this view. Tarasque is a creature that is legendary in both Southern France and in adjoining Spain: one of its functions is also as a nursery bogie, and as such it is also called  Cocordrilo, Corco or Coco. Some of the more modern sightings of such French "Dragons" also say they are four legged and lizardlike. On the other hand another sighting of a "Dinosaur" seen in Italy in the 1970s could have been a MedCroc, and the press represented it as having multiple legs like the Tarasque, even though the original report did not specify the number of legs. The witness was certain it was not a crocodile but that could also mrean it was more like an Alligator.

George Eberhart, Mysterious Creatures (2002)
Tarasque DRAGON of medieval France. Etymology: From the castle of Tarascon, on the Rhône River. Alternatively, Tarascon (originally called Nerluc) is said to have taken its name from the Dragon after it was killed. Physical description: Size of an ox. Head like a lion’s. Ears like a horse’s. Hard skin, covered with spikes. Six legs. Bearlike claws. Serpentine or scorpion-like tail. Behavior: Amphibious. Sloughs its skin every seven years. Said to have caused the river to flood. Made itself a nuisance by eating people and destroying bridges. Habitat: An underwater cave near Tarascon. Distribution: The Rhône River, between Arles and Avignon, Provence, France. The ani- mal is said to have come originally from Galatia in central Turkey, which may [or may not]  indicate a Celtic origin.[Near the 'Crocodile River' in fact-DD] Significant sightings: St. Martha (a Syrian prophetess conflated with Martha, the sister of Lazarus) was said to have overcome Tarasque with holy water and the sign of the cross. There were reports of river monsters in the Rhône in 1954 and 1955. In June 1964, a long-necked SEA MONSTER was seen by Jacques Borelli at the river’s mouth. Present status:The city celebrates St. Martha’s victory over Tarasque with a festival in late June each year. Possible explanations: (1) A Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus), especially since St. Martha is associated with the Middle East. (2) An Aurochs (Bos primigenius), though this wild European bull was neither amphibious nor particularly ferocious [The Aurochs suggestion actuially goes wiith the Bonnachon and not the Tarasque. The Aurochs was indeed a very dangerous beast.-DD]. (3) Creationists have suggested that Tarasque was the Late Cretaceous dinosaur Triceratops, though the legend does not mention horns on the head. Ceratopsian dinosaurs are known only from North and South America and Asia. (4) A closer match would be a glyptodont, a large armadillo-like mammal that lived in South America until the end of the Pleistocene, 10,000 years ago. One species weighed nearly 2 tons. Glyptodonts had armored horns on their heads; huge, turtlelike shells made of bony hexagons bound together by collagen; bones at the base of the tail; and stiff, bony sheaths at the tip [But did not inhabit the Old World at any time]. (5) The theropod dinosaur Tarascosaurus salluvicus, a femur of which was discovered near Tarascon at Lambeau du Beausset in 1991, was named after Tarasque. Sources: Rabanus Maurus, The Life of Saint Mary Magdalene and of Her Sister Saint Martha: A Medieval Biography, trans. David Mykoff (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian, 1989); Louis Dumont, La Tarasque: Essai de description d’un fait local d’un point de vue ethnographique (Paris: Gallimard, 1951); Eliza Gutch, “Saint Martha and the Dragon,” Folklore 63 (1952): 193–203; Bernard Heuvelmans, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents (New York: Hill and Wang, 1968), p. 528; Felice Holman and Nanine Valen, The Drac: French Tales of Dragons and Demons (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975), pp. 54–55; Ulrich Magin, “A Brief Survey of Lake Monsters of Continental Europe,” Fortean Times, no. 46 (Spring 1986): 52–59; Paul S. Taylor, The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible (San Diego, Calif.: Master Book Publishers, 1988), p. 40.

More Comments on Heuvelmans' Sea-serpents

The Major Types of Bernard Heuvelmans' Sea-Serpents, ca 1969

Diagram showing Sperm whale and its skeleton. Please note the row of small humps on top of the tail section: Heuvelmans said that the humps on the back of his sea-serpent were similar to these and much the same function, but were more prominent to the witnesses.




The shape of the Sperm whale's head is due to its including a large tank holding an oily substance, the spermaceti. This organ evidently functions as a hydrostatic organ. maintaining the animal's position in the water while it swims. Heuvelmans assumes that the humps on the back of the Many-humped Sea-serpent are hydrostatic organs and in this case he is following Ivan Sanderson's suggestion.



Heuvelmans' Many-Humped Sea-Serpent
by Pristichampsus (Tim Morris)

This incorporates several sets of mistaken observations. The unknown animal involved turns out to be the same as the Long-necked Sea-serpent or Oudemans' "Megophias" but the observations of the humps are a series of mistaken observations of waves in the wake. Different kinds of animals make the appropriate kind of wake, but including both Longnecks and Killer whales, other whales, boats, sharks, large fishes and other kinds of Sea-serpents.See my earlier CFZ blog:
http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2009/11/dale-drinnon-distant-humps.html

Forepart of Manyhumped SS, Backfin and Pectoral fins, derived from Orca (Killer whale) in a position unfamiliar to the witnesses. This also bolstered the opinion that the "Correct" colouration for the type was black on the back, white on the belly-like an Orca.



Heuvelmans' LongNecked SS
By Pristichampsus

This type also features a shorter line of humps on the back which Heuvelmans says are of variable contour: one big central hump on the back, or several medium sized ones (which he says that the big central hump causes the appearance of two or three large humps together) or else the humps are whipped by turbulance waves in the water to as many as six or seven smaller humps in a line. His book In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents includes a plate showin a swimming seal to make the point about the turbulence waves. This follows after earlier suggestions that the humps might be inflatable airsacs, which is a theory Dinsdale championed at first and then Sanderson took up thereafter. Heuvelmans continued the idea the humps might be airsacs in the Many-humped kind and I used to go along with the idea in the case of the Longnecks. Discussions with members at the yahoo group Frontiers of Zoology did bring home the extreme precariousness of the arrangement, when an accidental puncture would be disastrous and too great of water pressure on the whole could blow out the whole system and potentially expose a large section of the back to the mercy of the outside world.

So a safer model might be like the sperm whale's spermaceti tank removed to the center of the back as a hydrostatic organ in lieu of a back fin. Anatomically it would be composed of mostly the top layer and the bottom layer of tougher connective tissue and in between, a chamber full of an oily or waxy secretion. This would be equivalent to what Heuvelmans was saying when he was calling the hump area a sack of oily fat, which would come down to basically that same structure, anatomically speaking, and it would act the same way to become variable-contour in the water.

However for the most part and for the very LONG hump-trains, we would still be talking in terms of standing wave effects caused by the way the wake works.

Heuvelmans also said that the Longneck occasionally showed "Horns" that were presumably erectile nostrils forming snorkles. I would have to say that the feature occurs so infrequently, and is also known to show up consistently i one category of mistakes, that this feature is unconfirmed. It is best not to make too big a deal over them. Given that the "Mane" is sometimes said to be spiny, the "Horns" might be nothing more complicated than part of a young male's first mane starting to come in (They are definitely spoken of as part of the mane in the Corinthian SS's description)












Parsons 1751 Long-Necked Seal (7 foot long Juvenile=adult male no more than 20 feet long)

There are on the other hand still good reason to think there are such things as Long-necked seals. In fact they had a scientific description long ago but were mostly forgotten since then.

The Kivik Stone Evidently Illustrating Long-Necked Seals.
The Long-necked seals turn out to be not so very large and still in the size range of the "Known" seals since reports of them are universally between ten and twenty feet long.


Recent photos allegedly showing a Longnecked Sea-Serpent swimming off of Devon, UK:

Although the photos are not clear, the great distance between the head and the (supposedly turtlelike) body of this sea Monster do cause me to think this might be a fairly young Longnecked sea-serpent. This would be about right for the usual attitude in the water, the creature must be putting out some sort of an effort to seem to ride higher in the water, probably by using its paddles in a downstroke. If I understand these photos correctly, the head of the crature at top is facing right and at bottom it is facing left.




Closely-Packed Pilot Whales, Origin of SOME "Manyfinned" SS cases. At times the head of one is seen and identified as looking exactly like a Pilot whale's head.

Many-Finned Orcas, Puget Sound pod






I mentioned before that it was convenient for me to speak of Bruce Champagne's and Bernard Heuvelmans' Marine Saurians as different creatures: For me, Heuvelmans was describing a more definite Mosasaur with scales arranged in rings around the body, and the emphasis on the WWI UBoat Captains' reports. On the other hand, Champagne emphasizes a different suite of features including a potted coloration, shortened head and more obvious feet with webbed separate digits, and he mentions a Mediterranean population. In this case, that means the Medcroc to me. The Medcroc is often written off as errant examples of the Nile Crocodile, but reports say that it is broader and fatter, with a broader snout ("Duckbilled"), and they say that it can grow to enormous sizes over 50 feet long for a really big one. (One of them was definitely the Tarrasque, and estimates on the Tarrasque's size can range from 50 to 75 feet long)


Below is a representational Sea Dragon from a Roman coin: its head is elongated and looks like a crocodile's head, and the body shows four short widely-spaced legs, and so this might be a representation of a Medcroc. medcroc "Dragons" were definitely known to come ashore in Greece and Turkey in Classical days, and some are still turning up in Italy up to the present.



The colour illustration is the Aiya Napa seamonster seen around Cyprus as interpreted by Pristichampsus. The creature is called "The Friendly Monster" locally because it is not known to have ever attacked anubody. Some pretty fantastic descriptions are ascribed to it, and here Tim Morris depicts it as a sort of Mosasaur. From some of the more recent descriptions it is more definitely a crocodile, and it might be another surviving population of the Medcroc.

Early French depiction of Tarrasque on a church pillar, from Wikipedia, Image reversed. Note similarity of shape of the head (right) to the head of an alligator. The scales on the back are squared here, but also said to be interspersed with pointed ones.