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| cryptids__colossal_claude_by_booker-d3lgqq3 |
FRONTIERS OF ZOOLOGY
Dale A. Drinnon has been a researcher in the field of Cryptozoology for the past 30+ years and has corresponded with Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson. He has a degree in Anthropology from Indiana University and is a freelance artist and writer. Motto: "I would rather be right and entirely alone than wrong in the company with all the rest of the world"--Ambroise Pare', "the father of modern surgery", in his refutation of fake unicorn horns.
Showing posts with label Oarfish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oarfish. Show all posts
Friday, 13 December 2013
Caddy=Oarfish, Again
Saturday, 27 July 2013
Bruce Champagne's Sailfin
http://pristichampsus.deviantart.com/art/4B-Sailfin-as-fish-153072829
The fantastic creature above was posted to his Deviant Art account by "Pristichampsus" (Tim Morris) as illustrating one of Bruce Champagne's Sea Serpent types. In order to deal with this better, we shall need to go back to the original statement Bruce had made. The summary of the type and the reconstruction illustrating the type are reproduced below:
4B Sailfin: An elongated animal of possible mammalian or reptilian identity reported from 12 to 85 feet long. It has a long neck with a turtle-like head and a long continuous dorsal fin. Cosmopolitan.
http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2010/05/dale-drinnon-possible-identifications.html
My comments were as follows:
"4B is obviously the same as the Valhalla Sea-Serpent. I do not know why BC gives it such a wide size range nor Geographic range, although I was aware of other reports of the type (Heuvelmans calls one a "Marine Dimetrodon"). I actually do not know what it is, but with that head and neck it is presumably related to the Plesiosaurs."
Now as to what Tim Morris had said:
4B Sailfin as fish
by ~Pristichampsus
| Digital Art / Drawings / Animals | ©2010-2013 ~Pristichampsus |
This is another interesting Bruce Champagne Sea-serpent. Said to undulate it's dorsal fin in order to locomote, it seemed most logical to reconstruct this animal as an aberrant fish, as opposed to Champagne's "mammal-like-reptile" identity.[DD-Emphasis added]
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Palalau Legendary/ Prehistoric creature stamps
PALAU - CIRCA 1993: Two 29-cent stamps printed in the Republic of Palau as part of a set titled Prehistoric and Legendary Monsters of the Pacific show a Plesiosaur dinosaur swimming in the ocean and a flying Pterosaur, circa 1993
What is interesting is that the stamps clearly identify a Plesiosaur as the Legendary Pacific "Merhorse" Maned Sea-Serpent with a medial manelike fin or frill, and the Pterosaur as being a sort of seabird. I recognize their analogues from other parts of the Pacific but I don't know what names are locally used for them in Micronesia.
http://www.123rf.com/photo_10887718_palau--circa-1993-two-29-cent-stamps-printed-in-the-republic-of-palau-as-part-of-a-set-titled-prehis.html
This sheet of twenty five stamps depicts prehistoric and legendary monsters of the Pacific and includes the Kraken/giant squid. There is also a "lake serpent" but I do not know which lake monster this represents. [it resembles an Oarfish, perhaps, but the nearest Lake Monster to the area would be the New Britain Migo. ] Probably it would be better to consider that the Longnecked Lake and Sea Monsters the same and Plesiosaur-shaped, and that the makers of the stamps were confused about the oarfish. I also don't know which "Giant crabs" are being referred to but those are also possibly uncatalogued new speces of interest.
http://www.pibburns.com/cryptost/kraken.htm
Monday, 13 May 2013
New England Sea Serpent
It seems that all of these early New England SeaSerpents were NOT Multihumped at all: they had a body plan that was basically Plesiosaurian with a head and long neck in front, large body with two or three humps, interpreted as being the coils of a snake's body poking above the water as it swims (Which is not physically actually possible) In the picture above, the one creature with a man in his mouth has seized him by the head in the seal-killing method reported of these creatures. This is something we have discussed on other occasions) The limbs are presumably not there and so are not depicted. But even going on drawings like these, the proportionate lengths of the neck to the body length, and both to overall length, are close to the statistical norms for Longneck sightings.
The earliest recorded sighting in Atlantic waters was made by a four passers-by off Cape Anne Massachusetts in 1639.
They told me of a sea serpent or snake, that lay coiled up like a cable upon a rock at Cape Ann; a boat passing by with two English on board, and two Indians, they would have shot the serpent, but the Indians dissuaded them, saying that if he were not killed outright, they would be in danger of their lives.
John Jossely, An Accoiunt Of Two Voyages To New England, (1641)
After that, there weresporadic encounters between men and serpents but the next recorded one was in 1805 when David Lee saw a one hundred foot sea-snake off the shores of Cape Breton Island. "Its back was dark green and it stood in the water in flexuous hillocks and went through it with an impetuous noise."
"String of Buoys" version of a "Waterhorse" or "Horsehead" or a "Long Horse"
In many early cases, these were sightings of swimming moose making a prominent and characteristic wake. At this late the only way to really know this is because of the size and shape of the hairy head.
The Gulf of Maine was visited in1817, when the Sandy Bar monster put on a memorable aquatic show for several hundred people. In that year there were numerous mass sightings of “a monster snake with a mountain range like body,” in the shallows through many days of the summer.
The continued sightings caused the Linnean Society of Boston to form a committe “for the purpose of collecting any evidence that may exist repecting a remarkable animal denominated as a Sea Serpent, reported to have been seen in and near the Harbour of Gloucester (Massachusetts).”
The Gloucester committee’s report finally came back as a small pamphlet in December of 1817. It contained the sworn testimony of twelve individuals who had observed the monster. It was conclude that all of them had seen a single sea serpent about the dates August 10 to August 28 within the Harbour.
After that, until, October 5, the creature was seen within Long Island Sound. Observations took place over periods of time ranging from a few minutes to two hours and the sight-seers were a distances that varied from a few feet to perhaps a mile. The serpent was seen at all hours of the day and was sometimes in rapid motion but was also seen at rest on the water. Its back appeared to undulate at times but in other instances it was seen as smooth and barrel like. It looked like a land-snake, black or dark-brown in colour, having a diameter of about three feet, tapering toward the extremnities. Its length was variously guessed to be between twenty and a hundred feet. Most observers though the skin was smooth but two said it was rough in texture. The head was said to be like that of a conventional serpent and three witnesses said that had seen a tongue projecting from the mouth. One witness compared the eyes to that of an ox. No fins, gills or mane were seen and there was also unanimous agreement that the animal was extremely fexible.
This sea serpent appeared to have little interest in the human observers and totally ignored the firing of guns from the shore. It made no sound and was not afraid of the shore for it was once seen lying partially out of the water. [Neck out on land?]
The naturalists who interviewed the observers were not content to publish this general information but attempted to create a hypothesis regarding the sighting: A month after these singular events a small black snake was found on the beach at Loblolly Cove and this three foot “beast” was slain using a pitchfork. It was presented to the Linneans who afterwards gave their iopinion that it was the young of the sea serpent whose “eggs” might have been deposited on or near the shore.
Examining the carcasse some of the Committee were “delighted” to find a series of small humps on the animal’s back and soon published the fact that “no material difference” had been found between the large and the small animal. The specimen was named Scioliophis atlanticus and appended to their report was an anatomical description based on their dissection of the smaller animal.
European critics of the report quickly identified the two drawings as representing the more common Coluber constrictor, apparently suffering from tumourous growths. The science community took the Committee’s report with “a calmness bordering on indifference,” and this helped to sea the animal’s fate as a fabulous creature. In the end the twelve honest burghers of Glucester came under the gun as being credulous, and the town gained a reputation for tall-tales.
[Allowing for the consistent tendancy to count the "String of Buoy" humps as being the actual body instead of the wake, the basic creature reported is modest enough and is a possible Longneck. It is between twenty and forty feet long and has from one to three humps. It commonly hoists its head, which is like that of a snake or a turtle, to a height of five or six feet out of the water, and the width of the neck at the base is two and a half to three feet. Behind the neck the body is barrel-shaped.]
This led to many practical jokes, and fictious sea-serpents were generated and reported tongue-in-cheek by the Press. Worse still, in the following year, Captain Rich of Cape Ann outfitted a ship from Boston and claimed they were going to track the monster. When they came to shore they reported they had caught the beast and thousands came flocking to see it. At the shore-line they found a 600 or 700 pound "macquerel,' which was a great curiosity, although not as billed. Those who had previously decided against the existence of sea serpents proudly took credit for their superior judgement, discrimination and clear-headedness. Even the few who had been believers now turned coat and most admitted they had been deceived. There was less tendancy to be open about sightings after that incident.
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| School of whales reported as a single gigantic sea serpent. Although this mistake is a lot less common than it might seem, sightings at both New England and Scandinavia, and rarely the world over, are best explained as small pods of whales. |
There was however, another in Halifax Harbour on July 15, 1825. One person who was present described it as having, “a body as big as a tree, with eight coils or humps to its body, and it was about sixty feet long.” A similar creature was seen in the following year by William Warrburton in the waters south of Newfoundland.
At Mahone Bay in 1833, two members of Her Majesty's Royal Navy saw a beast they claimed resembled an gigantic but otherwise unremarkable sea-snake. A periodical, The Zoologist for May 1847 reported this incident. It was said that a party had set out from Halifax "in a small yacht" on a fishing expedition. The group included Captain Sullivan and Lieutenants Maclachlan and Malcolm, all army officers stationed in that small town.
The weather was cloudy and the winds becoming ubfavourable so that they deliberated on the wisdom of continuing their excursion. However, deciding that there were a lot of emergency landing places on their lee stuck to their original course. They intended to fish near Iron Bound Island at the mouth of Mahone Bay but having received incorrect compass bearings before leaving town they ended up further from shore than intended.
The men were nevertheless quite relaxed and were sitting on deck, getting their fishing tackle ready to fish for Atlantic salmon. They were then surprised by a sudden flurry of fish passing by in the water "in an unusual state of excitement."
At this, they gave off smoking cigars, and took to amusing themselves by firing shots at this "immense shoal of grampuses [the term can mean a kind of fish or a kind of a whale. here they are clearly called fish]." They were not ceertain where they were located but thought they might be off St. Margaret's Bay. Captain Sullivan's attention was now redirected by their steersman, a Mr. Dowling" who shouted out "Oh sirs, look here!" Everyone did, and saw an object "of wonder and surprise."
"We were surprised by the sight of an immense shoal of grampuses, which appeared in an unusual state of excitement, and which in their gambols approached so close to our little craft that some of the party amused themselves by firing at them with rifles. At this time we were jogging at about five miles an hour, and must have been crossing Margaret's Bay, 'when suddenly,' at a distance of from a hundred and fifty to two hundred yards on our starboard bow, we saw the head and neck of some denizen of the deep, precisely like those of a common snake, in the act of swimming, the head so far elevated and thrown forward by the curve of the neck, as to enable us to see the water under and beyond it. The creature rapidly passed, leaving a regular wake, from the commencement of which to the fore part, which was out of water, we judged in length to be about eighty feet, and this within rather than beyond the mark. It is most difficult to give correctly the dimensions of any object in the water. The head of the creature we set down at about six feet in length , and that portion of the neck which we saw the same [the head and neck together formed a 'periscope' of twelve feet long]; the extreme length, as before stated, at between eighty and one hundred feet. The neck in thickness equalled the bole of a moderate-sized tree. The head and neck of a dark brown or nearly black colour, streaked with white in irregular streaks. I do not recollect seeing any part of the body [above water]."
In short, what the men saw and swore a statement to seeing, was about a replay of the Daedalus sea serpent case, except in this case the back definitely did not break surface and the length was judged to have been longer. Since we are talking about the estimated length of a submerged body, the point might well be moot. Oudemans estimated also that the creature sighted by the Daedalus was ninety to one hundred feet long in full, by including a prolonged tail as part of the estimate" presumably these men had done the same.
A statement to this effect was signed by these three men and two others present on the yacht, Ensign B. O'Neil Lyster and Henry Ince, and ordinance stores officer.
""At the distance of from a hundred and fifty to two hundred yards on our starboard bow, we saw the head and neck of some denizen of the deep, precisely like those of a common (sea) snake, in the act of swimming, the head so far elevated and thrown forward by the curve of the neck, as to enable us to see the water under and beyond it. The creature passed rapidly, leaving a regular wake, from the commencement of which, to the fore part, which was out of waterm we judged the length to be about eighty feet, and this within, rather than beyond the mark. ..There could be no mistake, no delusion, and we were all perfectly satisfied that we had seen a view of the "true and vertible sea-serpent", which was generally considered to have existed only in the brain of some Yankee skipper, and treatred as a tale not much entitled to belief."
Dowling is said to have noted: "Well, I've sailed in all parts of the world, and have seen rum sights too in my time, but this is the queerest I ever see!"
On his second visit to America in 1842 the geologist Charles Lyell was told of a sea-serpent that had the misfortune to become stranded on Merigomish Beach, on the Northumberland shore of Nova Scotia: “It was about one hundred feet long, and nearly aground in calm water, within two hundred feet of the beach. It remained in sight about half and hour, and then got off with difficulty.” One witness thought that the head was seal-like, and on its back spotted a number of humps, which some thought were due to the flexing of the body wall. The colour appeared to be black and the skin was rough in texture. There was no indication of side flippers. [There is the distinct possibility the report describes the corpse of a whale which washed up on a beach but then later washed back off again "With difficulty" meaning it was being beaten by the waves for a prolonged period before beiong washed away again]
In 1844 a similar creature appeared at nearby Arisaig, on this same
coast. There being a slight breeze, it was easily seen by a millwright from Pictou, who stood on land within 120 feet of it. He estimated the length at sixty feet, the thickness of the body at three. There
were humps on the back which he thought were too close together to represent bends in the body. As the creature undulated, its head and tail were sometimes seen simultaneously. Later that fall a similar animal was seen from the eastern shore of Prince Edward Island, which lies immediately across the Northumberland Strait. [These are almost certainly views of wakes in the water]
In 1849 four fishermen sighted an eel-like monster swimming off
South West Island near the entrance to St. Margaret’s Bay, in southern Nova Scotia. They launched a boat and tried to approach it. Again the animal was seen to be black in colour, its back covered with scales. No caudal fin was observed but they saw a very high fin, or perhaps a row of spines erected along the back. Each was judged to be about an inch in diameter at the base, and the set continued along the back for perhaps a third of the animal’s length, each end being equidistant from the head and the tail. At some point the animal opened its mouth and looked hostile so the men, “pulled vigorously for shore, followed for some distance by the snake.”[possibly an oarfish due to the fin]
A fisherman, returning from Port George to Victoria Beach in 1890, held his ship parallel to the black basalt cliffs but became momentarily unsteady when he spotted a "horse-head" racing through the water. The captain claimed that "it rolled hoop-like" beside his craft, each loop taking up thirty to forty feet of water. Since the eyes were "as large as saucers" and the creature was following closely the crew put on extra sail in spite of a threatening gale. They were trailed as far as Point Prim light. Two other vessels made similar sightings before week-end, but it was not seen afterwards.
["Horse-heads" are usually swimming moose, so that it is likely this one is a moose also]
N.C.Wyeth painting of a Sea Serpent "Periscope"
In 1913 a sea-serpent which had a giraffe-like head was spotted by Allen Line personnel travelling across the Grand Banks in the steamer Corinthian. The First Officer confused the creature with an overturned ship and approached to within 60 metres before a curious haed arose from the water. The Second Officer went immediately for his rifle but was disuaded from shooting by its “great blue eyes.” For a few moments the sea-giraffe churned the waters near the boat and then cruised away uttering a wail,“altogether out of proportion to its size.” Those who heard it claimed the sound was not unlike that of a disraught child.
Before they could photograph it the animal dove out of sight. The four witnesses agreed that what they had seen was [Snakelike in the front or neck,] 60 feet in length, “crocodile-like” in shape [in the body], having four limbs “with powerful webbed feet [or flippers] and a long tail tapering to a point.”
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| Vintage Illustration of a Plesiosaur |
Two days later, Keith Ross and his son Rodney saw the creature again. They agreed that the head was eight or ten feet above the surface of the water. When the mouth opened the younger Ross ducked into the cabin to save a confrontation. The two men said they were close enough to see that the beast had two tusks, “two and a half feet long, three inches thick at the base, with rows of smaller teeth as well.” On top of the head they observed a mass of brown flesh protruding from the neck. The protruding eye sockets was it.”[the description fits the decaying corpse of a baleen whale]
The next appearance of this great serpent was near the coast of Maine, where it was seen by the entire crew of the schooner Madagascar which was en route Lubec. During the morning watch, at 6 o'clock July 28, 1901, the vessel was standing under sail moving north along the coast at six to eight knots. The watch sighted an object on the starboard bow which had the appearance of a huge log. As the drew closer, Edward Ray, a sailor from Ellsworth, Maine, said that he thought the "log" was moving. The mate, Len Armstrong of Lubec, saw the object floating on the surface but was not as certain there was movement. As they approached within a sea-biscuit throw of the object, the two sailors were astonished to have it raise a great snake-like head and glide sinuously away from the ship.
They were close enough to observe minute details: In shape they said that the creature came closest to a snake but it was 30 feet long, covered with scales, ranging in colour from green to brown, and strangely refractive of the sun's rays. Along the back, from head to tail, they saw a spinal points, which seemed an extension of the back bone. Just below the head was a huge dorsal fin, or spine, thick, dark in colour, and about the size of a man's hand. The crew agreed that the body diameter must be about two feet, tapering slightly beyond the head and drastically towards the tail. As far as they could see there was no difference between the body tone or colour from the top to the bottom surface of the animal. [despite the strange colouration this is most likely an oarfish]
After the monster was safely separated from the ship it lay quietly upon the water for a number of minutes, seemingly appraising events. For a half hour more, the men watched it making fast skipping motions through the water, traveling only a short distance with each burst of energy. It appeared entirely fearless, showing no alarm at any of the tacks made by the vessel.
In speaking of the incident, Edward Ray told the "Saint Croix Courier" that he had been a seaman for nine years and had sailed the Atlantic from Africa to Labrador, but had never seen anything in the sea that resembled this creature. Asked if he thought it might have been possible to trap the animal, he said that no crew could have taken such a creature alive, and he guessed it would have been dangerous to injure it with a harpoon.
Again, the "St. Andrews Beacon" reported another sighting, August 2, 1906: This time the serpent was seen close to land by Thebold Rooney, keeper of the Sand Reef Light. Rooney thought that the monster had been draw to land in the wake of schools of herring, which he may have been pursuing. If so, he was not after food, for after moving quietly about he moved away from the lighthouse in the direction of Clam Cove.
Rooney got out his binoculars and reported the animal to be between 25 and 30 feet, judging by background objects. The head was small and snake-like and he guessed it to be the diameter of a weir stake. The keeper said that he might have taken it as a shark except for the lack of any dorsal fin. As the serpent moved out of sight it flipped up a tail in whale-fashion, and was lost to sight.
Rooney said that this was not the first "sea-snake" he had seen in St. Andrews Bay. Several years earlier he had been in the company of several other fisherman when one went scudding by making "a great deal of noise". For their part, the editors of the newspaper supported the keeper noting he was "not a man given to seeing snakes other than sea serpents."
Visiting the region, Ganong noted this flurry of sightings, and published a paper in 1907 edition of The Bulletin Of The New Brunswick Natural History Society, noting: "For the past few summers the local papers have often reported the appearance of "sea-serpents" at Passamaquoddy and the Saint Croix. The animal is really there but it is according to testimony of observant persons, a White Whale... Locally it is stated that it came into the Bay with the war-ships during the Champlain celebrations, June 25, 1905. But in this belief we have nothing but an illustration of another wonder tendency, viz. the habit of linking together, as casually connected, prominent events which are merely contemporaneous; for the data in my possession shows that the animal was seen in the bay at least one season before 1905."
A Jipjakimaq [Abenaki Sea Serpent] as seen by a rock artist at Kedjemkujik Park, NovaScotia
http://www.rodneymackay.com/Writing/html%20files/Sea%20Serpents/seaserpent1.html
Above: This picture, created in 1910, purports to depict the sighting of a sea serpent near Ipswich, Massachusetts. The existence of a sea serpent in New England waters has long been rumored (see the Gloucester sea serpent). Note the legs dangling from the creature's mouth.[Museum of Hoaxes]
[The legs dangling from the creature's mouth is a feature derived from the antique illustration at the top of the page.]
Previously on the Frontiers of Zoology Blog:
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/10/new-england-sea-serpent-review.html
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/01/some-more-new-england-sea-serpent-notes.html
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
Some More Notes on Cadborosaurus 2
The previous article on "Cadborosaurus" appeared on this blog in April and it included a pretty good summany and general overview on reports in the category:
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/04/some-more-notes-on-cadborosaurus.html
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| "An American Sea Serpent" in the 1800s-much like Caddy in the early reports. There is a strong tendancy to think of Caddy as still being in these proportions, compare to the long-necked and long-tailed drawing next following |
1934 – Sea Serpent Found Near Pender Island
Historical Archives. A giant sea serpent was spotted off Pender Island in 1934. Named “Amy”, the Cadborosaurus was seen by Cyril B. Andrews and 11 companions. The serpent reared 12 feet of her body out of the water – only 10 feet from Andrews’ boat. It then proceeded to swallow a wounded duck that Andrews was trying to retrieve.
View Newspaper Article
The most recent sightings of this creature have taken place at Qualicum Beach and Victoria respectively in November and December of 2006. [Source]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadborosaurus_willsi
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| These Sketches by Wilfred Gibson are some of the better ones for showuing the Plesiosaurian form and how the neck works, the way the neck goes from side to side like a boom is described both on the Eastern coast of the USA and at Lock Ness, and there is the suggestion that when the creature swallows a duck, you can make out the shape of the bird sliding down the thin skin of its throat. These are strong indicators the witness was not making it up. |
Cadborosaurus willsi
(from Wikipedia)“Cadborosaurus willsi”, nicknamed Caddy, is an alleged sea serpent reported to be living on the Pacific Coast of North America. Its name is derived from Cadboro Bay in Victoria, British Columbia, and the Greek root word “saurus” meaning lizard or reptile. Reports describe it as being similar in form and behavior to various popularly named lake monsters such as “Ogopogo” of Okanagan Lake in British Columbia and to the Loch Ness Monster of Scotland.
There have been more than 300 claimed sightings during the past 200 years, including Deep Cove in Saanich Inlet, and Island View Beach, both like Cadboro Bay also on the Saanich Peninsula, also British Columbia, and also at San Francisco Bay, California.
Cadborosaurus willsi is said by witnesses to resemble a serpent with vertical coils or humps in tandem behind the horse-like head and long neck, with a pair of small elevating front flippers, and a pair of large webbed hind flippers fused to form a large fan-like tail region that provides powerful forward propulsion.
In 1992 Ed Bousfield, retired Research Associate at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, and the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, and Paul LeBlond, professor at the Department of Oceanography, University of British Columbia (Vancouver), announced some startling pieces of evidence – three photos, taken in 1937 on the flensing platform of a whaling station at Naden Harbour in the Queen Charlotte Islands, that depict a large serpentine carcass. Retrieved from the stomach of a sperm whale Physeter macrocephalus, the carcass is about 3 m long, long-bodied, and appears to have a camel-like head and a fluked tail. It obviously struck the whalers as unusual, otherwise they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of setting it up on crates or photographing it. Suggestions that it is an elephant seal or baleen whale don’t seem realistic in view of certain of its features.
Related Links
http://www.bcscc.ca/cadborosaurus.htmhttp://www.qsl.net/w5www/caddy.html
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| The most common Caddy sighting is actually a standing wave pattern. Here you can see through the water on the two end humps, proving they are made of water (they are not empty loops, there is a sheen on them |
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| Artwork by Pristichampsus (Tim Morris) amended by DD to show the "Mane" and "Jagged spines on the back" The "Mane" is meant to exaggerate the vertical height of the creature visually and thus make t look larger to its rivals: ordinarily the creature without the "Mane" has a more elongated appearance |
Caddy [George Eberhart, Mysterious Creatures, 2002]
Sea Monster of the coast of British Columbia, Canada.Etymology: Name popularized if not coined October 11, 1933, byVictoria (B.C.) Daily Times editor Archie H. Wills after repeated sightings in Cadboro Bay, British Columbia. Short form of Cadborosaurus, coined at the same time.
Variant names: Amy, Cadborosaurus, Edizgiganteus (after Ediz Hook Light, Washington), Haietluk, Klamahsosaurus (on Texada Island), Penda (after Pender Island).
Scientific name: Cadborosaurus willsi, proposed by Edward L. Bousfield and Paul H. LeBlond in 1995. [Name not accepted by the scientific community and considered invalid generally]
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| Sea Serpent (Haietluk) by Native artist Butch-paired fins on one side equated to limbs on the other side This is essentially a "one-way" depiction of a Sisiutl |
Physical description: Serpentine body that forms many humps or loops. Length, 16–100 feet. Diameter, 2 feet 6 inches–8 feet. Light brown to black. Small head resembles a sheep, horse, giraffe, or camel. Eyes in the front of the head. Small ears or horns. Pointed tongue. Two rows (upper and lower) of fishlike (Spiky) teeth. Mane or fur on back of neck sometimes reported. Neck is 3–12 feet long, about as thick as an arm or a man's waist. One pair of front flippers seen, rear ones sometimes indicated. Back some- times appears serrated, sometimes smooth. Flat tail sometimes fluked or formed from back flippers. Behavior: Does not appear to undulate when it swims. Fast swimming speed, clocked at 40 knots. Breathes in short pants. Makes whalelike grunts and hisses. Feeds on herring, salmon, and ducks. Distribution:British Columbia seacoast, especially around Cadboro Bay and the Strait of Georgia.
Significant sightings: A crew member of the ship Columbia under American fur trader Capt. Robert Gray was the first to report a Caddy sighting in 1791. Osmond Fergusson watched a 25-foot animal with a long neck near the Queen Charlotte Is- lands, British Columbia, on June 26, 1897. In September 1905 or 1906, Philip H. Welch saw a brown animal with a 6- to 8-foot neck from a distance of 100 yards away in Johnstone Strait. It had two bumps on its head that were 5 inches high and rounded on top. F. W. Kemp and his wife and son watched an 80-foot maned animal while they were sitting on the Chatham Island beach, British Columbia, on August 10, 1932. On September 23, 1933, Dorothea Hooper and a neighbor observed a serpentine animal with a serrated back [oarfish?]cavorting in Cadboro Bay about 400 yards distant. It created a commotion in the water as it swam out to sea. Maj. W. H. Langley and his wife were sailing in Haro Strait on October 1, 1933, when they heard a loud grunt off Chatham Island. They saw the back of a huge, dark-green creature with serrated markings on the top and sides. Charles F. Eagles sketched a 60-foot animal that he saw in Oak Bay on October 14, 1933. It had crocodile-like spines on its neck. On December 3, 1933, Justice of the Peace G. F. Parkyn of Bedwell Harbour was one of twelve people watching from Pender Island as an animal with a large, horselike head and neck gulped down a duck that had just been shot by Cyril Andrews. In 1936, E. J. Stephenson and his wife and son watched a yellow-and-bluish, 90-foot-long, 3-foot-thick animal crawling over a reef into a lagoon on Saturna Island. A Canadian naval officer was fishing in an open boat off Esquimalt Harbour in November 1950 when a 30-foot Caddy appeared and created a heavy wash. It swam with an undulating motion using large flippers on either side. It snapped its teeth together once before it dived after twenty-five seconds. On February 12, 1953, R. D. Cockburn, C. P. Crawford, and Ron Loach saw an animal with three humps off Qualicum Beach for five minutes. Two other men got into a boat and rowed within 20 feet, but it submerged and reappeared 100 yards away. Its head was dog- shaped and had two horns. In late November 1959, David Miller and Al- fred Webb came within 30 feet of an animal with a 10-foot neck sticking straight up out of the water off Discovery Island. It had coarse brown fur, red eyes, and small ears. Mechanical engineer Jim M. Thompson was fishing off Spanish Banks, Vancouver, in January 1984 when an 18- to 22-foot serpentine animal surfaced about 100 feet away. It had a giraffelike head with small stubby horns and floppy ears. In May 1992, music professor John Celona saw a multihumped animal about 25 feet long while sailing. Students Damian Grant and Ryan Green were swimming across Telegraph Bay in May 1994 when they saw a 20-foot animal with two humps.
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| "Caddycarcass" taken from the belly of a whale- More likely yet another basking shark skeleton as in the other "Caddy" carcasses illustrated above it. |
. A 10- to 12-foot carcass of apparently a young Caddy was removed from the stomach of a sperm whale, photographed, and displayed for a while at Naden Harbour whaling station in 1937. The photo shows it stretched out on packing cases. It was about 10 feet long, with a camel-like head, traces of flippers, and a paddling tail. The carcass was allegedly shipped off to the Field Museum in Chicago, but there is no record of its arrival. A 16-inch-long juvenile Caddy was caught in a net by William Hagelund in 1968 off De Courcy Island, but it was thrown back. It had spiny teeth, a saw-toothed ridge of plates along its backbone, and a bilobate tail. A soft, yellow fuzz covered its undersides.
Possible explanations: (1) The Northern sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) can appear serpentine in the water but only grows to about 10 feet 6 inches long. (2) The Northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) is found in British Columbian waters in the nonbreeding season, but it only measures up to 16 feet long and does not have an elongated neck. (3) A surviving basilosaurid type of archaic whale, suggested by Roy Mackal and Karl Shuker. Some basilosaurids were serpentine, grew up to 80 feet long, and lived in the Late Eocene, about 42 million years ago. They had a tail fluke, but it’s unknown whether it was used primarily for propulsion or steering. They are mainly known from the eastern United States and Egypt but may have been worldwide in distribution. (4) An evolved plesiosaur, suggested by Edward Bousfield and Paul LeBlond. This group of long-necked marine reptiles swam with paddlelike limbs and had a body length that varied from 6 to 46 feet. Plesiosaur fossils are found continuously from the Middle Triassic, 238 million years ago, to the Late Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. (5) A decaying Basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) might account for the 1937 Naden Harbour carcass. These sharks take on a remarkably plesiosaur-like appearance due to the differential decomposition rates of their gill slits and lower tail fluke. A 30- foot carcass found in November 1934 by Hugo Sandstrom on Henry Island turned out to be a Basking shark. (6) Some kind of decapod (crayfish or lobster) has been suggested by Aaron Bauer and Anthony Russell as an explanation for Hagelund’s juvenile Caddy capture in 1968. [More recently Naish et al have shown this to be most likely a pipefish]
Sources: “Yachtsmen Tell of Huge Sea Serpent off Victoria,” Victoria (B.C.) Daily Times, October 5, 1933, p. 1; “The Loch Ness Monster Paralleled in Canada,” Illustrated London News 184 (January 6, 1934): 8; “A Canadian ‘Monster,’” Illustrated London News 185 (December 15, 1934): 1011; Ray Gardner, “Caddy, King of the Coast,” Maclean’s Magazine 63 (June 15, 1950): 24, 42–43; D. Mattison, “An 1897 Sea Serpent Sighting in the Queen Charlotte Islands,” B.C. Historical News 17, no. 2 (1964): 15; Paul H. LeBlond and John Sibert, Observations of Large Unidentified Marine Animals in British Columbia and Adjacent Waters (Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia, Institute of Oceanography, June 1973); William A. Hagelund, Whalers No More: A History of Whaling on the West Coast (Madeira Park, B.C., Canada: Harbour, 1987); Frederic C. Howay, ed., Voyages of the “Columbia” to the Northwest Coast, 1787–1790 and 1790–1793 (Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1990), p. 249; Penny Park, “Beast from the Deep Puzzles Zoologists,” New Scientist 137 (January 23, 1993): 16; Jessica Maxwell, “Seeing Serpents,” Pacific Northwest 27 (April 1993): 30–34; Mike Dash, “The Dragons of Vancouver,” Fortean Times, no. 70 (August-September 1993): 46–48; Edward L. Bousfield and Paul H. LeBlond, “An Account of Cadborosaurus willsi, New Genus, New Species, a Large Aquatic Reptile from the Pacific Coast of North America,” Amphipacifica 1, suppl. 1 (1995): 3–25; Paul H. LeBlond and Edward L. Bousfield, Cadborosaurus: Survivor from the Deep (Victoria, B.C., Canada: Horsdal and Schubart, 1995); Aaron M. Bauer and Anthony P. Russell, “A Living Plesiosaur? A Critical Assessment of the Description of Cadborosaurus willsi,” Cryptozoology 12 (1996): 1–18; Darren Naish, “Another Caddy Carcass?” Cryptozoology Review 2, no. 1 (Summer 1997): 26–29; Paul H. LeBlond, “Caddy: An Update,” Crypto Dracontology Special, no. 1 (November 2001): 55-59
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| Alaskan Sea Monster film |
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| McCormick Composite drawing of "Caddy" Witness Sketches |
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
VOID Sea-Serpent Category 4: Many-Finned or Cetacean Centipede
Different Conceptions of the Cetacean Centipede. Heuvelmans' version is last.
While I have been busy with other matters and temporarily off the blog, I have also been getting a steady string of messages from the young person who asked me about the Sea Wolf and Sea Ape matter recently.
Dale,
I follow several blogs either on cryptozoology or featuring content on the subject. One of them is Cameron McCormick's blog, The Lord Geekington. I was recently going through the posts on his site when I came across two on the Many-Finned Sea-Serpent:
http://www.thelordgeekington.com/2010/01/return-of-many-finned.html
http://www.thelordgeekington.com/2010/01/many-finned-and-cladistics.html
The first lists all of the sightings listed by Heuvelmans and Coleman and Huyghe, and does a very good job of explaining most of the sightings. The second post basically shows that the Many-Finned reports end up belonging more with other categories than each other. I hope you will find these interesting.
Also, here are a couple links to photos showing how ordinary dolphins can become a many-finned sea-serpent.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dorstetguidedwalks/5542557545/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danshill/4374946093/
I especially like this photo, especially when compared to the St. Olaf sea-serpent, which Heuvelmans thought was a Many-Finned:
Oops. Maybe the Many-Finned I.D. was just a little off.... :) and this is why I prefer to call this type The Porpoise Parade.
This also brings me to the subject of the Along Bay Dragons. The main reason Heuvelmans believed it was Many-Finned was because of this:
[Con Rit carcass]
This stranding, of course, is basically worthless. Due to its age and its second/third-hand nature, we cannot take any stock in it. So much for having multiple fins. But then there was this sighting:
[Hanoi SS]
Heuvelmans's reasoning behind why it looked so different from the other dragons was that the poor lighting and poor health (?) of the creature distorted its image, and that the description of the back showed that the dragons had jointed armor (!) on their backs. And this is complete bullsh*t. It's the mental gymnastics that he himself scorned. It's quite obviously a turtle of some sort, and I have no idea why he didn't call it a Father-of-all-Turtles. Then again, it may simply be a misidentified known species of some sort.
[Lord Geekington suggests a Leatherback turtle but it could also represent a pair of leatherbacks, one showing the head and the other showing the body, turned at 90 degrees from each other.
The ridges on the body section in the drawing are an almost exact match for a Leatherback's shell in this orientation.
This could happen if two leatherbacks were at the surface preparing to mate or sliding away from each other after having mated, and the two of them together could easily span a distance of 20 feet or more. Or else it (they?) could still represent a larger Archelon-type turtle. It is probably significant that at least half a dozen Sea-serpent enthusiasts including myself have gone to that drawing and each said independantly "Turtle!" without any hesitation whatsoever]
However, I do take stock in the other "Dragon" reports. I would discount them as many-humped/wave sightings were it not for the fact that the humps were described as scaly and had saw-toothed ridges. Actually, this sketch from Australia matches quite closely to the descriptions from Along Bay:
It is of course a poor sketch, but it at least gives us an idea of what we're dealing with: a scaly, serpentine animal with a medium-length neck, which moves by undulating vertically and appears as two or three humps at the surface. This isn't really that outlandish, and I'm sure the humps would be rather lower than in the image. The range of sightings of this type is not too unreasonable either; they appear to range from the South China Sea down to the north coast of Australia. I leave you this category to evaluate as you wish.
Now, there is one more sighting type I want to ask you about, because it completely stumps me as to what could cause this. It is a feature commonly described in Caddy sightings: the humps of the creature appearing as like half a tire. I include these links to demonstrate (I tried to copy and paste the sketches, but for whatever reason my computer simply copies a screenshot of the page):
http://members.shaw.ca/caddyscan/2000present.html
http://members.shaw.ca/caddyscan/1999back.html
and two computer-generated images demonstrating the effect:
Some of the sketches are clearly either wakes or Long-necks. What I am interested in are the sightings which appear to show loops of a serpentine body coming clear out of the water. As far as I know, no known vertebrate has a spine that can undulate vertically and show more than two "humps" above water, let alone move the body clear out of the water in multiple coils. These sightings have me stumped and I want to know what your take is on these sightings.
Sincerely,
------------------------
{I shall refer to the "Half-tyre" sightings at the finish of this blog entry]
There is also the sequel email,
Thank you Dale.
The explanation for the half tires [That they are long necks] certainly does make sense. And I agree with you that the many-finned is not a valid category. Again, I prefer to call it the Porpoise Parade :)
However, I am still bothered by the description of the Along Bay dragons. I would dismiss them as many-humped sightings but they generally only appeared as maybe three humps and these were described as scaled and sarrated. I cannot decide if they belong in another category {if they are typical Longnecks] or if they reprsent a different creature altogether. The description if serpentine bodies doesn't match any other categories.
[Princess SS]
Also, I am rather uneasy about the Princess sighting. The description has little detail and the sketch is quite strange. On its own, the only thing that I can thing of resembling it would be a large cetacean surrounded by a pod of small sharks. Then again, it seems likely that McCormick's view is correct: it appears that it's a composite sketch, and im not sure it even depicts the sighting itself, but looks rather like an attempt at depicting the "creature" that was seen. Whatever it is, it seems to be the only sighting to depict a creature with many fins, and its complete singularity makes it difficult to put any stock in it.
Sincerely
---------------
It is also useful to see the two Lord Geekington Many-Finned Blog Entries together
http://www.thelordgeekington.com/2010_01_01_archive.html
As a matter of fact, I came upon Lord Geekington's blog entries early in 2010 and commented on them at the regular Yahoo group Frontiers of Zoology. The charts indicating cladistics are still on file in the photos section of that group.
My comments on the category of Many-Finned went public when that group opened up in 2006, although I had come to the conclusion several decades before. The 2010 CFZ yearbook printed a version of my suggested amendments to Cryptozoological checklists. Page 87 of the yearbook includes this information: [In my assessment], Four categories are extinguished as valid categories. These are:
VOID 1: "Classic Sea-Serpent"
VOID 2: "Waterhorses" (As opposed to Longnecked Sea-Serpents PLUS Merhorses)
VOID 3: "Dinosauria"
VOID 4: "The Great Sea Centipede"
Then going to the following explanatory text:
VOID 4:"The Great Sea Centipede" (Heuvelmans' "Cetioscolopendra" or "Many-Finned Sea-serpent" category) ALL of the reports [characteristic of] this category COULD well be mistaken views of ordinary finbacked animals in compacted arrangement. There is an additional problem in that there is a variance in proportionate widths per approximately similar lengths that can be as small as three feet but up to fifteen feet wide across the back [in different creatures estimated to be sixty feet long], a difference of the greatest estimate being five times the least measurement. this is a difference in the with being 1/20 of the length up to its being 1/4, obviously illustrating the difference of how closely the creatures are clustered together to create the appearance of a "Row of fins" effect. With this sort of a variability of the reports it is excusable to wonder at the accuracy of such statements as "Fins turned bfront to back". At least one of the possible Sea-serpent reports in Heuvelmans' collection is admittedly even more likely to be a small school of cetaceans (the HMS Narcissus report)
At the same time I clarified to my correspondant that none of the Along Bay series of reports fell into that category and that I counted them separately, including the mention that I thought the Hanoi SS was a turtle. So that basically we agreed on those points. Statistically the Along Bay reports fall in closely similar to the basic Longneck+Merhorse reports worldwide and when broken down into similar geographic areas for statistical analysis. I also mentioned that information from my Vietnamese informants specified that the male sea-serpent recognised locally as Thoung-Luong was recognisably a standard description of a maned "Merhorse"
Traditional Vietnamese Dragons Illustrating The Common Sea-Serpent traits. The blue one is a china water-jug.
One important case that deserves special treatment is the case of the Osborne Sea-serpent case of 1877.
[Scientific American 14 July 1877 ]
The Sea Serpent Sighted from a Royal Yacht.
The Osborne, paddle royal yacht, Commander Hugh L. Pearson, which arrived at Portsmouth from the Mediterranean on Monday, June 11, has forwarded an official report to the Admiralty, through the Commander-in-Chief (Admiral Sir George Elliot, K.C.B.), respecting a sea monster which she encountered during her homeward voyage.
At about 5 o'clock in the afternoon of June 2, the sea being exceptionally calm, while the yacht was proceeding round the north coast of Sicily toward Cape Vito, the officer on the watch observed a long ridge of fins, each about 6 feet long, moving slowly along. He called for a telescope, and was at once joined by other officers. The Osborne was steaming westward at ten and a half knots an hour, and having a long passage before her, could not stay to make minute observations. The fins were progressing in a eastwardly direction, and as the vessel more nearly approached them, they were replaced by the foremost part of a gigantic monster. Its skin was, so far as it could be seen, altogether devoid of scales, appearing rather to resemble in sleekness that of a seal.
The head was bullet-shaped, with an elongated termination, being somewhat similar in form to that of a seal, and was about six feet in diameter. Its features were only seen by one officer, who described them as like those of an alligator. The neck was comparatively narrow, but so much of the body as could be seen, developed in form like that of a gigantic turtle, and from each side extended two fins, about fifteen feet in length, by which the monster paddled itself along after the fashion of a turtle. [The exposed length of head, neck and back was taken to be about 50-60 feet long]
The appearance of the monster is accounted for by a submarine volcano, which occurred north of Galita, in the Gulf of Tunis, about the middle of May, and was reported at the time by a steamer which was struck by a detached fragment of submarine rock. The disturbance below water, it is thought probable, may have driven up the monster from its "native element," as the site of the eruption is only one hundred miles from where it was reported to have been seen—Portsmouth (Eng.) Times.
-In my opinion the first drawing by the officers of the Osborne shows a pod of humpback whales bubble-feeding: the pointed objects would then be noses of the whales and not fins. It is my impression of the drawing that they are gathered around in an oviod or circular formation rather than in a line or two lines of "Triangles." When the Osborne got closer, one of the whales breeched at them, giving them a view of the large pectoral flippers. The view of the upper jaw coulsd well look like a longish head and neck as seen from behind, and the other descriptions as being bullet-shaped, seal-like from the back or having a face like an alligator would all fit. A humpback whale is also the only animal KNOWN to have 15-foot-long pectoral flippers. In which case the estimated length of 50-60 feet long is very close to reality and this is basically a very good set of observations. The sketches are rough and a little misleading, but that is normal in such cases.
[Poonah SS]
[St Olaf SS]
[Interpretation of St Olaf SS by Pristichampsus on Deviant Art]
[Princess SS]
{Many-Finned SS as an Odontocete by Pristichampsus on Deviant Art,
Obviously influenced by the Princess SS sighting especially]
[Con Rit interpreted as an enormous Arthropod by Pristichampsus on Deviant Art]
For the information of readers who have not seen the material we are discussing,
The following is an extended quote from Coleman and Huyghe's The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep.
Great Sea Centipede
Description:
This unique marine animal generally is quite large, 30 to 60 feet in length [to reportedly over 150], with a relatively thin neck. Its body may be segmented and displays lateral projections, plates, or fins that stick out prominently from its sides. This animal routinely sprouts what appears to be water vapor from its hairy nose or mouth area. This visible breath is one of the diagnostic features of this kind of Sea Serpent.
Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans called this type the Many Finned, and noted that its many lateral fins and segmented, jointed armor of bony dermal plaques “were common among archaic whales.” The multiple finned structures have been reported in a variety of configurations, and Heuvelmans points out that the rigid nature of the animal may cause the fins to be seen from different angles when the animal turns radically. Because of the animal’s movement, therefore, these triangular fins can give an appearance of a massive jagged crest, when the cryptid is swimming on its side.
We have renamed Heuvelmans’ Many Finned, the Great Sea Centipede, which hacks back to the original—and more appropriate– original Roman name.
Range:
Heuvelmans said this type is found only in the belt of tropical and subtropical waters around the world, living in some of world’s warmest waters. A close study of the distribution of sightings of this distinctive creature appears to demonstrate a restricted range for this tropical marine animal, from south of Asia to Arabia, at 15 degrees north, to 15 degrees south near Madagascar, with only a few reports coming out of the normal range. A specific, well-documented population has historically been reported from the South China Sea off of the old Indochina, east to the Gulf of Aden. Reports from Madagascar to the south, and sightings in the Mediterranean Sea reinforce the restrictions of this type to the world’s warmer marine environs.
History:
The first modern discussion of these animals took place in the sixteenth-century work, L’Histoire entiere des poissons by the “Father of Ichthyology” Guillaume Rondelet. What he called the “cetacean centipede,” had “a multitude of feet,” the “oars with which it propels itself.” This cetacean, which was frequently seen in the Indies, stated Rondelet, was first described by Aelian (d. 230 A.D.) in his On the Nature of Animals (200 A.D.), as the “great sea-centipede.” Aeliad told how this animal sometimes beached and witnesses would describe the lobster-like tail and hairs of the large nostrils.
Though the legacy of the Great Sea Centipede is centered on the South China Sea, sightings in other parts of the world give hints of an earlier, more widespread, distribution of this type.
One detailed record of a sighting was noted by the Illustrated London News. It came in the form of a letter from Edmund J. Wheeler, who was quoting from the log book of his company’s ship, Princess, recently returned from China. When going around South Africa (latitude 34 degrees 56’ S, longitude 18 degrees 14’ E), Captain Tremearne saw a “large fish, with a head like a walrus, and twelve fins,” six on each side, a great tail, some 20-30 feet in length. It was sprouting something from its mouth. The Princess’ crew fired on it and felt they had hit it around the head. This all took place at 1 P.M. on July 8, 1856.
Commander Hugh L. Pearson, captain of the Royal Yacht and his Lieutenant W. P. Haynes, both of the H. M. S. Osborne, cited in an official report to the Admiralty, that they had seen a sea monster, but not one that was serpent-like, off Cape Vito, near the north coast of Sicily, on May 2, 1877. Remarkably, it displayed a long row of fins, over thirty feet long, which appear to have been seen sticking out from the side of the animal, rather than from the back, as Sea Serpents are sometimes described. This certainly appears to be the case, because when the gentlemen grew closer to the creature, it showed a head with a smoothness down its back “like a seal” and front flippers.
The next year, another sighting followed in which the witness told an investigator that what she saw looked exactly like what had been seen from the Osborne. In December 1878, an Englishwoman named Mrs. Turner was aboard the P & O liner Poonah anchored off Suez or Aden (she could not remember which), at the Gulf of Aden when saw her creature. She related her experience to Robert P. Greg, who subsequently wrote a letter to biologist Antoon Cornelis Oudemans. What she said she saw, a mere 150 feet away, was a strange animal motionless on the surface. Greg relayed that “She saw both the head and 7 or 8 fins of the back, all at the same time in a line. She cannot remember exactly how many dorsal fins there were, but they were large, slightly curved back and not all the same size…. The head looked 4-6 feet diameter, like a large tree trunk…. The color was nearly black like a whale. The whole length appeared considerable, perhaps as long as an ordinary tree, or moderate sized ship!”
But most of the sightings of the Great Sea Centipede are tied to Indochina, and the excellent records the French kept of sightings from 1890s through the early 1900s, as French and others ships were opening the markets off the South China Sea. A record of a stranding of one of these animals took place in 1883 (see descriptive case). Good sightings of sea-going unknowns with many fins occurred off of Indochina in 1893, 1896, 1898, 1902, 1903, 1904, and 1908. Sightings near Somalia occurred in 1923 and 1928, and near Madagascar in 1926. In the 1920s, A. Krempf, Director of the Oceanographic and Fisheries Service of Indo-China, formally considered these animals to be real and part of the zoological sphere to be described and collected. Heuvelmans’ view is that this Vietnamese cryptid is the prototype for the Oriental dragon.
More recent sightings are rare, but one report of a Sea Serpent seen by Chinese students in about 1968, near Hong Kong, suggests the continued existence of this type.
Candidate:
Dermal plating has been an evolutionary adaptation for aquatic environments, as it is to be found in certain fish groups, including the ancient fossil plated fish (Placodermi), and the present day examples of the sturgeon (Chondrostei), the seahorse (Teleostei), and the armored catfish (Teleostei, Loricariidae, Hypoptopoma). Even the coelacanth, of course, possesses a form of dermal plating that survives from 65 millions years ago. Having the body covered with an exoskeleton of horny epidermal scales with the addition sometimes of bony dermal plates, is the design of most reptiles (alligators, turtles, snakes). But did ancient whales have dermal plating? Convergent evolution could have produced some ancient whales with armored dermal plating.
Bernard Heuvelmans certainly thought so and designated this animal and its relatives, the Cetioscolopendra aeliani (“Aelian’s cetacean centipede”), linking it to the ancient whales – perhaps even the zeuglodons. One such a primitive, extinct whale (or zeuglodon) that Heuvelmans thought may have evolved a plated form was the Basilosaurus, an Archaeoceti whale from the Eocene epoch, 50 million of years ago. This snake-like whale had 44 teeth in its long jaws. It was about 65 ft (20 m) long, and had small hind legs and a reduced pelvis.
Heuvelmans noted that a few dermal scutes had been discovered in association with one basilosaur fossil, and some amorphous rounded lumps were found in associated with a fossil squalodont (a primitive toothed whale). Both finds were interpreted as evidence that primitive cetaceans were “armored.” However, in private correspondence in 2002, British paleontologist Darren Naish reports that the basilosaur scutes turned out to be from a leathery turtle and the squalodont “lumps” were either petrified wood or unidentifiable. No evidence of dermal plating, therefore, exists for cetaceans, extant or extinct.
Due to this lack of precedent, the rarity of good sightings, and their limited range, most cryptozoologists today feel that the Great Sea Centipede is one of the least likely of the Sea Serpent types...
The following is from George Eberhart’s Mysterious Creatures:
Con rÃt. Sea monster of the China Sea.
Etymology: Vietnamese (Austroasiatic) name for a millipede [centipede]with a toxic bite.
Physical description: Length, 60 feet. Dark brown above, light yellow below. Body composed of armored segments 2 feet long and 3 feet wide. A pair of thin appendages, 2 feet 4 inches long, is attached to each segment.
Distribution: Halong Bay, Vietnam.
Significant sighting: Tran Van Con and other Vietnamese found a carcass washed ashore at Hong Gai, Vietnam, around 1883. The head was gone, but the remainder was formed of odd segmented joints that rang like sheet metal when hit with a stick. It smelled so badly that it was towed out to sea.
Possible explanations:
(1) The backbone of a whale, though the vertebral structure should have been obvious and described in a different way.
(2) The caudal vertebrae of an Oarfish (Regalecus glesne). However, its bones are shaped differently and this fish generally only grows to 36 feet.
(3) Surviving archaic Basilosaurid whale, similar to those in Heuvelmans’s Multifinned sea monster category, which he theorized had armored plates. However, it’s now known that Basilosaurids were not armored.
(4) A surviving Sea scorpion (Class Eurypterida), a group of arthropods that flourished from the Ordovician to the Permian periods, 500–250 million years ago, had an abdomen divided into 12 segments, but no appendages were attached to them. In addition, they actually lived in brackish or fresh water instead of the open sea, and the largest one, a species of Pterygotus, only reached 16 feet in length.
(5) A giant crustacean of an unknown type, proposed by Karl Shuker. The carcass represents only the exoskeleton and limbs. However, the largest known living crustacean is the Japanese spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi), which has a claw span of 10–12 feet but a body size not much over one foot—nowhere near the size of the Con rit.
[The largest known land Arthropod from fossils was the 6-foot-long Carboniferous millipede Arthropleura, which had the appearance of a tremendous elongated trilobite. Some of the discussion on some of the blogs tends to favor the idea that the Con Rit could be something like a gigantic marine Arthropleura. I need hardly point out that it would have to be supposedly ten times the length of the fossil form]
It is important to bear in mind that "Con Rit" only names the one very dessicated carcass in question and not the entire seies of sightings at Halong bay.Thus the champions of the invertebrate school are in a very precarious position indeed because the description very likely is only approximately correct and distorted after decades of memory. There is also the suggestion that this carcass was associated with other reports of vertebrae that were not whale vertebrae in a different one of Heuvelmans' footnotes.
I tend to the Oarfish expanation myself, with the body being very long exposed to the air and extremely dried out-basically a long strip of tough oarfish pemmican. It could thus have the proper consistency to be comparable to a crab's shell. The long crest would then be described as the filaments on the one side and there are a few corresponding long fins on the other side: it just needs enough to make the effect and it does not need complete rows of filaments on both sides. The tail end would then look like the diagram for the Con Rit carcass, as Eberhart states. The length of sixty feet would very likely be exaggerated and at any rate would only be approximate. The width is more likely to be correct, the segmented appearance because of the way the muscles are arranged along the sides. It would be a very old mummy when discovered, and sitting in the sun with the one side up for a long time. That would account for the top being darker and the bottom being lighter in colouration. And the vertebrae would look nothing like a whale's or a shark's when encountered separately.
I tend to the Oarfish expanation myself, with the body being very long exposed to the air and extremely dried out-basically a long strip of tough oarfish pemmican. It could thus have the proper consistency to be comparable to a crab's shell. The long crest would then be described as the filaments on the one side and there are a few corresponding long fins on the other side: it just needs enough to make the effect and it does not need complete rows of filaments on both sides. The tail end would then look like the diagram for the Con Rit carcass, as Eberhart states. The length of sixty feet would very likely be exaggerated and at any rate would only be approximate. The width is more likely to be correct, the segmented appearance because of the way the muscles are arranged along the sides. It would be a very old mummy when discovered, and sitting in the sun with the one side up for a long time. That would account for the top being darker and the bottom being lighter in colouration. And the vertebrae would look nothing like a whale's or a shark's when encountered separately.
In answering the first message quoted above I indicated why a Longneck's neck might arch out of water while it was swimming. I also pointed to Heuvelmans that anything that floats that high out of the water in order to make the looped effect is most likely inflated with air and incapable of swimming IN the water: sea creatures need about the same specific gravity as water and thus they would ride lower in the water.
After I sent the reply another thought came to me, the illusion of a "Loop" could be due to an illusion caused by a wave in the water actually being made out of water. Artist's courses tell you to show a wave crashing on the shore with a lighter-coloured window in the wave where the light from the other side comes through. If you had a "String of buoys" seen from the side but caused by a standing wave effect, you might also get the illusion of multiple windows in them if the light were right. There wouldn't actually be any holes in the water but it might look as if there were. So my explanation would be that the witness is actually looking at the water and not realising it if they report a long "train of loops"
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4b Sailfin alternate
by ~Pristichampsus
Going back to the oarfish idea there is probably more to it than any of us realized before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oarfish
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8501000/8501251.stm
Oarfish are large, greatly elongated, pelagic Lampriform fishes comprising the small family Regalecidae.[1] Found in all temperate to tropical oceans yet rarely seen, the oarfish family contains four species in two genera. One of these, the king of herrings (Regalecus glesne), is the longest bony fish alive, at up to 17 metres (56 ft) in length [One of the sources cited says "over sixty feet"].[2][3]
The Oarfish have three aspects that are important here. Firstly, the back fin of the sailfin from the neck on back is much the same as the oarfish. Secondly, the geographic range is the same as the oarfish's range and thirdly, the alleged size range is close to the alleged size range for the oarfish. In the case of Tim Morris' depiction, it struck me right off that the head of the creature even has an indication for the "Oars" of the oarfish in the "Barbels" it has, and swimming by means of wiggling the back fin is also a trait of the oarfishes. So in general I think we have a category that includes some non-standard Longneck sightings (including probably both the Valhalla and Soay SS sightings) intermixed with some mistaken reports of probably just plain oarfishes.
In other words, Longnecks plus oarfishes equals the Sailfin sightings of this Bruce Champagne Sea Serpent category: