The Sturgeon Species of Champ and Nessie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acipenser_oxyrinchus_oxyrinchus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acipenser

It just so happens that the same species of sturgeon is a candidate to account for sightings of both Champ and the Loch Ness Monster, the New England Sea Serpent of the early 1800s and water monsters along the East Coast such as the Lake Norman Monster and the Altamaha-Ha. It goes without saying that this one kind of fish also cannot possibly account for ALL of the reports in these areas attributed to the local Water Monsters. This is also NOT the same kind of sturgeon that would be involved in sightings in Russia, Siberia, Alaska or Canada.

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/08/giant-sturgeon-evidence-at-loch-ness.html

The sturgeon in question this time has a more exaggeratedly elongated snout and a more exaggeratedly toothed back pofile because the individual plates are larger. Record catches of this species are at 14 feet on both sides of the Atlantic. The Beluga or White sturgeon grows MUCH lasrger than this and allegedly as much as twice as long.

Fig. 1. Continental distribution of the European Atlantic sturgeon around 1750–1850. The distinction between the three functional groups of basins is made. Coastal catches reported at the extreme margins of the sturgeon distribution are displayed by black areas. The seven marine provinces are showed on the map following a grey scale. The Nile basin (Egypt) was truncated to offer better visualization of smaller features onto the map. Numbers refer to Supplementary information on spawning basins given in Table 1. The transitory basins – in alphabetical order – are: Arno, Bann, Barrow, Blackwater (Ireland, county Waterford), Bresle, Clyde (Scotland), Daugava, Dee (North West England), Dives, Eden (Scotland), Evros, Forth (Scotland), Foyle, Gota alv, Great Ouse, Guden, Jucar, Kemijoki, Lima, Loire, Mersey, Meuse, Minho, Neretva, Ombrone, Piave, Scheldt, Severn, Slaney, Somme, Struma, Tagliamento, Tagus, Tay, Thames, Torn alv, Towy, Trent (England), Tweed (Scotland), Tyne, Vjose, Vire, Volturno, Wye (Wales). If different rivers with the same name exist, country and county are given.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320710002740

According to Adrian Shine the Loch Ness Monster Sturgeon is supposed to be the same species as the Baltic Sea type, This is the same species as the Atlantic sturgeon but wound up in a cul-de-sac by the expansion of the rival sturgeon species A. sturio.

Different populations inhabit areas North and South of this

 

 

Florida sturgeon leaping. This one came crashing into a woman on a boat

and broke her leg with the force News Story Here

 

Very large sturgeon washed ashore in Florida by a storm. Still an internet sensation.

Atlantic Sturgeon carcass washed up in St Lawrence River

 

 

 

                                                           SOS--Save Our Sturgeons!

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/04/massachussets-bay-sturgeon-1819-and-mr.html

Walker Lake Monster, Tahoe Tessie and California Monster Snake-Fish

[Above: Tahoe Tessie as represented in children's books and at right, the real thing, a photo taken in 2006 allegedly showing the creature poking a big fishy head out of water and photographed as it was submerging]

Recently I had been posting a couple of articles on the CFZ Canada blog as a guest blogger. I was basically reviewing a statement in the press made about Native North American water-monsters, which was implying all such monsters were similar and possibly all based on finds of fossils. I considered this to be misleading and I explained that the problem included several other separate things, and I might have been trying to make it too complicated because not all of my material got posted through on the blogs there. However, I basically was done with it except that I felt I should explain a couple of the matters in more detail on this blog. To quote the posting on CFZ Canada:

Back in 2007, Craig Woolheater wrote an article for the Cryptomundo site which touched upon the interrelatedness of some Native North American water-monsters and uncovered fossils which were supposed to have inspired them. The discussion at that point included some quotes from one Adrienne Mayor, author of a book on fossil discoveries and related mythology, and cited a recent find of a fossil fish-tailed crocodile in the state of Oregon.
http://www.cryptomundo.com/bigfoot-report/na-water-monster/

'...Most intriguing, the initial restoration of the fossil croc bears a striking resemblance to a mythic animal of some Native American tribes, the Kiowa, Sioux, Pomo of northern California and others, says Adrienne Mayor, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, author of Fossil Legends of the First Americans. A University of Oregon artist’s depiction of the crocodile greatly resembles the Kiowa artist Silverhorn’s 1891-94 sketch of a water monster with scales, a long narrow head with needle teeth and a forked fish-tail drawn to illustrate water serpent legends, Mayor says. The Pomo Indians described a fish-tailed, needle-toothed water monster called Bagil, as well.' [Similar water monsters are described in several lakes along the California-Nevada border, including the 'serpent' of Walker Lake. The long toothy jaws and flinty-hard scales, together with the 'snaky' head and body with the forked fish-tail, all remind me irresistably of some sort of a garfish - DD] '...A very similar dragon-creature is described from northeastern California, Parkman adds. The Ajumawi people have a legend of a big serpent-like creature with fish tail ... similar to Bagil...'

In this case I would like to review those creatures most like Bagil, the flinty-scaled, alligator-headed, needle-toothed, long-jawed, fork-tailed serpent-fish around the borders of California.

Cecil the Sea Serpent of Walker Lake, Nevada

Read more at Suite101: Cecil the Sea Serpent of Walker Lake, Nevada | Suite101.com http://sharon-damon.suite101.com/cecil-the-sea-serpent-of-walker-lake-nevada-a388685#ixzz1iG87lHT8

posted Sep 13, 2011

by Sharon Damon

Folklore or fact? Fiction or fable? The Paiute of Walker Lake have told of sea serpents inhabiting its depths for many years. Local legends of Cecil concur.

Walker Lake is a beautiful natural lake in Nevada, approximately 75 miles southeast of Reno. It is a terminus lake: a lake with no outflow, fed by the Walker River. It’s known for fishing for cutthroat trout, boating, camping, but most especially, for the legend of the Tawaga, or Cecil, the Sea Serpent of Walker Lake.

The History of Walker Lake

Walker Lake is a rare remnant of ancient Lake Lahontan, an inland sea that covered much of northwestern Nevada during the Ice Age. As Lake Lohantan retreated, many “dry lakes” such as this were formed. Walker Lake, fed by the Walker River, has dried up completely several times in its long history.
Native Americans have inhabited the area surrounding the lake for approximately 11,000 years and in 1874, a reservation was formed on the lake’s northern shores for the Paiute Agai-Dicutta (“trout-eaters”) tribe. Unfortunately, the use of the Walker River for irrigation of surrounding desert lands has caused a severe drop in the level of the water in Walker Lake, increasing the salinity of the lake and putting the ecosystem in danger. Paiute tribal tales and local folklore have long claimed the existence of huge reptiles dwelling within depths of Walker Lake.

The Story of Cecil: Southwest Loch Ness Monster or Ichthyosaur?

Walker Lake is a beautiful place with a rich history. Over 200 million years ago, the sixty-foot long [fossil]Ichthyosaur lived on the floor of the ancient sea that became Walker Lake. This “fish-lizard” is Nevada’s official state fossil.
Forty of these gigantic creatures became stranded in the mud flats in central Nevada, and were discovered in 1928 during the geological exploration for mining near the town of Berlin, NV. In 1957, this region became Ichthyosaur State Park.
Local folklore abounds in this area of the country. You have rich urban legends, tales, fables and stories no matter where you travel. If Paiute legends are to be believed, Walker Lake may be home to a mysterious creature that is known as Tawaga, or more affectionately, as Cecil, the Sea Serpent.

Tribal folklore tells us the tale of two sea serpents, which were once a man and woman, now inhabiting the deepest regions of this lake. Paiute children were warned not to tease them or make fun of them. In 1868, white settlers described a creature “with a head similar to a crocodile, four feet [thick] near the neck, an enormous tail covered with scales.” Is this Tawaga, or [an] icthyosaur?
[Neither the Ichthiosaur nor the fossil crocodile have the requisite thick scales. However the overall crocodile-headed fish-tailed "serpent" pattern is quite clear already-DD]

Fact or Fiction?

Some locals have reported sightings of this large reptilian creature in the lake, likening it to the Loch Ness Monster. There have historically even been rumors that huge serpents have been killed in the region. Some say that Cecil inhabited Walker Lake by day and slithered across the old highway to the nearby caves at night. Without concrete proof, and with his reputation of living deep in the depths of this glacier-formed lake, one can’t say for sure. But wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if prehistoric reptiles had, indeed, found a home in this rich environment?

For now, we may have to make do with the “Cecil” float that emerges every Armed Forces Day to cruise the streets of Hawthorne, NV. Whether fact or folklore, giant prehistoric reptile, or the serpent of Paiute legend, Cecil is a local favorite, possibly the best-known sea serpent around. Except, of course, for the Loch Ness Monster.

Sources:

http://www.lakelubbers.com/

http://www.strangeark.com/

www.theothersideofcalifornia.com

www.walkerlakenv.org

A historical report sent in by Jerome Clark to the Cryptomundo site follows. Loren Coleman offers no classification for the creature sighted:

Serpent in Nevada Lake
Mining Man Brings Strange Story
to Goldfield.
From the Savannah Bee.
A report from Walker Lake states that a monster sea serpent has been seen at the northern end of the lake. Dan Cornelison, a mining man of good reputation for veracity, brought the story to Goldfield.
Cornelison says that he and a companion named John McCorry sighted the reptile while fishing from a boat half a mile from the northern shore of the lake. The monster was then making its way toward the east shore of the lake. Cornelison says that at first sight he took the serpent for a man in a skiff, and when it disappeared for a moment he thought the boat had capsized, and rowed toward the spot, when it suddenly reappeared, giving them a good view of its proportions, which they estimated to be about thirty feet in length and six feet across the back.
Another resident of that vicinity, a man named Peters, is said to have discovered the serpent sometime ago reposing in shallow water near the shore, and on being aroused it disappeared in deeper water. There is also said to be a legend among the Piutes around Shurz concerning the existence of a serpent in Walker Lake.Washington Herald, September 22, 1907

Thirty feet long and six feet across might be considered a maximum, and for purposes of argument we might make the minimum fifteen feet long and three feet across. It depends on how close the witnesses were and how good at estimating sizes of objects on the water; the general run of actual sightings has a series that will say fifteen to twenty feet long and three to four feet across the width of the back, and a series at a much larger size of forty to sixty feet long and as much as four or five feet out of the water - but in the latter case there is a very good chance this describes a wave rather than the creature's body. A longer blog entry with some of the further-out legends from this area follows.

http://skylaire.com/walkerlakemonster.htm

WALKER LAKE MONSTER

by Skylaire Alfvegren

Cecil, the mechanical serpent who does double duty as Hawthorne’s goodwill ambassador and high school mascot is no PR pipe dream. Indian legend says that when Lake Lohontan began to dry up, a pair of serpents were forced apart. The male made his way to what became Walker Lake, while the female burrowed north into the land, creating Sand Mountain. 600 feet high, the shifting sands sing: it’s said the music is simply the serpent whimpering for her beloved.

Historically, the Walker Lake monster has Nevada’s strongest record of sightings, and we don’t mean Cecil’s patriotic lumber down Main Street in Hawthorne’s annual Armed Forces Day parade.

When white settlers founded the town on the south end of Walker Lake in 1881, they noted a strange absence of fishing boats--the local Paiutes refused to traverse its waters. According to the Hawthorne Arsenal, it was “believed to be have been the only lake in the country near which resident Indians had no boats, and they had no desire for any.” Traditional teachings said one or more huge serpents lived in the lake.

According to legendary Fortean John Keel, “Early Indian settlers around the lake became annoyed because the monster occasionally dined on members of the tribe. They decided to launch a major effort to trap and kill the creature. But, somehow, the swimming sneak overheard the plot, surfaced, and held a pow wow with his persuers. A bargain was struck. If the Indians promised not to kill him and turn his hide into moccassins, he would promise to eat only white men.” When a small steamer was launched by whites in the summer of 1876 and quickly decommissioned, the natives weren’t surprised.

The Walker Lake Bulletin reported in August 1883 that settlers near the lake were “awakened by a horrible, soul-shrinking screech” when a pair of monster pythons, writhing in battle, took it ashore. The Paiutes made a peace offering of the loser’s corpse, which was measured at exactly “seventy-nine feet, seven inches and a quarter in length.” The victor slithered back into the lake—but, like many of his brethren, was fond of sunning himself lakeside. A quarter century later, local businessman E. J. Reynolds told the Goldfield Daily Tribune the uncoiled beast was seen “wallowing” on the sand, and estimated its length at as least 70 feet.

Walker’s giant water snake piqued the curiosity of professor David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University. In the summer of 1907, newspapers reported Jordan, “generally conceded to be the foremost icthyologist in the United States,” and his colleague planned to high-tail it to Nevada upon the next sighting, capture the beast and send the dissected remains to that most reviled of institutions—the Smithsonian.

Samuel Pugh, superintendent of the Walker River Indian Agency, apparently rethought what he had chocked up as Indian superstition after “several white men claimed similar visions” of the serpent. In 1909, it was sighted by a Reno police captain; two years later, miners made a fuss of the monstrous “serpent-like fish” which disturbed their work. After a highway was built around the lake, “respectable” tourists and locals reported seeing “a huge monster, wholly unlike any fish inhabiting the waters of the lake, swimming about.” One hermit even asked the district attorney how much he would be paid in exchange for its scalp. A 1930s account in the Hawthorne News claimed it was sighted in a cave at the base of Mount Grant. The witness went to retrieve his gun—but by the time he returned, it had vanished.

As recently as 1956, a couple from Babbit, Nevada wrote to the editor of Hawthorne’s newspaper, claiming to have seen “something moving in Walker Lake at a terrific speed” which actually outpaced their automobile. It performed an aquabatic 100 yard dash before plummeting below the surface. The fall 1969 issue of non-fiction magazine Old West reprinted their letter, which continued, “It must’ve been 45 to 55 feet long and its back stuck up above the water at least four or five feet when it was swimming fast.”

Lake monsters are perennial newspaper fodder; nicknamed Sarah in the early 1900s, the Walker Lake monster was exploited for Hawthorne’s 1964 centennial celebration. One old coot claimed May 15 as Serpent’s Night at Walker Lake. He told the Nevada State Journal that every 100 years on the dot the serpent surfaces and seeks his prey. “He never fails, the old timers say he is as regular as the Capistrano swallows and far more dangerous.” As part of the celebration, local Paiutes attempted to lure the beast ashore with “an hours-long serpent dance,” even halting Naval frogmen from their exercises for fear it would be disturbed. Luckily the creature continues to elude capture.

http://jill-stefko.suite101.com/move-over-nessie-make-room-for-cryptid-lake-tahoe-tessie-a281694

Move Over Nessie, Make Room for Cryptid Lake Tahoe Tessie

posted Sep 2, 2010

by Jill Stefko

Loch Ness' Nessie is probably the most famous water monster. Lake Tahoe has its Tessie who has been sighted by many witnesses. What could she be?

Lake Tahoe, a natural crater lake, borders Nevada and California. It’s twenty-two miles long, twelve miles in diameter and 1,645 feet deep. The lake is one of several that are the remnants of a huge inland sea, Lake Lahontan, which was 8,500 square miles.
In the 1800s, members of the Paiute and Washoe Native American tribes told white settlers about a monster living in the lake. There have been many sightings since then. The locals dubbed the aquatic cryptid Tessie.

Lake Tahoe Tessie – Description

The vast majority of witnesses describe Tessie as being more than sixty feet long, with reptilian features, an undulating serpentine body and dark skin; however some say she looks like a giant sturgeon

The reptilian accounts remain consistent from sighting to sighting and many compare her appearance to that of Nessie’s of Loch Ness.

Jacques Cousteau Investigates Lake Tahoe Nessie

In the 1970s, the highly respected French oceanographer is said to have led an expedition to investigate Nessie after he heard about the sightings of the water monster. It was reported that Cousteau encountered something so frightening that he refused to reveal any information to the public about what he had seen. He never released any of his information or films. Cousteau told his colleagues that the world wasn’t ready to find out about what lurked in Lake Tahoe.

Cave Rock and the Lair of Lake Tahoe Tessie

This is a large rock formation by the southeastern shore of Lake Tahoe. About three million years ago, it was part of a volcanic vent when the lake was deeper than it is now. Waves crashing against the rocks created the caves.

Cave Rock was sacred to the Washoe Indians. It’s alleged that the tribe tossed their dead off of the rock. It's said that several spirits perform tribal rites there and people can see the Lady of the Lake in the rock formation. There have been reported sightings of a female specter garbed in clothing of the late 1800s, seen floating below the water’s surface. Cave Rock is said to be above Tessie’s underwater lair.

Selected Sightings of Lake Tahoe TessieSightings of Lake Tahoe Tessie include:

• Ashley ___ sighted a cryptid that looked like Nessie and said it was black, green and brown.
• Rick Osborne and three other people witnessed a large serpentine creature hunting and feeding on a school of large trout in the winter. It was about the size of a telephone pole in diameter and, approximately, thirty to sixty feet long. It dove up and splashed into the school of fish.
• Ingrid and her aunt saw Tessie one morning. The water was still and clear, without waves. Suddenly there was a wake that caught their attention. They saw four dark blue humps in the lake, but couldn’t see a head or tail, before the humps sank into the water.
• Samantha and her family were watching Fourth of July fireworks and heard something swimming near their boat and felt the vessel shake. They saw a long serpentine creature that swam by, then disappeared.
• Barry and a friend watched Tessie swimming for thirty minutes from the highway on the eastern side of the lake. She was black and serpentine-shaped, like a huge snake. He estimated she was fifty to sixty feet long. She floated in shallow water about ninety yards from the shore as if she was sunning herself. Then, she swam to deep water and disappeared.
• Gene St. Denis and a friend sighted spotted gray creature about ten to fifteen feet long swimming in Lake Tahoe. On another occasion, St. Denis and another person were swimming over a large hole in the bottom of the lake and felt an explosion underneath them, followed by seeing what appeared to be a sixteen feet long creature swimming away. After the silt settled, they found large fin prints where the creature had been.

What Might Lake Tahoe Tessie Be?

The only evidence that the water monster exists is the accounts of witnesses and an alleged video tape that hasn’t been released to the public. There are about six sightings reported every year. The majority of witnesses say she’s serpentine, while some say she resembles a sturgeon. It could be possible that there is more than one water monster in Lake Tahoe.
The late Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans, Father of Cryptozoology, the study of unknown mysterious animals, classified water monsters in his 1968 book, In the Wake of Sea Serpents. According to him, there are eight types of these cryptids. While Nessie is probably the most famous water monster, these cryptids have been documented world wide.
In addition to Tessie, there are the Lake Norman’s Norman or Normie and Lake Eerie’s South Bay Bessie. Some postulate these cryptids are giant sturgeons or mutant species of know aquatic animals, such as catfish. Others postulate they are surviving species of dinosaurs believed to be extinct. The coelacanth, a fish, was believed to be extinct until one was caught in the last century. Since then, schools of this fish have been found in the ocean. The tuatara, an animal resembling an iguana, is another example of a living fossil. There is a museum and a hotline dedicated to Tessie in the Lake Tahoe region. Perhaps, some day, one or more will be captured alive and join the rank of the living fossils.

Articles Related to Cryptid Lake Tahoe Tessie

Readers who enjoyed this article might like Cryptid Sea Serpents or Monsters –Categories, along with Lake Norman's Cryptid Water Monster and South Bay Bessie Lake Erie Water Monster.
Source:
Cryptozoology A to Z, Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark,(Fireside, 1999)


Read more at Suite101: Move Over Nessie, Make Room for Cryptid Lake Tahoe Tessie | Suite101.com http://jill-stefko.suite101.com/move-over-nessie-make-room-for-cryptid-lake-tahoe-tessie-a281694#ixzz1iGJLLnwj

http://criticalbelievers.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=crypto&action=print&thread=2753

Tessie, the Monster of Lake TahoePost by blacky on Feb 1, 2010, 1:44pm

The state’s largest freshwater lake, Tahoe has long been rumored to be home to both an underwater Mob graveyard and a huge unknown creature.

A story often told around Tahoe is that a few years back a fisherman trawling off the south shore got his hook caught on something in the deeps. When he finally freed it and reeled his 'catch' back to his boat, he found a well preserved human ear on the end of the line. (Another version of the tale has the fisherman snagging a three-fingered human hand.)

According to local legend the 900-foot-deep waters off South Shore served as a dumping place for Mob victims from the 1920s to the 1950s. Hundreds of gangsters’ corpses are suspended in the depths, they say, preserved from decay and prevented from gas-bloated surfacing by the near-freezing deep waters. So pervasive is this tale that many local fishermen refer to the area as “The Graveyard,” and a Tahoe-boat Mafia execution was featured in the climax of The Godfather Part II.

Even stranger are the tales of “Tessie.” Locals maintain that a large, unidentified, serpent-like creature lives in the deepest parts of the lake, and usually appears around June in even-numbered years. Dubbed “Tessie” in imitation of Loch Ness’s Nessie, the beast allegedly appears in Washoe Indian legend, and may have first been spotted by 19th century settlers.

Tessie made headlines in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 12 1984 when the paper reported that two women had seen the Lake Tahoe leviathan a month earlier. Tahoe City residents Patsy McKay and Diane Stavarakas were hiking above the west shore when they spotted the creature swimming in the lake.

McKay said the beast was about 17 feet long. She watched it closely and saw it surface three times “like a little submarine.” Her companion said that the creature had a humped back and seemed to surface in a whale-like, lethargic manner. She was also sure that it wasn’t a diver, a log or a large ripple.

Two years earlier a pair of off-duty Reno policemen had also taken a turn with Tessie. Officers Kris Beebe and Jerry Jones were water-skiing in the lake in June 1982 when an “unusually large” creature swam by them.

Yet another story about Tahoe asserts that there’s an underground river system that links the lake with Pyramid Lake in Nevada. Apparently the bodies of people who have drowned in Tahoe have surfaced in Pyramid Lake, fifty miles to the north. This phenomenon, however, might be due to the corpses floating over the north Tahoe spillway onto the Truckee River, and then downstream to Pyramid Lake.

The closest anyone ever came to figuring out Tahoe’s mysteries was in the mid-1970s. Famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau brought a mini-submarine to the lake and did several dives in search of the 1,600-foot bottom.

He returned to the surface allegedly saying, “The world isn’t ready for what is down there,” and to his death refused to release any pictures or data from the expedition.

What did the legendary diver find? Pin-stripe-suited, bullet-riddled corpses bobbing in the dark depths? A colony of living, amphibian dinosaurs? Or something even weirder?

The answers lie in the chilly depths of blue Lake Tahoe.

Re: Tessie, the Monster of Lake Tahoe
Post by darrylmckay on Feb 6, 2010, 12:11am

Quote:

The closest anyone ever came to figuring out Tahoe’s mysteries was in the mid-1970s. Famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau brought a mini-submarine to the lake, and did several dives in search of the 1,600-foot bottom.
I have been trying to find info on this and it appears to be a myth that this ever happened.

---

Re: Tessie, the Monster of Lake Tahoe
Post by blacky on Feb 6, 2010, 4:12pm

the submarine part is the myth? hmmm

--in the case or Tessie we have several of the same features, basically a creature described as either a big fish or a "Serpent": we need not wonder at the common reports of a train of humps or a "Long undualting/ 'Serpentine' body" because that is not the body of the creature, that is the wave on the surface of its body passing underwater. Several creatures can produce the effect: there are other wave effects as well, and the Walker Lake sighting of 1956 could well be a seiche wave or a "Surge" unassociated with any living creature. The general run of reports also sounds much like Ogopogo, and Ogopogo reports seem similarly at base a big sort of fish and a long series of sightings of wave effects. All the same, the identification of the "big fish" reports at Lake Taho are possibly not sturgeons as stated. Mapping out the probable sturgeon reports elsewhere in North America shows that Tahoe and associated lakes are well outside of the usual territory for such reports: and then again the usual riun of reports and traditions insist that the creatures have long jaws full of sharp teeth. So it may be that Tessie is really Bagil under a new and less threatening guise.

In the case of the last discussion on Tessie, the one reconstruction of the whole animal offered is very much like the Altamaha-Ha. I think the Altamaha-Ha is a sort of Alligator gar and that furthermore the Bargil, Cecil and Tessie reports represent the West Coast variant o a similar creature. As a matter of fact, some internet sources refer to alligator gars as being reported around California, but they are assumed to have been introduced secretly by sportsmen in order to spice up their local fishing possibilities. It is possible they might be native there. If so, there is a fair possibility that they are the same species as the alligator gars in the east, since they are regularly identified as belonging to the "Known" species.

Below, some Easterner sports fishermen show off their alligator gar catch. These photos came from an Indian site which specializes in recirculating photos off the internet and so I do not know their original source. These fish are known to reach ten feet in length, although reports of 20-footers are not uncommon. Some "Monster" reports from Lake Norman are known to be such.

Snakeyes. The pattern of scales also reminds some people of snakes

Generalized area of BAGIL or TAWAGA Reports

UPDATE: of probable interest is this recent article about an alligator gar caught in Arizona:
http://current.com/green/89156714_alligator-gar-caught-in-arizona.htm

Altamaha-Ha

In several instances of looking up different internet references under one heading, the different sites frequently have small changes in wording to convey pretty much the same exact basic information told over and over again. In this case, the following is a composite of several sites which are all small changes from one another:

There is said to be a creature living in the Altamaha river . The South Georgia coast is characterised by tiny islands, canals, waterways, deep rivers, and lots of inter-crossing creeks and streams. The Tama , indigenous natives to the area, told stories about the animal. According to Jim Miles in Weird Georgia, "Centuries ago, the Tama Indians first told tales of a huge water serpent that hissed and bellowed." The creature is called Altamaha-ha, also known as Altie.
The Altamaha-ha is said to inhabit the Altamaha River and the surrounding waterways and marshes. It takes its name from the River and the extra "-ha" at the end is a Native-Language suffix, not to be mistaken as indicating a joke, BTW. This creature has been once allegedly seen stranded on the banks of the river and trying to free itself franticly, and has also been observed cavorting on the surface. Some have said it approached them in a menacing way and even attacked a boat. It has been described as having a horizontal tail, like that of a porpoise, which moves up-and-down. Its size is commonly said to be around 20 feet (6-7 meters) long, but there have been some smaller creatures seen which are presumed to be youngsters and about 6 feet (2 meters )long, and some sightings say the creature is much larger, up to 40 or 50 feet long and six feet wide. The size of the head and thickness of the neck seems consistently about the same, with a head 2-3 feet long and a neck thickness of 1-2 feet reported at both cica-20-foot and circa-40-foot extremes in size. In appearance the creature is said to possess features resembling an alligator, an eel, a manatee and a dolphin. It is said to have large, protruding eyes and a pronounced alligator-like snout armed with large shining conical teeth. It has a serrated ridge along the back, like a series of small dorsal fins or sawteeth next to each other, and a true dorsal fin which is rather low and set far back. It is very elongated. It is said to be metal grey on top and pearly white on the bottom. There are supposed to be 350 sightings recorded.
In the 1920s, timbermen who rode the river reported sighting a creature , they described as a large snakelike water monster. They were recorded as using the Native term, Altamaha-ha.
In 1935, a group of hunters spotted what they called a "giant snake" swim through the river.
A Boy Scout troop from the 1940s reported sighting such a creature
In the 1950’s two officials from the Reidsville State Prison reported seeing a strange creature. Then there is this from 1969:
On a night in July 1969 , Donny Manning and his brother embarked on his boat on the Altamaha River at Clark’s Bluff. The lights on the house boat allowed them to see for some distance. Fishing for catfish, Donny decided to use an old trick he had learned as a kid which was oatmeal and soda mixed on a three pronged hook. They were fishing in a little depression outside the rough water when something took the hook. It did not act like a regular catfish after a catch. Most catfish would take the hook, run and stop, and turn; instead it ran with the hook. Every once in a while it would come out of the water where they could see it. They say it measured about ten to twelve feet long and at first they thought it resembled a sturgeon, but after a few more jumps, they could tell it wasn’t. Donny claims it had a snout almost like an alligator, or, he thought, of a duck-billed platypus. He says it had a horizontal tail, instead of a fish like vertical one, and it also had a spiny kind of bony triangular ridge along the top of its body. The dorsal fin that was down, but he could see it on the back. The teeth were shining in the light were sharp pointed. The Creature was gun-metal gray on the top and oyster white-yellow on the bottom. It didn’t move along side to side like a snake either, but it moved up and down like a dolphin.” Mr. Manning says he has lived on the water all his life and has seen all kinds of creatures, but this was the most amazing thing he had ever seen. He also claims he was using a salt water rig with a 40 lb. test line and the creature snapped it like it was nothing. Mr. Manning estimates from the way it felt on the line and the way that it snapped it that it was at least 75 lbs.During the summer of 1980 Andy Greene and Barry Prescott reportedly saw Altamaha-ha stranded on a mud bank near Cathead Creek. The creature lay halfway in the water, thrashing and trying to free itself from the bank. They described it as a dark coloured, with a rough skin and that it moved like nothing they had ever seen before. The creature was very large, three to four feet thick (1 meter) and twenty feet long( 6/7 meters). They observed the creature for ten minutes, before it freed itself, submerged, and disappeared.
In December of 1980 Larry Gwin spotted what he thought was Altamaha-ha in Smith Lake, located up the Altamaha River, while eel fishing. He described the creature has a fifteen to twenty foot long and snake-like, with two brown humps that protruded from the water. It disappeared and did not resurface. The creature was spotted several more times in the early 1980s, particularly near Two-Way Fish camp. One eyewitness, Ralph Dewitt, a crab fisherman of fourteen years, described Altamaha-ha as "the world's biggest eel".

One of the most recent reports was from 2002 when a man who was pulling a boat up the river near Brunswick reported seeing something over twenty feet in length and six feet wide break the water. The man reported that the animal seemed to emerge from the water to get air and then submerge again beneath the depths.
The story is popular in the McIntosh and Glynn County areas, which both border the Altamaha River. The local newspaper , The Darien News has covered the story several times .

Sources:
* Wikipedia - http://www.en.wikipedia.org/
* www.Georgiamysteries.blogspot.com/2008/05/legend-of-altamaha
* www.paranormal.about.com/library/blclassic_altamahaha.htm
* www.cryptozoology.com/glossary_topic.php?id=4
* www.biology-online.org/articles/altamaha-ha.html
* Cryptozoology A-Z by Loren Coleman
*Augusta Chronicle: http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/031598/fea_floydcol.shtml
*Monstropedia: http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Altamaha-ha

The reconstruction is a bizzare intermediate between a Plesiosaur and a Tullymonstrum, but the Longneck reports are easiest to skim off the top at up to 40 feet long, 6 feet thick with a head 2-3 feet long and a neck 1-2 feet thick: it shows 2-3 humps at the surface, garnished with a sawtoothedridge down the center. Except for the size of the head and neck, these are all easily determinative features of the type. The forefins and tail might be close to what is depicted in the reconstruction, but the proportions of the neck, body and tail would not be.


[Dale's Scale Pasteup Illustrating the common Giant eel and Plesiosaur-shaped creatures described in Freshwater "Monster" reports]

The overall shape of the reconstructed creature seems to be based on a manatee but depicted as much thinner: the jagged back could be based on sightings of alligators. Some of the descriptions specifically allege Giant eels at about 10-20 feet long (Normal-sized eels are also in the river), and presumably the same statements about the head and neck measurements are meant to apply to them also. Of the whole series of reports the Giant eel ones are the least certain, but there is no really good reason to leave them out.


But the basic type of creature that stands out from the majority of reports is a type of Alligator gar, the 1969 sighting by the Mannings being the best one of the series. Unfortunately, the witnesses only got short intermittent views of a twisting and jumping creature and so they were confused about which way was up, and consequently which plane it was undulating in. But the rest of the description matches rather well. Personally I would not compare a creature with all those jagged sharp teeth to a duckbilled platypus under any circumstances, I would have stuck with the alligator headed description.


Memphre AKA Chaousarou (Lakes Memphremagog and Champlain)



"Alligator Gar Fish", Public-Domain Image

The Alligator gar Water Monsters include several historical reports from around Lake Champlain, a creature described by Samuel deChamplain as Chaosarou or gars but twice the size of the commoner ones of five feet long (Longnose gars), hence about ten feet long. That would match an Alligator gar. Around Texas, there are perhaps some errant reports in the Rio grande and other areas, and there are some introduced alien fish reports of Alligator gars including around Hong Kong, where they were introduced by sports fishermen. But the Altama-ha popultion seems to be a relic population of the Atlantic Seaboard from Florida up to the (recolonized reservior) Lake Norman in North Carolina.



I had formerly written a blog about the monster of Lake Nicaragua being an Alligator gar, on the regular CFZ blog. This now seems to be a related but different species (Also sometimes found in the Caribbean Sea)

http://lakenormanmonster.com/sightings.php

Lake Norman is an artificial lake (reservior) but it has a thriving population of outrageously large fishes according to the site on the other end of the link. Along with Alligator gars, there also seem to be catfishes of unusually large size in the lake.


Lake Norman Monstrous Gar

CFZ REPOST: MEETING OLD NIC
Sunday, January 31, 2010



Some years ago I came across a photo of a bull shark that had been caught in Lake Nicaragua and used as a plate in the book A Natural History of Sharks. The shark had teeth marks on its tail and the more I looked at the photo, the more I realized that the pattern of the teeth in the bite mark were unusual. They were set wrongly to be either a caiman or a crocodile on the one hand, or another shark on the other. I went back to get a copy of the photo later but later editions cropped off the unsightly bite mark from the photo. A native is holding up th shark in the photo which gives an exact scale.

The bull shark is known to be a man-eater, and in this case some unknown animal was chasing it and nipping at its tail while it ran away. It seems that the creature, whatever it was, did not get a good enough grip on the shark's tail so the shark got away, only to be caught later by the fisherman.

I did find reference for a porosus croc fighting with a bull shark but this is the wrong hemisphere for those crocs and the toothrow is different, being wider and more divergent in the back and with a peculiar notch in the front, and some of the marks seem to indicate a double toothrow.

Now alligator gars have been found occasionally in the Gulf of Mexico and in Lake Nicaragua, according to the Wikipedia entry, and it seems that although they are usually freshwater fishes they can also tolerate brackish or salt waters. The alligator gar is the second-largest fish known to live in North America, and ten-foot-long specimens are on record, while rumor has it that they can reach 18 or 20 feet long.

They have vicious mouths with a double row of sharp teeth and at times they can be damn near unkillable (they are ganoid fishes and their scales are much tougher than ordinary fish scales, and it is said that sometimes bullets and axheads aimed at them only glance away making sparks)





And so I propose that Old Nic, the monster of Lake Nicaragua, is a large and surly type of alligator gar instead of being a plesiosaur or anything else. The encounter inspired me to make the mockup of the incident which I include below:


[There is a postscript to this: "Retrieverman" said it could not be an Alligator Gar and we had a rather heated exchange about it at the time, but the reference was wrong anyway. It turns out that the gar that lives in Lake Nicaragua-and sometimes in the Gulf of Mexico as well, is a different species but still a known species, very similar to the Alligator gar. And so I'm afraid I must apologise for not knowing that part myself)

Best Wishes, Dale D.