|
Sea monsters are mythical and legendary gigantic sea-dwelling creatures
(but see also lake monster). Monsters of this type are classically depicted as either some sort of dragon, serpent, or giant squid, slimy or scaly, often spouting jets of water. The decorative drawings of heraldic dolphins and sea monsters that were frequently used throughout history to illustrate maps died away with modern cartography. Following the public success of the freshwater Loch Ness Monster, many similar sightings have been reported, of interest
to chambers of commerce, local journalists and cryptozoologists.
The most circumstantial accounts of sea-monsters have arisen in cultures where traditional lore and modern scientific
observation coexist, such as in early modern Europe and contemporary China. Sir Humphrey Gilbert of Newfoundland (1583)claimed to have encountered a lion-like monster with "glaring eyes". Another account of an
encounter with a sea monster comes from July 1734 known as "The Good Hope Sighting". Hans
Egede, a missionary sailing near the Dutch Cape Colony of Good Hope on the
David Strait reported:
- [There] appeared a very terrible sea-animal, which raised itself so high above the water, that its head reached above our
maintop. It had a long, sharp snout, and blew like a whale, had broad, large flippers, and the body was, as it were, covered with
hard skin, and it was very wrinkled and uneven on its skin; moreover on the lower part it was formed like a snake, and when it
went under water again, it cast itself backwards, and in doing so it raised it tail above the water, a whole ship length from its
body. The evening we had very bad weather.
It is debatable what these "monsters" might be: possibilities include frilled shark, basking shark, oarfish,
giant squid, seiches, and whales. Fanciful connections are made with imagined survivors among the giant marine reptiles of
the Jurassic and Cretaceous (see
under ichthyosaur and plesiosaur). The alleged plesiosaur netted by a Japanese trawler off New Zealand caused a sensation in 1977 and
was immortalized on a Japanese postage stamp, before it turned out to be the decomposing carcass of a basking shark. Likewise
DNA testing confirmed that a sea monster washed up on Fortune Bay, Newfoundland in August 2001 was a sperm whale. Another modern
example of a "sea monster" was the strange creature washed up on the Chilean sea shore in
July 2003. It was first described as a "mammoth jellyfish as long as a bus" but was later determined to be the corpse of a
sperm whale. It is likely that many other reports of sea monsters are
misinterpreted sightings of shark and whale carcasses, floating kelp, logs or other flotsam
such as abandoned rafts, canoes and fishing nets. (See the so-called 'Caspian Sea Monster.')
Legendary sea monsters
Modern sea monsters of popular culture
Fictional sea monsters
References
|