More from Scott Mardis

Development stages of the common European eel

The Leptocephalus stage is at the bottom.

Supplemental Giant Eel Sea Serpent Illustrations from Scott Mardis

Titanoconger, The REAL Super-Eel and the REAL Sea-Serpent

Scale Mock-Up For the Gargantuan Eel-shaped Fish "Titanoconger" (Centre), representing it alongside some old engravings meant to show it and with a scale comparison between it, a sperm whale (Physeter) and a killer whale (Orca) The Titanoconger is presumably a carnivore feeding on medium-sized sea creatures, and probably including smaller sharks, dolphins, porpoises, seals and squids. It is a notch below Dr. Shuker's Leviathan on the feeding chain and the Leviathan regularly feeds on notably larger prey items including young whales and even adults of moderately large whales such as pilot whales.


"Heuvelmans' Super-Eel" by Pristichampsus AKA Tim Morris, on Deviant Art. Tim notes on this copy that this is his scond version of the Super-eel having heard in the interrim that he needed to make it thicker, among other things. The differences he has made place this version squarely in the "Titanoconger" category, except the back can be much darker and the belly paler. This probably compares fairly to the scale mockup I have made above. Titanoconger is not only much longer than Megaconger (by two or three times the length), it is also proportionately slimmer and more elongated-although in both types the biggest ones in length can also be the fattest ones propotionately as measuring thickness to length. A big Megaconger can be thirty feet long and a yard thick (As thick as a horse), and hence the thickness is 1/10 of the length. In Titanoconger the proportion would seem to be thickness is 1/12 to 1/15 the length.

The fin along the back is possibly also much longer, beginning a little bit behind the head on the spine. A typical Titanoconger might be 75-80 feet long, perhaps even longer, and perhaps six to seven feet thick. The body also seems to be more or less tubular with a circular cross-section much the same thickness througout (but with the tail laterally flattened)

What makes it seem to fall in the "Conger" category is again that it has pectoral fins or flippers that are sometimes seen and described. One clear case might be the July 23, 1925 sighting off Australia by the Baween, and another case might be the "Attack" upon the US ship Sally, as commemorated in the etching incorported far right in the paste-up at the top of the page (Heuvelmans counts this as a hoax but there were several cases where sailors said they fired on Sea-serpents in the period, and that is all the engraving really shows) From a comparison of these and a couple of other sketchy accpounts we can make these estimates: The creature is about 75 feet long in all, of which 1/3 of the front part sticks out of the water in front. The head is about ten feet long and five feet thick in front, with a mouth possibly six feet across that is opening and closing (This may be a threat and not 'gasping for air')and about another five feet back, the pectoral fin sticks out and it is also about ten feet long. Increase the size of the creature to 80 or even 90 feet long in all and then increase these measurements proportionately, and all of the various measurements from the different cases fall into line. The pectoral fins and back fins are both clearly RAYED fins and they frequently have jagged or ragged edges.




A Maori Taniwha in the shape of a whale-sized dragon-eel. The Maoris also seem to represent both a medium-sized eel that can move inland and then again the much larger kind of Giant eels that live in the sea and which they classify as "Sea Monsters"


One Sea-serpent sighting near British Columbia was of a large black "Eel" with "Horns" killing seals, and this is usually interpreted as being the neck of a Long-necked Sea-serpent.. On the other hand, the "Horns"could be a reference to the pectoral fins close to the back of the head.












The Kyushu Maru Sea-Serpent shown fighting with a whale, presumably a baleen whale, off of Japan. Heuvelmans describes it as looking like "A sort of Conger-eel" but then chooses to call it a tentacle from a giant squid: on the contrary, I find it much too thick to be a squid's tentacle and it actually would be a Giant eel latched on by its jaws on the whale's forefin, despite Heuvelmans' denial that this is what is represented.






Heuvelmans contended that we have had a specimen of the Super-eels on the books as collected on a scientific expedition for many decades. This was the giant Leptocephalus collected by the Dana. The Dana Leptocephalus was collected in thousand-foot-deep water off of South Africa in 1930, the last year of the expedition, and it was actually lost (washed overboard) shortly after preliminary description (only) had been made of it. Another giant leptocephalus of half the length was dredged up off New Zealand in 1959 and was named "Leptocephalus giganteus". The Dana leptocephalus was retroactively assigned to the same species (by Ichtyologist Dr. David G. Smith without actually examining the specimen) and all subsequent discussion hinges on the inclusion within the same species. Initially the leptocephali were described as being conger-like fishes with prominent pectoral fins and a continuous fin wrapping around from back to bottom over the tip of the tail.

From STRANGE Magazine's site, "Bring me the head of the Sea-serpent"
The case of the bottled sea serpent brings to attention another eel-shaped controversy. On January 31, 1930, while south of Africa's Cape of Good Hope, the Danish research vessel Dana captured what seemed to be an enormous leptocephalus (eel larva), which was duly preserved, bottled, and retained thereafter in Copenhagen University's Zoological Museum {Incorrect from my information, which is from Sanderson's files-DD] It was a truly extraordinary specimen, for whereas the leptocephalus of the common eel Anguilla anguilla measures a diminutive 3 in. long and metamorphoses into an adult eel generally around 4 ft., the Dana's monstrous leptocephalus was already 6 ft. 11/2 in. long!

Accordingly, ichthyologists speculated that if its species' rate of growth equalled that of the common eel, the unknown adult form of the Dana larva might well attain incredible lengths of 108-180 ft. ! [Incorrect, that is extrapolating from the growth rate of the congers and does not match the ratio for common eels just quoted-DD] The creature would be, in short, a super-eel, as postulated by cryptozoologist Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans when predicting identities for the types of beasts responsible for the voluminous collection of sea serpent reports on record. Sadly, however, it was not to be.

In 1970, University of Miami ichthyologist Dr. David G. Smith revealed that the Dana leptocephalus was not the larva of a true eel, but of a quite different eel-like fish known as a notacanthid or spiny eel. What makes this identification so devastating for its claim to fame as a bona fide sea serpent is that notacanthids undergo most of their growth before transformation of the larva into the adult, not after (as true eels do). That is to say, adult notacanthids are scarcely longer in length than their larvae--which means that the Dana larvae's length was nothing special at all, and would not have increased to any great extent if it had survived and transformed into an adult. Exit the bottled sea serpent! Except that was never what the scientist said and none of the Cryptozoologists quoting him have ever read the original materials, which were firstly an article in COPEA and then in successive volumes NOT focusing on the gigantic leptocephali per se but actually talking about other things and only incidentally at the same time attempting to fit the giant Leptocephali into the theoretical framework. Dr. David Smith's 1970 paper in COPEA," Notacanthiform Leptocephali in the Western North Atlantic", he made the suggestion that the very large larvae were immature Notacanths or spiny sharks related to the halosaurs. Immediately there was a problem because the conformation of the fins did not match, and Smith stated specifically "L. giganteus cannot be identified as to family." In the 1989 Leptocephalus section of Fishes of the Western North Atlantic, Smith says "Leptocephalus giganteus may represent a species group within the Notacanthidae or Halosauridae, or it may represent a [different] group as yet unknown as adults"
If the identification is so ambiguous that the family cannot be identified and the giant leptocephali might very well still be unidentified, then all discussion of their adult size being of moderate dimensions immediately becomes moot. In the normal freshwater eels of North America and Europe, adults are about a dozen times the size of their leptocephalus larvae: the adults of the "Leptocephalus giganteus" could still be at approximately thirty feet for the three-foot leptocephali and 72 feet for the 6-foot "Leptocephalus giganteus" And both species have "Conger" type fin conformation and had in the interrim been classified under the genus Coloconger (small, short-tailed deepsea eels) which are rather thick for their length and rather "Knife-shaped" That description might go for the thicker adult form of "Megaconger" which has a thickness about 1/10 the length (or "Thirty feet long and as big around as a horse") "Titanoconger" as the adult of the sadly lost six foot leptocephalus could well still be something which externally resembles a 70 to 75 foot long pelagic eel with the fins similar to a conger eel.



"Serpens Marinus" (Sea Serpent) redrawn off of the illustration at the top, and from a work on fishes dating to 1680.

The amazing part of this is that the illustration below it seems to be its outsized Leptocephalus phase. One of the evidences in support of the Titanoconger is the report of finding Leptocephalus larval eels six feet long-a finding subsequently disputed. But the illustration of the Dana 6-foot leptocephalus is much like this


If the relationship was known as far back as this "Three Musketeers" period, that would be truly amazing because the relationship between eels and leptocephali was not supposed to have been discovered until 150 years later, and the discovery of six-foot leptocephali thought to have been made only in the modern age.




From the same 1680 book: probably a mistaken drawing of an oarfish at top and a "Murena" (Moray Eel) below it. This is just possibly an illustration of Heuvelmans' "Camoflage" moray said to inhabit the Mediterranean and to be the especial "sea-serpent" of that region.

Leptocephalus.

Cressie and Chessie, Part III, Great Orms, Lindorms and The Rest of The World

I just dug out an old preliminary draft for my 1995 Preliminary List of Cryptid Forms in Addition to Other Checklists (which finally saw print in the 2010 CFZ yearbook after going through several generations and much attrition) and I looked up the page pertaining to Unknown Giant Eels. This would have been about 2004 and one of the older submissions I had been making to the CFZ to show how the project was progressing. I "Showed my Work" at that stage of the game before being continually chided to condense and simplify the document.And so the list had come to item number 19 (following sharks and other fishes)


The Dragon Fafnir as a Lindorm, Note the ray-finned Pectoral fins behind the head.

19.A Giant green moray eel of 20-30 feet reported off of Fiji according to James Sweeny (A Pictoral History of Sea Monsters...)
20. A "Camoflage" or painted moray eel of the Mediterranean, of similar size, as suggested by Heuvelmans from some Sea-serpent sightings in Wake but not granted a formal category.
21 "Megaconger", a 20-30 foot long "Supereel"looking like a conger eel and evidently collecting most of the smaller series of reports in that category.It lives closer to shore in shallower waters and has a more even overall colouration than the larger "Supereels" as documented in Wake by Heuvelmana.
22 "Titanoconger" the larger "Conger-like" category of "Super-eels", both "Congers occasionally showing the pectoral fins as well as a long backfin. "Titanoconger" makes up the larger-sized section of reports in that categorry and tends to be seen more often at open sea, farther away from land, and displays the more marked separation into a dark back and a much lighter belly. Reports in this category run from 50 to 100 feet long and can be longer, but more likely exaggerated.
23. A "Turtlefaced" eel is also reported, but the category is poorly defined.
24. "Water Monsters were reported in the rivers of England, France, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe, by Maurice Burton back at the time when he upheld the Giant eel theory as the identity for the Loch Ness Monster. these reports would have been made primarily in the later 1940s up to the early 1960s, involving eel-shapwed creatures mostly at 10-20 feet long, possibly sometimes larger, sometimes said to have heads like dogs. They would seem to be along the same lines as the Lindorms of Scandinavia and Horse eels of Scotland and ireland.
25. James Sweeny in Sea Monsters refers to information given to him by Professor Colin MacGregor of Loch Ness Investigation, to the effect that "They found the skeleton of a 40-foot long eel in a lake near Pasandru [Uruguay]" but unfortunately we have no idea who "They" were or if "They" had the expertise to know that it was an eel's skeleton and not a snake's or a Giant caecilian. I have had no further information beyond the suggestion that in that location this would have been identified as a skeleton of a "Minhocao". As a matter of fact, Ted Hollliday had noted that there was a parallel story that a Minhocao had become jammed between some rocks and was left to rot there, in Uruguay, which matched the story that a "Horse eel" had stuck in a culvert and was left to rot there. Holiday used the connection to suggest that the "Worms" were equivalent in both places.(In The Great Orm of Loch Ness, in a Footnote)
26. Certain Lake Monsters, especially in Eastern Canada, are specifically stated to be Giant eels 5 to 15 feet long [e.g., Cressie] Since similar forms are also stated to live in European rivers(as above), there is probably reason to say the one set tends to reinforce the other and therefore the case for both of them becomes that much stronger. Karl Shuker mentions a report by a scuba diver in Lake Memphremagog, Quebec, describing 10-foot-long Giant eels in 1955. It is probably also significant that the description of the creatures in these freshwater reports should also match the descriptions of the "megacongers" at sea (eg, Charles Gould's 20-foot-long congers seen off Singapore). It should also be noted that the "conger" part of the descriptions refers to the overall appearance and it need not imply they are closely related. Actual conger eels cannot live in fresh water.


Eastern Canadian Native Artist Norval Morrisson's Illustration for "the Mother of all Serpents" which could be taken as a parallel to the Goddess Sedna and making her "Mother of all SEA Serpents"-they do look rather like a bunch of eels.



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

Lindworms

Lindworm (cognate with Old Norse linnormr 'constrictor snake', Norwegian linnorm 'dragon', Swedish, lindorm, Danish , lindorm 'serpent', German Lindwurm 'dragon') in British heraldry, is a technical term for a wingless bipedal dragon (often said to have a venomous bite.)


Etymology
In modern Scandinavian languages, the cognate lindorm can refer to any 'serpent' or monstrous snake, but in Norwegian heraldry, it is also a technical term for a 'seaserpent' (sjøorm), although it may also stand for a 'lindworm' in British heraldry.


[It is possible this winged Lindworm means to show the rayed fins of an eellike fish: The head of the animal depicts a fishlike mouth and what could be gill covers-DD]
Generally, the word lindworm stood for the Latin word draco (whence Norse dreki), thus could refer to any draconic creature, from a real life constrictor snake to a legendary dragon. In European mythology and folklore, creatures identified as a 'lindworm' may be winged or wingless, plus quadrapedal, bipedal or limbless. However late persistent tradition designates the lindworm as having no limbs, or just front claws (so that it must slither) in contrast to wyverns that have only hind-quarters (and possible claws on the end of its wings) and in contrast to dragons which have four limbs and may either be winged or wingless.

Lindworms in [Folk}tales

.......The dragon Fáfnir from the Norse Völsunga saga appears in the German Nibelungenlied as a lindwurm that lived near Worms.


Another German tale from the 13th century tells of a lindworm that lived near Klagenfurt. Flooding threatened travelers along the river, and the presence of a dragon was blamed. The story tells that a Duke offered a reward for anyone who could capture it, so some young men tied a bull to a chain, and when the lindworm swallowed the bull, it was hooked like a fish and killed.[citation needed] The head of a 1590 lindworm statue in Klagenfurt is modeled on the skull of a wooly rhinoceros found in a nearby quarry in 1335. It has been cited as the earliest reconstruction of an extinct animal.[1][2]

The shed skin of a lindworm was believed to greatly increase a person's knowledge about nature and medicine.[3]

[This Lindorm definitely has short fins and not wings. although they are a mite far back-DD]



















[Lambton Worm showing a line of nine circular openings on the side of the neck-a trait sometimes mistakenly attributed to Super-Eels: in reality it occurs on Lampreys and not on higher forms of fishes at all-DD]
A "dragon" with the head of a "salamander" features in the legend of the Lambton Worm. The dragon who was caught in the River Wear when it was young. The fisherman who caught it only caught it because he skipped church to go fish. The dragon was dropped in a well and after about 3–4 years became a beast and started terrorizing the countryside of Durham while the fisherman who caught it was away at the Crusades. The villagers caught on and left a sacrifice of milk for the creature, and when the fisher returned home, it was prophesied that he would be the only one who could kill it. He was given armor with bladed spikes to protect himself from the worm's crushing, coiling weight, but he had to kill the first living thing he saw. His father arranged it so that after the lindworm was killed, he would blow a horn and a hound dog would be released and the son would kill that instead of a human. Eventually the Son cut its head off but instead of releasing the dog the father ran to his son. The prophesy also said if the son did not kill the first living thing he saw his family would be cursed for 9 generations; however the son could not kill his father so his family was cursed. Bram Stoker used this legend in his short story Lair of the White Worm.

The sighting of a "whiteworm" once was thought to be an exceptional sign of good luck.[4][This may have been because of the White dragon being the emblem of a certain tribe or State, for which see the prophesy of Merlin concerning the battling of the red and white dragons]
......

Late belief in lindorm in Sweden

The belief in the reality of a lindorm, a giant limbless serpent, persisted well into the 19th century in some parts. The Swedish folklorist Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius collected in the mid 19th century stories of legendary creatures in Sweden. He met several people in Småland, Sweden that said they had encountered giant snakes, sometimes equipped with a long mane. He gathered around 50 eyewitness reports, and in 1884 he set up a big reward for a captured specimen, dead or alive. [5] Hyltén-Cavallius was ridiculed by Swedish scholars, and since nobody ever managed to claim the reward, it resulted in a cryptozoological defeat. Rumours about lindworms as actual animals in Småland rapidly died out (Sjögren, 1980).

[On the contrary, Ivan Sanderson received a letter saying that belief in Lindwurms persisted up into the present day, and he thought that the Lindwurms wwere the same thing as Tatzelwurms, both of them the smaller-sized version of what he called the "Great Orms". He cites all of this in his book Investigating the Unexplained, 1976.-DD]

The Great Orm








http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C4%81ga





Nāga From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search
For the modern ethnic group, see Naga people. For other uses, see Naga (disambiguation).

Nāga (Sanskrit: नाग, IAST: nāgá, Burmese: နဂါး, IPA: [nəɡá]; Javanese: någå, Khmer: នាគ neak, Thai: นาค nak, Chinese: 那伽) is the Sanskrit and Pāli word for a deity or class of entity or being, taking the form of a very great snake—specifically the King Cobra, found in Hinduism and Buddhism. The use of the term nāga is often ambiguous, as the word may also refer, in similar contexts, to one of several human tribes known as or nicknamed "Nāgas"; to elephants; and to ordinary snakes, particularly the King Cobra and the Indian Cobra, the latter of which is still called nāg in Hindi and other languages of India. A female nāga is a nāgī or nāginī
.......
In Hinduism

Compare with Tiamat and Apsu. [The Vedic Ahi or Vritra]

Stories involving the nāgas are still very much a part of contemporary cultural traditions in predominantly Hindu regions of Asia (India, Nepal, and the island of Bali). In India, nāgas are considered nature spirits and the protectors of springs, wells and rivers. They bring rain, and thus fertility, but are also thought to bring disasters such as floods and drought. According to traditions nāgas are only malevolent to humans when they have been mistreated. They are susceptible to mankind's disrespectful actions in relation to the environment. They are also associated with waters—rivers, lakes, seas, and wells—and are generally regarded as guardians of treasure. According to Beer (1999),[page needed] Naga and cintamani are often depicted together and associated directly in the literature.

They are objects of great reverence in some parts of southern India where it is believed that they bring fertility and prosperity to their venerators. Expensive and grand rituals like Nagamandala[4] are conducted in their honor (see Nagaradhane). In India, certain communities called Nagavanshi consider themselves descendants of Nagas.

Varuna, the Vedic god of storms, is viewed as the King of the nāgas. Nāgas live in Pātāla, the seventh of the "nether" dimensions or realms.[5] They are children of Kashyapa and Kadru. Among the prominent nāgas of Hinduism are Manasa, Sesha, and Vasuki.

The nāgas also carry the elixir of life and immortality. Garuda once brought it to them and put a cup with elixir on the ground but it was taken away by Indra. However, few drops remained on the grass. The nāgas licked up the drops, but in doing so, cut their tongues on the grass, and since then their tongues have been forked.[6]

Vishnu is originally portrayed in the form sheltered by a Shesha naga or reclining on Shesha, but the iconography has been extended to other deities as well. The serpent is a common feature in Ganesha iconography and appears in many forms: around the neck,[7] use as a sacred thread (Sanskrit: yajñyopavīta)[8] wrapped around the stomach as a belt, held in a hand, coiled at the ankles, or as a throne.[9] Shiva is often shown garlanded with a snake.[10]

Nagas are also snakes that may take human form. They tend to be very curious.

Patanjali as Adi-SeshaMaehle (2007: p.?) affirms that according to tradition, Patañjali is held to be an incarnation of Ādi S'esha.

In Buddhism
Mucalinda sheltering Gautama Buddha at Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai, ThailandTraditions about nāgas are also very common in all the Buddhist countries of Asia. In many countries, the nāga concept has been merged with local traditions of great and wise serpents or dragons. In Tibet, the nāga was equated with the klu, wits that dwell in lakes or underground streams and guard treasure. In China, the nāga was equated with the lóng or Chinese dragon. [Several types of Chinese dragons were known as "Curled" or "Coiled" dragons, and they could be entirely legless and serpentine. See below-DD]

The Buddhist nāga generally has the form of a great cobra-like snake, usually with a single head but sometimes with many. At least some of the nāgas are capable of using magic powers to transform themselves into a human semblance. In Buddhist painting, the nāga is sometimes portrayed as a human being with a snake or dragon extending over his head. One nāga, in human form, attempted to become a monk; when telling it that such ordination was impossible, the Buddha told it how to ensure that it would be reborn a man, able to become a monk.

Gigantic naga protecting Buddha amongst the other sculptures of Bunleua Sulilat's Sala Keoku. Nāgas are believed to both live on Mount Sumeru, among the other minor deities, and in various parts of the human-inhabited earth. Some of them are water-dwellers, living in streams or the mer; others are earth-dwellers, living in underground caverns.

The nāgas are the servants of Virūpākṣa (Pāli: Virūpakkha), one of the Four Heavenly Kings who guards the western direction. They act as a guard upon Mount Sumeru, protecting the devas of Trāyastriṃśa from attack by the Asuras.

Among the notable nāgas of Buddhist tradition is Mucalinda, protector of the Buddha. In the Vajrayana and Mahasiddha traditions according to Beer (1999),[page needed] many notable fully enlightened nagas also transmitted and/or transported terma into and out of the human realm that had been elementally encoded by adepts.

Norbu (1999: p.?) states that according to tradition the Prajnaparamita terma teachings are held to have been conferred upon Nagarjuna by Nagaraja, the King of the nagas, who had been guarding them at the bottom of a lake. Refer Lotus Sutra.






Painting Representing an Alleged sighting of a Naga








Naga Statue


Other traditions
A naga at the steps of a building in the Wat Phra Kaew in BangkokFor Malay sailors, nāgas are a type of dragon with many heads; in Thailand and Java, the nāga is a wealthy underworld deity. In Laos they are beaked water serpents. Phaya Naga, Water Dragon, is a well-known dragon in Thailand. People in Thailand see it as a holy creature and worship it in the temple. It allegedly lives in Mekong river.

In Lake Chinni In Malay and Orang Asli traditions, the lake Chinni, located in Pahang is home to a naga called Sri Gumum. Depending on legend versions, her predecessor Sri Pahang or her son left the lake and later fought a naga called Sri Kemboja. Kemboja is the former name of what is Cambodia. Like the naga legends there, there are stories about an ancient empire in lake Chinni, although the stories are not linked to the naga legends.[11][12]

In Cambodia
Cambodian Naga at the Royal Palace in Phnom PenhIn a Cambodian legend, the nāga were a reptilian race of beings who possessed a large empire or kingdom in the Pacific Ocean region. See Kaliya. The Nāga King's daughter married an Indian Brahmana named Kaundinya, and from their union sprang the Cambodian people. Therefore still Cambodians say that they are "Born from the Nāga".

The Seven-Headed Nāga serpents depicted as statues on Cambodian temples, such as Angkor Wat, apparently represent the seven races within Nāga society, which has a mythological, or symbolic, association with "the seven colors of the rainbow". Furthermore, Cambodian Nāga possess numerological symbolism in the number of their heads. Odd-headed Nāga symbolise the Male Energy, Infinity, Timelessness, and Immortality. This is because, numerologically, all odd numbers come from One (1). Even-headed Nāga are said to be "Female, representing Physicality, Mortality, Temporality, and the Earth."

In the Mekong
The legend of the Nāga is a strong and sacred belief held by Thai and Lao people living along the Mekong River. Many pay their respects to the river because they believe the Nāga still rule in it, and locals hold an annual sacrifice for the Nāga. Each ceremony depends on how each village earns its living from the Mekong River — for instance, through fishing or transport. Local residents believe that the Nāga can protect them from danger, so they are likely to make a sacrifice to Nāga before taking a boat trip along the Mekong River.
Also, every year on the night of 15th day of 11th month in the Lao lunar calendar at the end of Vassa, an unusual phenomenon occurs in the area of the Mekong River stretching over 20 kilometres between Pak-Ngeum and Phonephisai districts in Nong Khai province, Thailand. Fireballs appear to rise from the river into the nighttime sky. Local villagers believe that Nāga under Mekong River shoot the fireballs into the air to celebrate the end of Vassa, because Nāga meditate during this time.[13]

A photograph on display in bars, restaurants, guesthouses, and markets around Thailand captioned, Queen of Nagas seized by American Army at Mekhong River, Laos Military Base on June 27, 1973 with the length of 7.80 meters is a hoax. The photograph is actually that taken by USN LT DeeDee Van Wormer, of an oarfish found in late 1996 by US Navy SEAL trainees on the coast of Coronado, California.[14][15]

In 2000, Richard Freeman from the Centre for Fortean Zoology visited the area and talked with witnesses who claimed to have seen gigantic snakes far larger than any python. The general description was of a 60 foot serpent with black scales that had a greenish sheen. Freeman speculated that the nāga legend was based on a real animal, possibly a giant madtsoiid snake.[16]
http://www.cfz.org.uk/expeditions/00naga/naga1.htm


Although spoken of as a "Gigantic" snake, Freeman's informants spoke of a type of black snake 15 to 20 feet long with a head the size of a football. This could well refer to the same sort of Giant Eel as the rest of the reports are speaking of. Similar reports of Nagas eminate from Borneo, Indonesia and the Philippines. An even larger type of Naga (Nyan) is in the Sea-Serpent class and spoken of as being hundreds of yards long-it is clearly based on reports of the standing waves effect in a long wake again. Some of the definitive "Megaconger" reports are from this region (eg, Singapore) and otherwise fall into the "Naga" pattern.





















Oriental warriors shown fighting Serpent-dragons or "Wyrms"(="Wurms or Orms") Japanese traditon recognises serpentine "River dragons" up to 30 feet long which could well also be the same sort of Giant Eels as spoken of elsewhere. Note that once again one example is shown with ragged but definitely ray-finned pectoral fins coming out of the body just behind the head,


"Tamatori being Pursued by the Dragon", Japanese illustration. Please note that the "Dragon" once again has rayed fins back behind the head and could thus be another Giant Eel.

















Nyaminyami, a "Fish-Dragon" guardian of the Zambezi, sometimes also construed as a Giant Eel Lake Monster (the name is related to several "congo Dragon" names for other Water-Monsters in Central Africa)













Eels are a very important part of the traditional Maori economy in New Zealand. It is therefore no wonder that one of the important categories of forms taken by Taniwhas include Giant Eels. Supernatural eels are also represented in the carved bone ornaments known as Koropepe, two examples shown here. The design is very old and may derive from Neolithic China and Taiwan (see below)




















Prehistoric Chinese jade dragon made into a "C" shape. This is a form that would later be called a Chi dragon. It seems to be the Chinese version of the Celtic Horse-eel.





















A large snakelike creature is said to dwell in the Amur River and it is the Black Dragon that gives the river its common Chinese name of "Black Dragon River". One of the local names for it as a "Great serpent" is Murdur. It would seem to be the same sort of creature that Eberhart lists as living further to the Northeast under the name Primor'ye Giant Snake. On page 443 of Mysterious Creatures (v 2) it is described as being from 15 to 30 feet long and says that some reports mention small legs. The creatures were mentioned in an article in STRANGE Magazine in 1994. The "Black Dragon" fits the same description and the "Small legs" would mean the pectoral fins. Other creatures matching this description were reported occasionally on land in Italy and Sicily (and probably Serbia) in the 1500s, in the 1930s, and again more recently. On one of these occasions the "Big black snake" was said to have a head like a "Brontosaurus" (Once again the blunted snout)




Giant Eel Sea Monsters are occasionally reported from Southern Alaska to the Northwest Coast area, even as far south as California, but the reports are not well distinguished from other sea monster reports in the same area. Some depictions do illustrate the Sea monster as having pectoral fins close to the head and no hind fins: in Native lore, these are commonly called "Sea serpents" (but not distingushed from anything else that might also be called a "Sea serpent")


{"Cadborosaurus" shown as a sort of Eel, from one of the standard Internet Cryptozoology sites. Artist's name is on it]




Finishing up in South America on our world tour, we find that reports of Giant eels tend to be lumped in with Giant snakes. It will come as rather a surprise to most Cryptozoologists that the common name used as reference for them in the Parana River system (and some areas further to the south as well) is "Minhocao", or to say, "The great worm" in Portugese. (I am certain that there is a Spanish-language equivalent for "Great Worms" which are supposed to have a magical "dragonstone" in its head, but I do not know what it might be. Perhaps it is enough to say "Culebron")

Minhocao del Rio portrayed as an eel, with once again the blunted snout and short fins coming out of the body just behind the head.













And below, A Minhocao out for a swim on the River. Neither one of these creatures seem to be represented as being especially large.




http://xfilesmisterioso.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html

Monday, July 13, 2009 THE MINHOCÃO [Babel Fish Translation]

The people that resides in the vicinity of the well of Rio Cuiabá still tell-the legend of "Minhocão" a subterranean creature known also by frequenters of the rivers in the South of the country, in the early days of colonial times. Presents itself as a huge snake of as much as 60 to 70 feet long and six feet in diameter. Its action is pernicious, provoking landslides of edges, sinking ships and destroying homes and roads.

The minhocão is ubiquitous and amphibian. It is a myth that is perpetuated in the imagination of the peasants, the legend is known throughout the State of Mato Grosso.

Account that the lagoon from storage in Tramandaí (R/S) was the abode of the Minhocão, a monstrous snake eyes and tongue of fire green and by the head. In addition to turning our boats, ate the chickens and the pigs from the edge. Today the people believe she returned to her natural habitat, the sea.


Some describe the Goliath Minhocão as a serpent with wide eyes and bright. They say that came on top of the water, sliding and that its head high seemed like the bow of a boat with two eye headlamps. The monster at other times, saracoteia and espana waters and howls so terribly that other animals on earth are taken from paralysis.

In the Amazon, the minhocão is the infamous boiúna, or cobra grande, a myth that terrorizes the children, women and many gullible caboclos. No lack of people talk about this haunt that presents itself so great, as it imposes the immense Amazonian stage. It is regarded as the guardian of the night and after each storm appears in the form of Rainbow. Is also connected to the Universal deluge.

It is believed that it is because of anaconda running all these legends that the popular imagination comes weaving.

There is the smallest debt in the calculation of measures among the various snakes of the world our Anaconda is one of the largest, which can reach, according to recent estimates there are more than 14 metres. Note that a serpent with half this size, can stifle a man to squeeze it.

It was the fear in combine with the lie that has led the Anaconda that José Spider says to have seen, in 1722, in the Madeira River, which he said measure 40 steps. CITES-also a copy shot by famed Explorer Fawcett, measuring 20 metres.

The same we can say that that swallowed a whole horse in Goiás, according to the narrative very diligently Gadner in his work "trips to Brazil".

On occasion the Press publishes the story of a fabulous suruci captured and killed, always in the Amazon region. One of the most sensational stories was the three youths who camped in the forest and were sleeping. In the morning one of the boys had disappeared and his colleagues to find it had the terrible surprise, was being devoured by an Anaconda.

Below the narration had a note for anyone venturing to penetrate the forest alone, because really it offers many dangers.


SYMBOLISM

The snake or Serpent is the animal that caused mythical and symbolic interpretations. Very strange Animal, crawler, echoes the beginnings of time, as a source of sin and of all terrors. Ambiguous, masculine or feminine, Chthonic or cosmic, she defies their contradictions. Is the expression of original night.

Closely tied to Earth, she lives in dark holes, in a subterranean region, which for the ancient was the underworld, so it is important for the Geobiology and Feng Shui.

While the primordial God, the Serpent is linked to the fertilizadora rain and fertility. Primitive beliefs in common was the assertion that the snakes met with women could impregnate them. It was thought that the bite of a snake was responsible for a girl's first menstruation.

If conceives the idea according to which the Rainbow is a serpent that if desaltera at sea, precepts also accepted among the Bororo people of South America, South Africa and India. Rolled into itself is the symbol of the philosopher's stone of Alchemy and represents infinity. She rolled and biting the tail is the oldest symbol of the world.

The serpent also the spirit of the primordial Water that sometimes is terrible in its cholera. In the Greek cosmogênese, according to Hesiod's Theogony, she is the "Ocean". Nine of his turns encompass the circle of the world, while the tenth, resvalada under the world, so the Styx. In Greek mythology, Aquelôo, the largest river of ancient Greece, metamorfoseou into a serpent to face Hercules.

It is considered that the serpent possesses the power of self renewal, because of its ability to change and renew your skin. This mutant gave rise to beliefs that give him the power of immortality.

But this deity is also destructive. The womb of the Earth is ophidian and attracts and absorbs as a womb of death rapacious, all creatures to meet and fertilize. Indeed, so deep, death and destruction are linked to the life and birth.

Believe the batacs of Malaysia, that a cosmic serpent, living in subterranean regions, will destroy the world. Gemano-Scandinavian mythology, the Midgard Serpent, which covers the whole world with its rings will cause the end of the times, on the occasion of Ragnarok.
Text researched and developed by Rosane Volpatto

Bibliography consulted
The Amazon-Gaston de Bettencourt
The Cobra Grande-article by Leticia Falcão, found in the Amazon View Magazine, issue No. 28
Animal Symbolism Jean-Paul Ronecker
The mysteries of Woman-m. Esther Harding
Myths and legends of Rio Grande do Sul-Antonio Augusto Fagundes
The legend of the Big Snake: discussions about imagination and reality.Grace do Socorro Araújo de Almeida Macedo










Two More portraits for Minhocao of more recent vintage: please once again note the lungfish-shaped pectoral fins shown on the latter example. "Lungfish-shaped" forefins are indeed also occasionaly also reported in other places.

http://www.rosanevolpatto.trd.br/Minhocao.html

Published by Gil Gonçalves in 03:00

http://www.abrasoffa.org.br/folclore/lendas/minhocao.htm

Minhocao the [Babel Fish]

a gigantesco, half fish half serpent, who lives in the water where it turns boats, and on Earth, subterraneo, overlapping towns, bridges and other constructes.
Myth without borders in Brazil this being, recorded by many scholars and "seen" by all cr modules that describe him as "a huge, black bicho, half fish, half snake, that goes up and down this river in hours, chasing people and embarkses; just a Raban, to send to the bottom a boat as ours. sometimes takes the form of a Surubim, of a size never seen; other, also m says, turns into a passaro great white, with a pesco the stringy in an earthworm, and perhaps for this reason, which is called the minhocao ".
The narrative, recorded in the late 19th century: testimony of boatmen of San Francisco S River, has the same for the than occurs in first built the Via Anchieta, Sao Paulo, second count some falls aras who worked as pe es: an excerpt, in the midst of serra, had her tra ado changed as pe es: an excerpt, in the midst of serra, had her tra ado changed due to an minhoc which devastate buildings, the, night, all that was done during the day for the incr modules, still with the result that one viaduct was never finished ...
















The main article conflates the Minhocao and the Sucuriju gigante: I have turned the Sucuriju part into another colour. These last two illustrations are also interesting because they show that sometimes the Minhocao will travel together like a mass of Eels, and the last photo shows that sometimes the "Minhocao" is actually another "Patagonian Plesiosaur". That illustration is meant to go for either the big rivers associated with the Amazon, or with the Parana River around Uruguay. Either one would work. It is also important to see that much of the material ascribed to the Minhocao and the Sucuriju Gigante is of a Mythological nature.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

REPOST: CFZ Blog on Pauline SS

June 19, 2010 The PAULINE SS, 1875, And Its Most Improbable Proportions

One of the more famous sea-serpent sightings was supposedly witnessed in 1875 by the crew of the ship Pauline (by all hands, as a matter of fact) From Charles Gould's classic Mythical Monsters (1886):

The Barque "Pauline" Sea-serpent.

To the Editor of the Calcutta Englishman. SIR,—As I am not sure that my statement respecting the sea-serpent reached the Shipping Gazette in London, I enclose a copy that may be interesting to your numerous readers. I have been sent plenty of extracts from English papers, nearly all of them ridiculing my statement. I can laugh and joke on the subject as well as anyone, but I can't see why, if people can't fairly refute my statement, they should use falsehood to do so. The Daily Telegraph says, "The ribs of the ill-fated fish were distinctly heard cracking one after the other, with a report like that of a small cannon; its bellowings ceased, &c. To use the eloquent words of the principal spectator, it 'struck us all aghast with terror.'" If the writer knew anything of sailors, he would not write such bosh. Fear and terror are not in Jack's composition; and such eloquent words he leaves to such correspondents as described the ever-doubtful "man-and-dog-fight." I am just as certain of seeing what I described, as that I met the advertisement that the Telegraph has the largest circulation in the world staring me at every street corner in London. It is easy for such a paper to make any man, good, great, or interesting, look ridiculous. Little wonder is it that my relatives write saying that they would have seen a hundred sea-serpents and never reported it; and a lady also wrote that she pitied anyone that was related to anyone that had seen the sea-serpent. It is quite true that it is a sad thing for any man to see more, to feel more, and to know more, than his fellows; but I have some of the philosophy that made O'Connell rejoice in being the most abused man in the United Kingdom, for he also had the power of giving a person a lick with the rough side of his tongue. If I had any such power I would not use it, for contempt is the sharpest reproof; and this letter is the only notice I have taken of the many absurd statements, &c. &c. &c.

GEORGE DEEVAR, Master of the Pauline. Barque Pauline, Chittagong, January 15, 1876.

Barque Pauline, January 8th, 1875, lat. 5° 13' S., long. 35° W., Cape Roque, north-east corner of Brazil distant twenty miles, at 11 A.M. The weather fine and clear, the wind and sea moderate. Observed some black spots on the water, and a whitish pillar, about thirty-five feet high, above them At the first glance I took all to be breakers, as the sea was splashing up fountain-like about them, and the pillar, a pinnacle rock bleached with the sun; but the pillar fell with a splash, and a similar one rose. They rose and fell alternately in quick succession, and good glasses showed me it was a monster sea-serpent coiled twice round a large sperm whale. The head and tail parts, each about thirty feet long, were acting as levers, twisting itself and victim around with great velocity. They sank out of sight about every two minutes, coming to the surface still revolving, and the struggles of the whale and two other whales that were near, frantic with excitement, made the sea in this vicinity like a boiling cauldron; and a loud and confused noise was distinctly heard.

This strange occurrence lasted some fifteen minutes, and finished with the tail portion of the whale being elevated straight in the air, then waving backwards and forwards, and laving [lashing?] the water furiously in the last death-struggle, when the whole body disappeared from our view, going down head-foremost towards the bottom, where, no doubt, it was gorged at the serpent's leisure; and that monster of monsters may have been many months in a state of coma, digesting the huge mouthful. Then two of the largest sperm whales that I have ever seen moved slowly thence towards the vessel, their bodies more than usually elevated out of the water, and not spouting or making the least noise, but seeming quite paralysed with fear; indeed, a cold shiver went through my own frame on beholding the last agonising struggle of the poor whale that had seemed as helpless in the coils of the vicious monster as a small bird in the talons of a hawk. Allowing for two coils round the whale, I think the serpent was about one hundred and sixty or one hundred and seventy feet long, and seven or eight in girth. It was in colour much like a conger eel, and the head, from the mouth being always open, appeared the largest part of the body. . . . . I think Cape San Roque is a landmark for whales leaving the south for the North Atlantic. . . . .

I wrote thus far, little thinking I would ever see the serpent again; but at 7 A.M., July 13th, in the same latitude, and some eighty miles east of San Roque, I was astonished to see the same or a similar monster. It was throwing its head and about forty feet of its body in a horizontal position out of the water as it passed onwards by the stern of our vessel. I began musing why we were so much favoured with such a strange visitor, and concluded that the band of white paint, two feet wide above the copper, might have looked like a fellow-serpent to it, and, no doubt, attracted its attention While thus thinking, I was startled by the cry of "There it is again," and a short distance to leeward, elevated some sixty feet in the air, was the great leviathan, grimly looking towards the vessel. As I was not sure it was only our free board it was viewing, we had all our axes ready, and were fully determined, should the brute embrace the Pauline, to chop away for its backbone with all our might, and the wretch might have found for once in its life that it had caught a Tartar. This statement is strictly true, and the occurrence was witnessed by my officers, half the crew, and myself; and we are ready, at any time, to testify on oath that it is so, and that we are not in the least mistaken A vessel, about three years ago, was dragged over by some sea-monster in the Indian Ocean.

GEORGE DREVAR, Master of the Pauline. Chittagong, January 15, 1876.

Captain George Drevar, of the barque Pauline, appeared on Wednesday morning at the Police-court, Dale-street, before Mr. Raffles, stipendiary magistrate, accompanied by some of his officers and part of the crew of the barque, when they made the following declaration:— "We, the undersigned, captain, officers, and crew of the barque Pauline, of London, do solemnly and sincerely declare that on July 8th, 1875, in latitude 5° 13´, longitude 35° W., we observed three large sperm whales, and one of them was gripped round the body with two turns of what appeared to be a large serpent. The head and tail appeared to have a length beyond the coils of about thirty feet, and its girth eight or nine feet. The serpent whirled its victim round and round for about fifteen minutes, and then suddenly dragged the whale to the bottom, head first.

"GEORGE DREVAR, Master,

"HORATIO THOMPSON,

"HENDERSON LANDELLO,

"OWEN BAKER,

"WILLIAM LEWAN.

"Again, on July 13th, a similar serpent was seen about two hundred yards off, shooting itself along the surface, head and neck being out of the water several feet. This was seen only by the captain and one ordinary seaman.

"GEORGE DREVAR, Master.

"A few moments after, it was seen elevated some sixty feet perpendicularly in the air by the chief officer and the following able seamen, Horatio Thompson, Owen Baker, William Lewan. And we make this solemn declaration, conscientiously believing the same to be true.

"GEORGE DREVAR, Master.

"WILLIAM LEWAN, Steward.

"HORATIO THOMPSON, Chief Officer,

"JOHN HENDERSON LANDELLO, 2nd Officer,

"OWEN BAKER."

[The vessel attacked by the monster in the Indian Ocean was the Pearl. It was a 150 ton schooner allegedly attacked by a giant squid rather than a sea serpent.]

Some confirmation of Captain Drevar's story is afforded by one quoted by the Rev. Henry T. Cheeves, in The Whale and his Captors. The author says:—

"From a statement made by a Kinebeck shipmaster in 1818, and sworn to before a justice of the peace in Kinebeck county, Maine, it would seem that the notable sea-serpent and whale are sometimes found in conflict. At six o'clock in the afternoon of June 21st, in the packet Delia, plying between Boston and Hallowell, when Cape Ann bore west-south-west about two miles, steering north-north-east, Captain Shuback West and fifteen others on board with him saw an object directly ahead, which he had no doubt was the sea-serpent, or the creature so often described under that name, engaged in fight with a large whale. . . . . "The serpent threw up its tail from twenty-five to thirty feet in a perpendicular direction, striking the whale by it with tremendous blows, rapidly repeated, which were distinctly heard, and very loud, for two or three minutes; they then both disappeared, moving in a south-west direction; but after a few minutes reappeared in-shore of the packet, and about under the sun, the reflection of which was so strong as to prevent their seeing so distinctly as at first, when the serpent's fearful blows with his tail were repeated and clearly heard as before. They again went down for a short time, and then came up to the surface under the packet's larboard quarter, the whale appearing first, and the serpent in pursuit, who was again seen to shoot up his tail as before, which he held out of water for some time, waving it in the air before striking, and at the same time his head fifteen or twenty feet, as if taking a view of the surface of the sea. After being seen in this position a few minutes, the serpent and whale again disappeared, and neither was seen after by any on board. It was Captain West's opinion that the whale was trying to escape, as he spouted but once at a time on coming to the surface, and the last time he appeared he went down before the serpent came up."

Several authors have stated their belief that the crew of the Pauline had witnessed a struggle between a sperm whale and a giant squid, with the tentacles of the squid presumed to be the loops of the "Serpent" and the whale diving head-down at the end in order to finish his meal. Bernard Heuvelmans in his classic In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents (1968) does push for the notion that this was a sighting of what he calls a "Super-eel" fighting a whale by constriction. Heuvelmans has not done the math. In order for a long snake or eel to get two loops arround the whale's body and to have a thirty-foot length before and after the loops (noting that the before and after loops alone are worth the length of the entire whale), the gigantic eel has got to be at least 180 feet long, pushing 200 feet: and since its girth (not diameter) is seven or eight feet, the diameter is something like 2 1/2 feet, the creature ends up with a length 64 times its diameter. or close to it.

Furthermore the Delia account is not only similar, it is very nearly the same exact story over again. At which point nothwithstanding the weight of the swon testimony, I am inclined to call both stories hoaxes. The easier way out is to agree that the sailors could have been watching combats between sperm whales and retelling with some exaggeration.

There was a separate series of reports from New Caledonia in1923 and which Heuvelmans calls a fight between a giant squid and a "Merhorse" (ibid, pp.414-415) in this case, the definite "Merhorse" reports were made separately several days before and it seems some native women confused different reports together in the retelling. The "Merhorse" reports had been coming since June and the "Fight" was "on September 22 and also the 30th" the confusion of dates a week apart alone gives just cause to suspect that different events were jumbled together in local memory.

At any event, the Policeman Millot's account does describe three whales (he thought like sperm whales but bigger) and in indian file (three 60-foot-humps in a line again) but what seems to have been a fight with a giant squid was going on at the time. The story is very similar to the Pauline and I would suggest that in the squidfight, there was no "Merhorse" involved, only some sperm whales. In these cases the "Head and Tail" were seen flailing about while egaged in fighting the whale, and they were showing above water as being entwined around the whale. So that is not the same thing as a squid in the water hoisting its arms high into the air unaided. It may be beyond the squid's limit of strength to be able to do that unaided. Certainly some authorities have maintained that point. On the other hand, these sightings would tend to go against the notion that observers had not seen live giant squids at the surface in historical times: these would be unusual emcounters, and the squids probably in the process of being killed, but they would have been lively enough for the duration. All sightings of this type together probably make up something like 1/2 of 1% of Sea-serpent sightings.

2 comments:

RICHARD KING WRITES: Looking at Dale's scale drawing and then at the captain of the Pauline's drawing you can tell that there had to be some kind of mistake. 30 feet for the head and tail parts either way is half the whole length of the whale. The drawing made by the witness does not show anything like that it shows a part supposed to be the head only 10 or 12 feet long. And the supposed loops around the body are bunched up together in front like they would be if they were actually only tentacles reaching back out from where the whale's mouth would be underwater. Dale didn't mention the follow-up sighting of the 60-foot periscope by the captain of the Pauline but I gather that he puts no stock in it. Incidentally, great series about the Almas lately, Dale! Richard K.

Dale Drinnon said... In regards to the later sightings by the Pauline, I indicated in an earlier private reply to Richard that ANY report of a 60-foot-high periscope is AUTOMATICALLY suspect. The most tactful way of putting it would be that some sort of a mistake must've been made by jumpy crew members who reacted in a fashion close to hysteria. At the very least, the size of whatever-it-was must've been blown up out of all probability, probably in line with the exaggerated measurement for the presumptive head and neck in the initial Pauline sighting. It might have been nothing more exotic than a whale's tail seen briefly while diving. And Richard's remark about the Almas messages is in reference to my group, the Frontiers-of-Zoology, during the course of which I pointed out the Mongolian white jade skull replica comparble to a Neanderthal skull, subject of an earlier CFZ blog posting.

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