Roman and Byzantine- Age Sea Monsters

Peter Costello drew attention to this mosaic in In Search Of Lake Monsters and surmised that it represented the same kind of Longnecked Sea-serpent that witnesses continued seeing and which were the basis for many reports of Lake Monsters worldwide.He noted that it could not be a reconstruction of a fossil animal because it contained features which occurred in the reports and which could not possibly be inferred from fossils. Later critical response included the assertion that it and the similar depictions below must have been made to account for fossils. Fossils do not indicate ears or horns, manes or humps on the back (often called "Coils" and thought of as being a long body thrown up into twists and turns)

 

It was also asserted that these creatures do not have rear fins and they have an imaginary kind of triple tail sometimes later seen in depictions of dragons. On the contrary this triple tail could easily be meant to include a representation of the rear flippers and the fact that they are sometimes shown as adjacent to a reptilian cloaca proves that they do not really belong at the end of the tail. The cloaca would instead represent the base of the tail.
(I have pointed this out to both Tyler Stone and Jay Cooney)

 

Illustrations of "Cetus" (Ketos in Greek) from 1st-2nd Century mosaics at Rome. The "Cetus" (Now used to mean "Whale" but it is evidently an even older IndoEuropean root meaning "a Disturbance or a Shaking",ie, "That which disturbs the waters from below"). The Greek story of Perseus had him rescuing a Phoenician princess from a Cetus (Ketos), and it is the name of one of the constellations as a result. The constellation is traditionally represented as a long-necked sea monster.

 

Be cause of the ambiguity of the term, many early Christians had the mistaken notion that Jonah had been swallowed by a Cetus (later "a Whale") and that representation became regular for many years before it fell out of fashion. The original text nowhere specifies what kind of a sea creature swallowed Jonah. It is a mistaken notion because almost certainly, Longnecks are not equipped to be able to really swallow people. However you do get many interesting repeated views of a Longnecked animal in Periscope position showing its foreflippers while it was considered the proper thing.

Kykkos, Cyprus, Byzantine Sea Monster . There are also several parallel examples of the same kinds odf sea monsters continuing on into the Byzantine Empire which folloed after Rome. Once again the depictions indicate such things as ears or horns, manes, and humps on the back, that occur in sightings but which could not be guessed from fossils. The flippers are usually shown as winglike fins. At this time the alternate name of "Pistrix" (="Pisces, Fish") was used instead of the older  "Cetus" ("Whale"). And the same creature carried over into medieval bestiaries. One type of these sea animals was commonly called a "Hippocampus" or "Water Horse" but the larger category did not necessarily all fall into that subgroup. the following Bestiary page uses the label "Pisces"

 

"Naiataka" Error in Petroglyph reproduction

I had posted this before but the matter came up again recently.

Both Costello and Mackal had published this illustration , said to be a petroglyph representing Ogopogo (Mackal uses the name "Naiataka")

Only the original is on Vancouver Island and this version as shown is incorrect in that it combines two different figures of the original petroglyph frieze. This is a well-known location and the illustration beow is taken from a standard reference work, Rock Art of the American Indian, by Mallory:

:The combination not only mistakenly combines two different objects, the second object which becomes the tail end is obviously a boat.

The actual intended Sea monster is shown below, and it is much more Plesiosaurian. Furthermore Mallory concludes that the indications are this was an attempt to reproduce 'Something which the artist had seen and had stongly in mind', which can be read as "A pre-colonial native sighting of Cadborosaurus, which the artist wished to make a historical recording of" 

More Water Moose sightings

Heuvelmans-sea-serpent-motley-Oct-2009

Know_your_Sea_Serpents_by_Pristichampsus

In both of the Sea Serpent charts above the "Merhorse" is the one at the lowest right hand corner.
Below is the "Merhorse" of the second chart by Tim Morris (Pristichampsus) and I have modified it slightly to match the other Merhorse in the other chart more (I could have made the head even larger and morse horselike, but I settled on a compromise: likewise I cut the tail in half as a compromise between not tail at all and the length of tail as illustrated) and I darkened the beard for emphasis because it is important (It represents the bell of the moose). In the chart below I think it makes a fair comparison with a moose, including even the legs and feet (the toes are clawed in the Pristichampsus drawing but it is hard to see how many: however it is easy enough to read the feet as cloven hooves.

 

The lowest end sizes for "Water Horses" seen at Loch Ness are actually about six feet long and six feet high in the body, which is a really good approximation for a not especially large moose. We are also assuming a predominance in sightings of cow moose without antlers. Peter Costello gives the sizes for a "Water Horse" (in his interpretation, the creature behind most freshwater sightings worldwide, or at least all over the Northern Hemisphere)  as about 18 feet long for the female, 30 feet long for the male (In Search of Lake Monsters page 288), which does make it just barely up to the lower end of Heuvelmans' Merhorse category: he is using Mackal's (LNIB) figures and applying the averages to all similar such creatures at Lake Okanogan, Lake Champlain, Lake Storsjon and all the rest. He assumes that all of the larger reported creatures have had their lengths doubled and he automatically cuts all larger estimates of length in half (as does Mackal). Cutting the 18-30 feet estimates in half yields  9 to 15 feet long, which is really good estimate for moose size. The  other extremes of long length at 50 to 100 feet (even sometimes 150 feet long or more) are also consistent with the reported lengths of wakes in this category, and the Merhorse sightings in general as given by Heuvelmans (In the Wake of the Sea Serpents p. 553).

 

 

 UNDERWATER MOOSE

There is currently a move to consider moose that habitually swim for long distances underwater as another population or a distinctly different sort of creature with different adaptations. Officially moose are held to be able to swim across wide lakes in the Canadian Wilderness, and even cross narrow straits and fjords along the coastline, the same as they do in Scandinavia. They are said to be able to dive down to twenty feet and stay submerged for a minute at a time: moose can also swim for a pretty good distance completely submerged and a swimming moose is supposed to be able to travel along at ten miles an hour (estimated). While I was assembling this article, I just so happened to cross postings with Chad Arment and he says he is even working on a book that will focus on the theme of underwater moose as Cryptids, and they evidently even feature as "Unexpected encounters" in a popular video game. However to counter this view, this seems to be a matter of some moose being more adept at swimming and diving than others, rather than any kind of a new species to be involved. My definition of Cryptid includes the provision that it must be a potentially completely new species to qualify, and not to be classifiable as any currently known species. Most moose have features which work against them exploiting underwater habits: they have not got flippers or webbed feet, they have widely-spreading hoofs, which are much less efficient as swimming fins. They are also very buoyant, and if they have taken a deep breath to stay down longer, they are even more buoyant. And videos that show moose spending a long time underwater show them as tending to bob back up to the surface eventually.
It is only sufficient for my purpose that some moose are unusually good swimmers, they like doing it, and some individual moose are trained and/or adapted to be especially good at swimming and diving.

"This one was for Canoe & Kayak Magazine. The story was about how a moose can

 swim twenty feet underwater… I guess you learn something new every day."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50293534@N00/513779368/

 

 Photos of a cow and a bull moose grazing at a depth of about 15 feet underwater.

  

Underwater Moose video. These are becoming more and more common and more and more popular lately.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MYSTERY MOOSE
http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/ja06/indepth/default.asp

It is instructive to note that the Canadian Geographic (Canadian version of the National Geographic)
 includes a section on Cryptozoology and lake monsters under the heading of "Moose Facts"
and in fact some of the cited sources do speak of swimming moose as being the significant sources for some of the sightings at many of these lakes
http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/ja06/indepth/justthefacts.asp

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Moose tracks  |   Studying southern moose  |   Keepers of the crypt
Departments:   Knowledge toolbox  |   Cartographer’s table  |   Just the facts  |   From the CG vault
 

JUST THE FACTS 

Moose Facts

 •  Moose have a life span of 15 to 25 years.
•  The average moose weighs between 550 to 700 kilograms.
•  Moose are the largest member of the deer family.
•  The flap of skin that hangs beneath a moose's throat is called a bell.
•  Only males have a rack of antlers. They are flattened and range from 120 to 150 centimetres across and weigh 20 kilograms. Their antlers may have as many as 30 tines (or spikes).
•  Each year, antlers are shed in November or December and another, slightly larger set begin to grow the next midsummer.
•  Moose live in every Canadian province.
•  Moose are very good swimmers and can easily swim 16 kilometres.[per hour]
•  Moose can run faster than 50 kilometres per hour.
•  Having poor eyesight, moose rely on their keen sense of smell.
•  A male moose is called a bull and a female moose is called a cow.
•  The word moose comes from the Algonquin word mooswa, which means "twig-eater."
•  Moose eat willow, birch and aspen twigs, horsetail, sedges, roots, pond weeds and grasses, leaves, twigs, buds and the bark of some woody plants, as well as lichens, aquatic plants and some of the taller herbaceous land plants.
•  Moose can feed under water.
•  Moose can dive more than five metres for food on a lake bottom.
•  It is estimated that there are between 500,000 and 1 million moose in Canada.
•  Unknown species of animals are referred to as cryptids.
•  The term cryptozoology was coined by Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans to scientifically describe his investigation of unknown species. It is not a recognized branch of zoology.
•  Cryptozoology is commonly grouped with paranormal research.
•  Many crytozoological phenomena are based on aboriginal legends.
•  Cryptids range from Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster to ivory-billed woodpeckers to more bizarre creatures, such as atmospheric beasts and werewolves.
•  The first recorded sighting of a Sasquatch was in 1811 near what is now the town of Jasper, Alta. A trader named David Thompson found some strange footprints, 36 centimetres long and 20 centimetres wide, with four toes, in the snow.
•  Bigfoot is said to stand 1.4 metres in height and weigh 58 kilograms and have long black, coarse hair covering its entire body.
•  Across western Canada, at least 19 water monsters have reputedly been spotted in three of the four provinces. Alberta has no reported cases.[Untrue]
•  Canada’s most famous water monster is Ogopogo of Lake Okanagan in the south central interior of British Columbia.
•  The first recorded sighting of Ogopogo by a Caucasian was by Mrs. John Allison in 1872.
•  The monster called Sicopogo lives in B.C.’s Shuswap Lake, not far from Kamloops.
•  Lake Memphrémagog — an international lake 113 kilometres east of Montréal located on the Canada-U.S. border — is said to be inhabited by a sea serpent.

Early Merhorse Art by Thomas Finley, and Longnecked Seals in General

"Merhorse" by Thomas Finley 2013.
Thomas Finley said when he made this illustration:
 "This painting captures an elusive Merhorse both above and below the waves and gives a special over all view of the size of the creature. This is a special request for the Bizarre Zoology Blog Series."
I then objected that Bernard Heuvelmans had made several specifications about the Merhorse, including that it was supposed to have enormous eyes. After some discussion (and submissions of competing artworks by both of us), Thomas Finley developed what we thought was a good and authoritative  Merhorse ex Heuvelmans.
However it seems Jay Cooney had originally intended this painting to represent a more generic giant pinniped which could account for reports contained in the Merhorse category. We can perhaps equate this to Peter Costello's version of the Longnecked Seal theory more than Heuvelmans' version per se (There is a good reason for saying so and we shall be getting to it directly)

 

 This is an image of Bernard Heuvelmans' Merhorse. It comes from a

 series of such illustrations as added in the next blog...

 

Thought to be a head-on view of a Merhorse by Heuvelmans. This could just possibly be an attempt to represent a sighting of the Hoy Island 1919 SS type head-on, assuming this face goes with that type. I feel pretty definitely this is a pinniped at least.

 

 

biomarginalia (Presumably Cameron McCormick) writes:
[Regarding]Bernard Heuvelmans’ “Long-Necked" sea serpents: the Hoy “sea serpent" is fascinating, although rather than evidence for a long-necked species of pinniped, I wonder if it was an encounter with a very very wayward (and exaggerated) eared seal. As for the others, it is within the realm of possibility for mirages to create the impression of a long-necked creature (I’ll have to track down that diagram). Confusingly, it is not explained why the Tonny and Orme’s Head encounters are classified unambiguously into this category (and not, say as Super Otters or Many-Humped); amazingly the Orme’s Head sighting was published in the rather improbable venue of Nature. It may be a bit more difficult to publish a sea serpent report there today. [These drawings were published in the recent blog on Longnecked reports in general-DD]
http://www.tumblr.com/liked/by/astronomy-to-zoology/page/4

Bernard Heuvelmans' version of the Long-necked giant Sea lion, his "Megalotaria"

 

Reconstituted J Mackintosh Bell sighting creature, seen off the island of Hoy in the Orkneys, 1919.

This would presumably be a female. Length from nose to tail would be 13-14 feet, the size of a walrus but of course with the neck being more elongated.

 

This would be the hypothetical male and female of the species

As a sort of "Northern Bunyip" it is possible that the male would have a mane of thick hair all over the neck and not just a stripe of hair along the spine: the female's neck would be hairy too, but that would perhaps not be so obvious. The male might be up to 18-20 feet long maximum, the size of an elephant seal, although once again not built the same way and not weighing as much.

 

There is an earlier blog entry giving good reasons why this model is to be preferred to something more closely similar to the original drawings produced to illustrate the sighting.

 

In the version below, taken from Heuvelmans, the reader is led to believe the witness produced these drawings himself. In fact when checking Rupert T. Gould's retelling of the original report, it is clear that Bell had difficulty in making a good representation of the creature and these drawings were made by his wife. the drawing is decidedly amateurish and with wavering uncertainty of the outline

 

The measurements which were specified are actually in conflict with this drawing. The length of the neck is just about equal to the width of the back: the length of the body is about twice as long as the length of the back. The rear flippers are again about the length of the back. The whole length of the creature is about seven times the length of the head, the neck being twice and the body being four times the length of the head, plus the length of the head for itself. The corrected proportions are as redrawn above.  Length including the tail flippers for the male is 20-25 feet long and for the female is 15-18 feet long

 

The head and neck was made under the impression that it resembled the 1893 Lochalsh sighting by Farquahar Matheson out of the illustrations which Gould provided for reference.

 In his account, J. Mackintosh Bell had stated that the neck above water was as thick as an elephant's foreleg and all rough looking. An elephant's foreleg is a much thicker object than is shown in the original drawing and an attempt to make an appropriate corresponding thickness of neck is what is shown in the above paste-up.

There is one good Scientific account and illustration of a longnecked seal, made in the late 1700s and evidently making reference to a creature sighted around the British isles and not actually seen by the artist himself. This is nonetheless the only really substantial documentation of the allegation. In this case, a young male was said to measure 7 1/2 feet long and the projected size of an adult male would then be between 20 and 25 feet long (Pehaps 30 feet long counting the outstretched rear flippers)
(The adult male sea lion is about three times as long as the pup, a statement affirmed by Heuvelmans)

This information was provided by Darren Naish:

 James Parson wrote a paper in 1751 in which he described five “species” of Phoca, among them he mentioned a Dr. Grew’s “long neck’d seal” from an unknown locality. This peculiar seal was actually part of the Royal Society’s Museum, and as such it was included in a Catalog published in 1681, where it was described as follows:From his nose end to his fore-feet, and from thence to his tail, are of the same measure [4]

Heuvelmans' composite is not a good match for the Long-necked Sea lion:

But it IS just possibly a good match for the J Mackintosh Bell/ 1919 Hoy SS, allowing that neither drawing was going to be precisely accurate:

And as a final check, matching the full reconstruction to the Hoy SS proportions, we see there is a severe difference in proportions. The heads, flippers and bodies are not so much different in relative size, but the neck is actually drastically shorter. and that is the major difference, the actual Longnecks have a Plesiosaur-like neck which typically measures 10-20 feet in adults (Estimating a total length of 28 to 55 feet going by Oudemans' charts and reducing the tail lengths appropriately: the average 15 foot long neck belongs to a 40 foot long adult)

The lengths given by Peter Costello for his big eared model of the long necked seal are a minimum of about 18 feet for females and a maximum of about 30 feet for the males.(In Search of Lake Monsters p 288) This is no way comparable to the basic Longnecks (including the averages of such sightings as alleged at Loch Ness) but is a pretty exact match for the predictions based on the Hoy SS redrawn model. The drawing made at the top of the page by Thomas Finley is a pretty decent portrayal of the type: BUT the big ears in this artwork and as specified by Costello do not go with this type, they go with the Master-Otter and other kinds of Water-Monsters. This model would NOT account for the majority of reports in Loch Ness, Lake Okanagan, Lake Champlain or Lake Storsjon, BUT they might do well to account for SOME of the Irish reports and some of the "Long-Necked Seal" Bunyips that are explicitly described as such (ibid pp 273-276)(at a total estimated length of 5-15 feet long, which I consider a fair match, and not measuring the rear flippers in with the length)

As I had said it before, I prefer to refer to the Long necked Sea Serpent reports collected by Heuvelmans as "Megalotaria longicollis" to represent two types, the majority being the Longneck longicollis but this series as typified by the 1919 Hoy Sea Serpent retaining the genus name Megalotaria (Big Sea lion). I would have preferred to retain the name Megophias preferred by Oudemans for the Longicollis creature, but I have heard some very persuasive arguments why that name should not be maintained. Incidentally the colloquial term "Long-neck" as a reference to the long-necked plesiosaurs (and as distinguished from the short-necked plesiosaurs) runs back as far as the middle 1800s (the middle of the 19th century, and old enough for the term to be understood since before the American Civil War. References to Oudemans' composite creature as a Long-neck or a Long-necked seal were not merely descriptive, they were making a direct acknowledgement that his Megophias looked like a long necked Plesiosaur) Thus the uses for Long Necked seal and Long Necked Plesiosaur are almost equally as old as each other: it cannot be objected that the term is a modern one or that Heuvelmans made it up.

 

Some Longnecked SeaSerpents

The Sumerian image of Tiamat has been identified as the oldest portrait of a Longneck we can feel pretty certain of according to Ted Holliday: the head and neck are in about the same position as the "Surgeon's Photo" at Loch Ness

 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiamat (Above)

http://www.artisannorway.com/447/borknagar-symbols-explained-at-the-viking-ship-museum/

 

These Plesiosaurian Viking "Sea Dragon" has exaggerated spines on their backs and exaggerated forefin "Wings"-The image is identified as meaning the Midgard serpent but it shows TWO creatures

 

 

The image above is a native petroglyph named "Puff the Magic Dragon" by sightseers and suggested to be a "Living dinosaur." Actually it is clearly a variation on the local "Water Monster" or Avan-Yu..

 This witness' sketch of "Cadborosaurus" shows how the top half of the "Stretched-S" shape is the same thing as is usually called the "Periscope" position. The rearward section I also judge to be the base of the neck becoming much broader before merging into the bulkier body.

A number of these illustrations from In The Wake of Sea Serpents (following) turned up during my recent researches and so I thought I'd make use of them here.

We have had a long discussion about this fellow on separate occasions before, most recently in the "Sea Giraffe" article. I am now considering if I should add this picture there or write a new blog now that I have this picture available. Incidentally, the eyes/irises looking blue or grey is a feature that has been noted on other occasions, and apparently the eyes are surrounded by a ring of ski the same colour as the eyes (Peter O'Connor surmised this in In Search of Lake Monsters, but the exact statement of this observation has been around since the late 1700s and early 1800s)

Below are some early Longnecks, some of them confusingly leaving the "Many-Humped/String of buoys" effect in the wake: these first two are marked as ?SO for no especially good reason.

 

The mast was 18 feet tall. This is like the Umfuli SS turned up on end. 

 

 

These ones were apparently drawn as too thick by the witnesses: both feature the "Sawtoothed" back ridge. The one below was represented in a different drawing in the blog about "Cadborosaurus"

(This Massachusetts Bay SS on the other hand looks like a standard threehumper): 

 

This creature has the usual very broad and flat head attributed to BOTH The Longneck and the Merhorse: Oudemans also agrees to the proportions that the head is half as thick as it is long, but the width is 2/3 the length. The eyes are not actually directed forward, they merely seem so from this view: from the side the eyes are described as being more "Elongated"

 

 

This very confusing "Plesiosaur" drawing evidently means to show a "String of Buoys"

Very likely the sketch is so misleadingly different from whatever was actually seen as to be valueless. The witness did insist he had seen a Plesiosaur with "Erected nostrils" that others took to be "Ears"

This thick bodied Sea Serpent matches a sighting at Loch Ness where the head was not brought up out of the water. We can only imagine the witness exaggerated the thickness in his drawing

This one evidently showed a hind flipper up out of the water while it was being watched. Once again, a good length of tail is behind the rear flipper.

This is an obscure sighting made before the Surgeon's photo was taken at Loch Ness but displaying a neck of much the same shape. It was only published after the photo had been in circulation but was supposedly based on a drawing made in earlier letters.

This one has its neck in the typical arched position often seen while the animal is fishing, only it has been startled and is now looking up. Several Plesiosaurs have a head shaped like that.

 The Cuba SS was cited by Heuvelmans as having no tail. On the other hand, I read the drawing as showing a definite tail about as long as the definite part of the neck, very short and thick and quite possibly with a large fin on it. The cloaca would be about directly under the second hump back on this one, going by the shape of the body, and the two humps seem to correspond to where the foreflippers and rear flippers would be. Its actually a pretty decent depiction allowing for that

 

The Bali SS has a similar "Turtleheaded" appearance to the Valhalla creature, and upon checking the neck is at standard Longneck proportions for the forepart of the neck (Neck a foot thick and ten feet long, being the statistical average for a creature 40 feet long. The head of such a creature is about 2 feet long) See below:

 

The Campania SS reported by Sir Arthur Rostron turns out to match the top part of a neck of those same proportions.

Evidently the Vondel SS briefly held up a foreflipper near its head (below)

 

This would appear to have been a maned male "Merhorse" instead of just an ordinary "Longneck"

Although the illustrations SEEM very different, the creatures seen by the ships HMS Daedalus and the City of Baltimore were actually very similar and described in nearly the same terms.

 

The conventional explanation of the Fly SS is that it was a kind of a Plesiosaur,

but Heuvelmans opts for a Mosasaur or a kind of sea-crocodile instead.

 

 

 This rather repulsice creature was called a Merhorse by Heuvelmans. That could be right because the head seen on top of the water was very  small in comparison to the

 very large body that was indicated as being underwater.

 

 

This is an illustration of a Brazilian encounter from a book of fairy tales.

 

http://www.mandatrix.org.uk/shaw/Shaw/Limerick_Sea_Serpent.html


The Mystery of the Monster of Limerick DockWay back in October 2005, when fustar.info was but a mewling babe, I related the blood-curdling (1922) tale of The Mystery of the Monster of Limerick Docks. At the time I promised to dig out a copy of Denis O'Shaughnessy's Limerick: 100 Stories of the Century to flesh out the rather sketchy details I'd gleaned from Graham J. McEwan's Mystery Animals of Britain and Ireland and the Limerick Leader. Despite my half-arsed efforts the book had remained, like mystery beasties themselves, frustratingly elusive. That is, until now.

Goodbye sketchy details, hello not-very-detailed sketch:





The artist was one Stephen O'Gorman (a Limerickian who'd emigrated to Birmingham) and the above depiction was submitted to the Limerick Leader after they'd reprinted the story in 1974.

Stephen was a teenager at the time and was playing handball in Shannon Street with several of his pals when suddenly they noticed that people were gathering in large numbers at the quayside. "We immediately joined them and to our amazement saw this strange creature in the middle of the river. It was travelling very slowly towards Sarsfield Bridge.""The creature travelled as far as Limerick Boat Club and then turned back[...]A group of Free State soliders with rifles came dashing by (I believe they came out of the Strand Barracks) and they kept pace with the creature. When it passed the end of the Docks…they opened fire from Cleeve's Bank and every so often they repeated the shooting until the creature passed Barrington's Pier and finally disappeared into the distance."
"They did not hit it, merely content to hit the water just behind it. I believe they were just trying to encourage it on its way".

A parallel read of the events of the time is the Book "Not while I have Ammo" written by Jim Corbett which is the story of Jim's Grandfather Captain Connie Mackey.. The book is a worthy read of the History of Captain Connie Mackey....Defender of the Strand who was defending the Strand Barracks, Limerick whilst all this was happening.

In the case of the Tyne Sea-Serpent (below) the head and neck were stuck up unusually high, over 35 feet, and the back trailing behind it unusually long, perhaps 90-100 feet long, and in this case I feel it is much  more likely the witnesses were viewing a waterspout.