Thalassoleon=Megalotaria?

Darren Naish recently posted on this form and the message elicited a response from Jay Cooney that this could be the fossil form of Heuvelmans' "Megalotaria" (he expressed displeasure in bringing the subject up) I agreed that if ever a fossil species deserved that name, then Thalassoleon macnallyae at the size of a walrus would deserve that name.

Thalassoleon

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

Thalassoleon is an extinct genus of large fur seal. Thalassoleon inhabited the Northern Pacific ocean in latest Miocene and early Pliocene time. Fossils of T. mexicanus are known from Baja California and southern California. T. macnallyae is known from central California, and T. inouei (which may be a synonym of T. macnallyae) is known from Japan.Thalassoleon could be the ancestor of the modern Northern Fur Seal.

T. mexicanus was comparible in size to the largest fur seals, with an estimated weight of 650-700 lbs.^[1] T. macnallyae, based on size of the mandible, may have grown much larger, similar in size to a walrus.

References

1. Jump up^ Geological Survey professional paper, Volume 992 By Geological Survey (U.S.)

https://www.sdnhm.org/archive/research/paleontology/DemereBerta-lrThal-05.pdf

Incidentally the female was 50% the size of the male which is close to modern fur seals. Fossils are found in the North Pacific, from Baja California to Mexico.

FossilWorks gives this data on the largest species:
http://fossilworks.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?a=taxonInfo&taxon_no=72014


Thalassoleon macnallyae Repenning and Tedford 1977 (eared seal)

Mammalia - Theriiformes - Otariidae

Full reference: C. A. Repenning and R. H. Tedford. 1977. Otarioid seals of the Neogene. Geological Survey Professional Paper 992:1-93

Belongs to Thalassoleon according to T. A. Demere and A. Berta 2005

See also Barnes 1989, Barnes 2008, Demere et al. 2003 and Repenning and Tedford 1977

Sister taxa: Thalassoleon inouei, Thalassoleon mexicanus

Type specimen: UCMP 112809, a partial skull. Its type locality is Drakes Beach, which is in a Messinian marine sandstone in the Drakes Bay Formation of California.

Ecology: amphibious piscivore

Age range: 7.246 to 5.332 Ma

Distribution: found only at Drakes Beach

And this on the more usual-sized species:

http://fossilworks.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?a=taxonInfo&taxon_no=72013

†Thalassoleon mexicanus Repenning and Tedford 1977 (eared seal)

Mammalia - Theriiformes - Otariidae

Full reference: C. A. Repenning and R. H. Tedford. 1977. Otarioid seals of the Neogene. Geological Survey Professional Paper 992:1-93

Belongs to Thalassoleon according to T. A. Demere and A. Berta 2005

See also Barnes 1989, Barnes 2008, Demere et al. 2003, Repenning and Tedford 1977 and Vidal 1991

Sister taxa: Thalassoleon inouei, Thalassoleon macnallyae

Type specimen: IGCU 902, a skull

Ecology: amphibious piscivore
Environments: coastal (all collections)

Age range: 7.246 to 3.6 Ma

Distribution:

• Pliocene of Japan (1 collection), United States (1: California)

• Miocene of Mexico (1), United States (1: California)

Total: 4 collections each including a single occurrence

"thalassoleon_by_hodarinundu-d4pu5g8" above, a probably not very accurate reconstruction from Deviant Art.   "Thalassoleon_mexicanusingame1"  below

Admittedly the fossils are very sparse and there is only one specimen for the larger species. However it is just possible that the larger species (or one derived from it) could have survived the ice age, be alive today as the "Megotaria" (in sealion form, as we have construed it) and might have worked its way around to including also a North Atlantic population. So at this point I would like to declare that the best possibility we have suggested so far is that "Megalotaria" is only the continuing survival of the large species of Thalassoleon. That assumption could easily prove wrong for any number of reasons. But it is still the best suggestion that we have to go on at the present time.

Another Long Necked Seal

 

Jay Cooney put this picture up as his avatar on Facebook. I immediately wanted to know more about it and asked hin, which became a general discussion a sort time later

 

Dale Drinnon: Well, in case the question should arise, this would be a pretty good representation of the longnecked sea lion, but a female. Where did you find it? Scott-You did this?

Scott Mardis: I got it on the internet somewhere. I don't know who the artist is. I gave it to Gina and she posted it. Dale Drinnon That's a shame, I'd like to think it represented an actual sighting I'll post it on my blog and give you credit for finding it, that should smooth over a few things.

Scott Mardis There was a similar encounter reported by some navy man during the original Patagonian Plesiosaur flap 1922. He said it was sitting on ice, then jumped in the water. Somewhere at sea off Patagonia.

Dale Drinnon Yes I know the story, I had that already from the Patagonian Monsters site: it was at sea, and further South at the Straits of Magellan I think. Heuvelmans includes the sighting on his list but includes no details about it. Evidently he did not really know about the sighting or he would have made more of a fuss over it

Scott Mardis It's in the New York Times 1922.Probably March-April 1922. Don't know off the top of my head. Dale, if I remember right the eyewitness' last name was Bevilaqua. It's in Costello's book, too.

Dale Drinnon: I checked and Costello speaks of two sightings in these waters: the one in the New York Times was made by Bevilaqua but it was a Plesiosaur-shaped animal with the neck estimated as 30 feet long (Which Costello thought was an exaggeration) it did not jump off an iceberg, but it was frightened into view when a boulder fell into the sea on the coast. The one that Heuvelmans mentioned was seen by the Rhone and it only had a neck five feet long: it could well have been a creature like this one but this illustration has no connection to that sighting (Wholly in the water for the length of the sighting) Costello mentions both sightings, but he mentions nothing like this picture, which is almost certainly from that same general area

 

Above, Longnecked Seal image compared to 1919 Hoy Island SS sighgting (Periscope profile in red overlay) and to the left, the Periscope sighting at Loch Alsh, cited by the Hoy witness J Mackintosh Bell as being most like his sighting. Below, illustrations from Heuvelmans' book including my overlay of the Hoy SS and his reconstructed Longneck to help illustrate the difference in the lengths f the neck in either case. I consider the illustration featured here to be a much more plausible representation for a Longnecked seal than Heuvelmans' version, which has several mechanical problems associated with the depicted anatomy, and in the neck in particular. The larger creature's neck is probably twice the length of the neck of the smaller creature, relative to the size of the head (Which is the part most witnesses could compare)

 

 

I later found out that the source for the illustration was:

 

http://www.saatchionline.com/art/-Long-Necked-Seal/49267/193366/view

CFZ Yearbook at Amazon.com 

Followup to "Megalotaria Longicollis"

I made up some more illustrations for Megalotaria after I had published the last blog entry

  I have settled on the idea that the female had something like the common seal colouration, being a greyish brown with scattered darker spots, and the male was more of a reddish brown with muted streaks of other lighter colours showing in the fur" the male has longer and coarser hair overall, but it seems the female also has a hairier neck. The mane in these animals is indicated to be lionlike, or generally all around the neck like a ruff, rather than horselike with just the stripe down the spine.

 

BTW this was another recent posting where I was attempting to make an earlier reconstruction of the type. I did have about the same body plan for the males and females, assuming the 1918 Hoy SS was female and the male should have a much thicker neck..

   http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/07/early-merhorse-art-by-thomas-finley-and.html

Here are two comparisons of the Hoy SS with a typical "Loch Ness Monster" Longneck, the one above with average size overall (Typical estimated adult females) and below is matching up the proportions going by the maximum width (And not going by comparative size). The Hoy SS's neck still comes out as being about half the length of the Longneck's neck by proportion.

 

And here is our reference chart to the other pinnipeds.The  Hoy SS type (Megalotaria) is about the bulk of a walrus, maximum sizeabout as much as an elephant seal, whereas the Longneck's body is about the same size as the elephant seal's but adding an elongated neck and tail onto that base.

"Megalotaria longicollis"

Jay Cooney was circulating this on Facebook last night. I saw it and I said "If you're talking Hoy Sea Serpent, I'll buy that" It is an artwork of the Cryptid "Megalotaria longicollis" by Utahraptor on Deviant Art.
http://www.deviantart.com/morelikethis/artists/154174153?view_mode=2

Utahraptor did add "the real Nessie" to this but this is clearly NOT the same as the Loch Ness Monster since for one thing nothing like the male has ever been reported on Loch Ness. They are very like some IRISH sightings however, and probably some Australian and Tasmanian "Bunyips" also. Two things of note: like real sea lions the neck of the male is very THICK which is actually specified in reports of this type. And the length of the neck of the female is no more than four times its diameter. That's important, it would be the norm for this species and much shorter than the long necks of the Longnecks. The female is a mite too thin though, she has probably just pupped. As Heuvelmans notes, the big male is not more than three times the length of the pup and since we have a good substantial record of a young one about seven feet long, the big males would be expected to be twenty feet long and maybe a little more.

Since the female as drawn here does bear a resemblance to the Parson's Long Necked seal reprinted below, this is a plausible enough connection (The other drawing shows a plumper body and my feeling is also this female should have a plumper body.)

The hinder flippers are somewhat stylized but not too badly. This species has small spiky ear-pinnas but not the erectile nostrils stated by Heuvelmans. it has normal seal-like whiskers. The female could also have more developed hair on the neck but here it is slicked down as it is characteristically. Male shaggy fur and mostly reddish brown (a possible black circle around the eye is noted by Costello)and the female is more greyish-brown with darker spots.(The darker spots are still there but harder to see in the males which are uniformly darker overall)

"Long Necked Walrus" from Biological Marginalia, via Jay Cooney

They are huge seals, not quite so large as elephant seals but at least as large as walruses. Besides the
two geographic areas I mention, there is evidence of them in the North Sea and around Scandinavia, possibly near Florida (I am an NOT including Thomas Helm's SS but others would certainly include it), off South Africa and possibly off Patagonia. Austin Whittall speculates about Long necked sea lions as coming from Patagonia and the possibility that some of them could have been known as Iemisch (Yem'chen)but without any really good evidence. I would say that would be at least consistent

Text quoting from the book Patagonian Monsters

 

[NB: Upon checking, The Rhone Sea Serpent and others like it seen at the Straits of Magellan more closely match the reported dimensions of Megalotaria rather than the larger, commoner Longnecks]

http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2010/10/long-necked-seals-in-south-america.html

My first blog posting on this topic was
http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2009/11/dale-drinnon-two-long-necked-sea.html
and it included also reference to the Kivik Stone:

A Cave Art 'Penguin'

This was originally something sent in to Bernard Heuvelmans as depicting his version of the Longnecked Sea-Serpent. However in view of its neck being relatively short, I would rather suggest that it represents the Greater Great Auk or Boobrie, or just possibly the shorter-necked Mackintosh Bell-Hoy island Sea-Serpent type.