Spikybacked Water Monsters of the US-SW

I have been looking for some specific photos of one of these creatures appearing as 'a ridge of spines in the water' seen swimming in a reservoir in the US Southwest (probably in Arizona) but the photo and any reference to it continues to elude me. This was the subject of an early message posted at the Yahoo group Frontiers of Zoology and the photo was definitely posted in a news bulletin THEN (in 2006-2007 approx.) but he group's search engine is not being very helpful lately. There is enough information about these creatures to know that they are pretty much exactly very large iguana lizards that are capable of travelling overland and of sleeping in dug-out burrows when their small lakes dry up; and they appear to be referenced in Native depictions of all other Water-monsters that have a row of spines down the middle of the back. In fact we might have more information about these creatures from misplaced references in other areas to the North and East than we do in this area itself: and they seem to be the same as the Faux-Alligator "Dinosaurs" (Whangdoodle, and such) that have been discussed in other articles on this blog.

It is not known if these are actually the full growth stage of the "River Liz" or a different, larger species. The most parsimonious arrangement would be that both are the same species (and the same as the Cryptid the Greater Dragon Iguana of Latin America)

This is also by way of another displaced reference in that another internet site is selling certain photos of "Water Monsters" which are obviously showing the backs of large iguana lizards swimming in the water but with the spines sticking up. These are not the same as the photo in the one news story that I cannot locate now, but they are comparable. Here are the photos in question, in black and white and in colour (if anything the spines in the photo I am looking for are even larger and more exaggerated)

 

In fact these photos are of sea iguanas at the Galapagos Islands, swimming in salt water. Such spinybacked water monsters are also reported in South America, at lower elevations in the Andean nations. They seem to be the same as Bernard Heuvelmans' "Iguanodons" mentioned on his checklist, actually giant iguanas instead and otherwise known as "Saurians." The Latin American name for the spinybacked creature in Folklore is "Serra."

One example that has been discussed on this blog is the Lake Mead Monster:

 

Thursday, February 28, 2013

The 'Lake Mead Monster'

Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States in maximum water capacity. It is located 24 miles from the Las Vegas Strip southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada, in the states of Nevada, and Arizona. The massive lake is reserved by the Hoover Dam. Lake Mead is 112 miles long, and around 500 feet at greatest depth. It holds roughly 28 million acre-feet of water.

The lake bed is mostly sand, and rocks with the odd bit of seaweed here and there. The lake is home to a variety of fresh water fish, as well as a very strange creature some have claimed to see. This creature is known as the "lake Mead Monster".

According to legends of this cryptozoological creature, In 1948 a B-29 crashed into the lake on July 21. Jet fuel leaked into the lake and polluted the waters. Although the pollution wasn't bad enough to destroy all the life in the water, crypto hunters say it was enough to cause mutations, along with other human waste pollutants.

Shortly after the crash a man was arrested for dropping off alligators in the fresh water. Why this man did this  is unknown. Some speculate he owned these alligators as pets, and as they grew too big he was unable to keep them. The legend goes that these same alligators that are believed to live in the waters today have undergone strange mutations. With plenty of fish to eat, these creatures have grown into massive size.

One scuba diver claims to have sited one during a deep water Dam study. The diver described the creature as being at least 20 feet long. Although the lakes waters are very murky he said it was hard to fully identify the creature, but he was sure it was at least 20 feet long, and looked like a super alligator with fins.

Fisherman have also reported seeing this strange creature, although they attribute the features to be a super Bass. In a news paper article published in the 50's, fisherman claims gave it the nickname "Grandad".

Today people still claim to see these strange creatures in the lake, and the search continues. Perhaps we will find out the truth about this creature soon. After all Lake Mead is estimated to dry up by 2020 according to new studies.

- See more at: http://www.parahauntpost.com/2013_02_01_archive.html#sthash.qcdEhpHP.dpuf

A large reproduction of a Spinyback lake monster is on display at Manly Lake in Death Valley
(it seems that some of these creatures can tolerate saltwater to some degree. They do not eat fish in these lakes, they eat plants on the shore. Probably they do not even drink the water)

Presumably this would be based on the sighting of a bigger one followed by a smaller one, both seen as spiky-backed humps on the surface. (Although such creatures are said to grow up to 20 feet long in some locations, this is probably exaggerated)

See Also
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/03/more-dinobig-lizard-reports-out-west.html
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/12/florida-neodinos-and-nw-neodino-recap.html
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/10/alternative-lake-monster-types-of-north.html

Von Ferry, Caddy, and Maine: Water-Horses Revisited

Continuing to expand upon the CFZ Canada postings from last week:

I would like to go on record as stating that the fossil crocodile bears no resemblance whatsoever to any of the water-monsters under discussion. The water-monsters all have full racks of deer, moose or elk antlers and when they are spoken of as having feet at all, the feet have cloven hooves (for which the 1906 Omaha water-monster drawing reprinted below).Their long undulating backs illustrate the "String of Buoys" effect in the wake and not the back at all.


Kiowa Water Monster 1890s

 Furthermore, the fishy monsters are all supposed to be heavily armoured with thick scales while the fossil crocodile is scaleless. And the fossils actually show no obvious indication that the animals were fish-tailed in life: the fin part did not fossilize since it was only compposed of soft flesh originally.

Lorenz Von Ferry sea serpent sighting in the mid-1700s. This sighting had darker and lighter patches on the face and neck, and it had a white mane. This happens with moose sometimes. The description given by Pontoppidian in reference to this sighting mentions the large nostrils, which are not showing in the drawing, but the drawing does still show the eyes situated in the head as in a moose, and the distinctive overhanging top lip. This last feature indicates a terrestrial vegetarian browser, by the way.

Instead, all of these water-monsters belong to the same category of Eurasian creatures that started out as the horse-headed, multi-humped "Sea Serpents" of Scandinavia since the 1600s-1700s and which were seen somewhat later on off the coast of New England and then eventually off the coast of British Columbia as "Caddies" or "Cadborosaurus." They were also reported regularly in Quebec since the or early 1800s, according to George Eberhart, who calls them "Horse's Heads" in this instance. In both British Columbia and in the area around the Great Lakes they were definitely identified as the traditional horned (antlered) water serpents, and the descriptions continued across Canada from sea to sea. In Ontario the term On Niont was on record for this sort of creature sighting in 1647-48.

["The Water Horse" illustration above, and generalized indication for such sightings in North America on the map at the right]

These sightings I would say were one and all based on imperfect sightings of swimming moose. And although it would seem that only the white men would be foolish enough to be fooled by such a sight, many of the early sightings up to the 1930s were made by Indians. It may be that these were mostly older men and women or children who were not accustomed to seeing moose or elk swimming.

Navajo Water Pot LB03
This has the full rack of antlers and a shapeless
"Watery" body trailing behind the head

The giveaway is when the heads are seen to bear full racks of horns (antlers). These are shown on some of the traditional representations including the Kiowa example from the 1890s at the top of this page and on the Navajo pot labelled LB03 at the left. And although the fact might not have been recalled in connection to these traditions, the Kiowa, Apache and Navajo are actually Canadian peoples who migrated southwards in the period just before the white men came. That is why their water-monsters have the full racks of antlers like moose or elk while their neighbours do not.



Omaha Water Monster, Drawn in 1906.
Once again this has the antlered deer head
and the long trailing body (with humps) and tail
indicating the trailing wake in the original sighting



Without the horns/antlers being apparent we can still recognize swimming moose because of their 'bent' camel-noses, big droopy ears, fully-haired back, and sometimes even the beard or "bell" on the throat (See the "Cadborosaurus" representations in the photos below) Moose are indeed sometimes swimming out of sight of land at sea off both British Columbia and Scandinavia.



 "Caddy" and monstrous-looking moose above.

"Caddy" drawing showing the typical features of a swimming moose sighting. By the way, the only way you can have a sea monster float on top of the water like an inflatable pool toy (as in this case) is to actually have an inflatable pool toy; in the case of a real animal, most of the body lies below the surface like an iceberg. Therefore the idea that you can see through the bottoms of the "loops" is imaginary (you can see light through waves in the water more easily than through flesh, however).

Von Ferry Norweigan SS at top;
Swimming moose at Attean Lake, Maine, below. The moose is headed toward 3 Mile Island. By now it should be evident that "Sea-Serpent" sihghtings in such a conformation do not show primitive whales, Plesiosaurs, or anything of the sort. They are usually swimming moose or elk with the head held only moderately high out of the water with the neck held in a natural curve for a moose or elk's neck and the "Humps" being the waves in the wake left behind. In the case of a swimming moose, the "humps" in the wake can be quite striking, although the same effect occurs in the wake of many unrelated animals including Orcas and tuna.




Great New England Sea Serpent With Caddy-Like features [Merhorse?]
This one likewise has a short length of neck at a natural curve for a moose



Ivan Sanderson's sea-serpent report collection, statistics posted at The Greatest Study. Dale D. touched up the colours and while he was at it, he added his estimates for how many of the "Serpent" cases were possible giant eel reports (from my notes as to what was in Ivan Sanderson's files; I did similar statistics at this time and thereafter, partially incorporating Sanderson's data). The darker blue area represents primarily 'String-of-buoys' reports and I would discount them personally, hence the mark; likewise I would also discount most of the reports in the red and white areas. The white area does also include 'marine saurian' reports, however, and several undoubted mistaken reports of misidentified whales and such (so indicated by Heuvelmans). I include this version here to indicate just how much of a percentage of the reports are in the invalid 'multi-humped'categories; the same category also dominates the freshwater sightings.

Ivan Sanderson's Sea Serpent Report Collection Mapped Out



For a full explanation of the Water-Horse theory, please see my CFZ blog at the link below: and if you still think the "Train-of-Humps" represent the back of a multi-humped monster, please pay especial attention to the illustration at the end of the posting.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html

Water Horse (Moose), Antlers Just Out Of Velvet

Since part of the initial presentation about Water Horses specified that in North America at least, several stories about them specified they had red horns (or antlers) and I then made a point that it would mean the time after the velvet had come off and the antlers were actually bloody, I went and got an illustration of a Bull Moose when the antlers were in just such a state.

For the original discussion, please see:
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-footnotes-on-waterhorse.html

The string that belongs to started back at:
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/05/cfz-blog-reprints-on-water-horse.html

Best Wishes, Dale D.