Sea Giraffes Appendix

We had discussed the matter on the blog before at

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/06/update-on-sea-giraffes.html

But Jay Cooney and I had been discussing the matter again more extensively and these are some of my illustrations I had sent to him then. They had been waiting here unpublished until now.

Giraffe like "Caddy" (Off the West Coast of NA) compared to Corinthian SS (Off East Coast of NA)

Both of these sightings compared against Oudemans' composite model

Newspaper drawing of Corinthian SS (Inaccurate) compared to Oudemans SS composite reconstruction
Below, my statistical averages drawn from thousands of Longneck reports worldwide as matched against Hutchinson's SS, Bay of Meil in the Orkneys, 1910

Plesiosaur neck inserted for purposes of comparison
(Plesiosaur skeleton shown at bottom)

Hutchinson's SS off Orkneys (Scotland) is as high as the whole giraffe, not just the neck. That makes the neck approximately twice as long as the giraffe's neck and probably more. Below, Hutchinson's diagram of how he figured the height of the sea serpent "Periscope" by judging it against the mast of their boat and triangulating. Mr Hutchinson had submitted his report directly to Tim Dinsdale in 1960.

Below, Corinthian, Meil Bay, and my composite "Merhorses" (Mine in the brown colouration phase, both redbrown and greenish or olive brown both being regularly noted in such sightings with the reddish brown seen much more commonly. The giraffe-like mottled effect is one infrequent variation on the brownish one) Please note that in opposition to Heuvelmans' "Merhorse" description, the mane is stiff and stands up like a "fin"and the eyes are not large. The "Horns" appear to me to be the same material as the "Fins"

 

 

Neck Flexibilty possible in the long-necked Plesiosaur Muraenosaurus,

 from an illustration supplied by Scott Mardis

 

In the case of these sightings showing the whole length of the neck above the surface, the body can be assumed to be almost vertical below the surface.

 

 

Special Mention Champ Sighting from Scott Mardis

 

Scott Mardis sent me a pdf with information about the exceptional sighting by Kelly J. Williams at Lake Champlain in 1981, a sighting which included a photograph. 

I take it the photograph shows the long shadow of a creature just below the surface and not breaking the surface. it would not be indicating positive evidence of what the body's shape specifically was, just indicating that a body was there. The really interesting part of this was the body shape drawn by the witness:

In comparing this sketch with my composite drawn from Loch Ness Monsters, then combining those statistics with the version compiled on Longneck sightings worldwide (which are also similar), I noticed a couple of notable features. The first is the rather obvious observation that the witness was even indicating a Plesiosaur-shaped creature specifically (and not a seal or anything else) and the second is that going by the size and shape of the head, the witness would seem to indicate the neck had a thinner more flexible part and a thicker base part that cannot bend as much. This pattern is what was predicted for Plesiosaurs and is substantiated bu other reports. It is NOT predicted by any of the pinnepeds-parallel-evolved-separately-into-the-shape-of-a-Plesiosaur theorists. This offers not only an internal substantiation of the Plesiosaurian-identity theory, it offers internal substantiation that the Loch Ness Monster and Champ both have the same sort of a neck which works the same way.

Plesiosaurian SS models Check

Since Scott Mardis was doing his comparisons with Plesiosaurs on Loch Ness Monsters and Lake Champlain Champs, I decided to do a few of the same with the Plesiosaurian Sea serpent Sighting sketch by L.S. Larkin from Ivan Sanderson's files  to some of the standard sea-serpent sightings composites.

Oudemans' model from The Great Sea Serpent, 1892

The comparison to Oudemans' Sea Serpent from above and then a comparison to Sanderson's model in profile. Unfortunately, Sanderson does not provide a view from above for his composite. Except for the great length of tail allowed by Oudemans, the relative lengths of the head and neck, body and tail are all in the same general comparative proportions. The real differences are in the size and placement of the flippers and in the width of the body. Larkin seems to have exaggerated the relative widths of the neck and back to something approaching caricature. Below is the comparison to my composite model (Final composite, all Longneck sightings worldwide, final average statistics)

 

My composite has been run on this blog before, This time I chose to darken it in, but it seems to have made a problem with the photoshop. Nonetheless the results are similar: longitudinal measures are similar but Larkin has exaggerated his relative widths, and there is an ambiguity about the size and the placement of the limbs. Larkin says he had trouble making the limbs out because of the movement in the water. And because we have made note of another couple of particularly Plesiosaur-shaped Sea Serpents on this blog before, I reproduces them below for further comparison.

The Alvin (Submarine) one below differs somewhat in having a larger head and longer tail than usual, but these might only be false impressions due to poor viewing conditions. I do have one report of what sounds like a legitimate Plesiosaur-Sea-serpent corpse washed ashore and which was reported to me personally, and the witness said it looked like The Alvin Plesiosaur (Charles Berlitz got duplicate documents as stated on my copies)