Tanagran Triton

A fabulous sea-monster with the upper body of a man and the tail of fish. It had red eyes and sea-green hair. Is this an early account of merfolk or some other unknown sea creature?

This creature, not to be confused with the sea-god Tritones, had red eyes, sea-green hair, scaly skin, and vicious sharp teeth. A specimen was allegedly pickled and put on display in the Greek town of Tanagra.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 20. 4 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :

“[At Tanagra in Boiotia:] But a greater marvel still is the Triton. The grander of the two versions of the Triton legend relates that the women of Tanagra before the orgies of Dionysos went down to the sea to be purified, were attacked by the Triton as they were swimming, and prayed that Dionysos would come to their aid. The god, it is said, heard their cry and overcame the Triton in the fight. The other version is less grand but more credible. It says the Triton would waylay and lift all the cattle that were driven to the sea. He used even to attack small vessels, until the people of Tanagra set out for him a bowl of wine. They say that, attracted by the smell, he came at once, drank the wine, flung himself on the shore and slept, and that a man of Tanagra struck him on the neck with and axe and chopped off his head. For this reason the image has no head. And because they caught him drunk, it is supposed that it was Dionysos who killed him.
I saw another Triton among the curiosities at Rome, less in size that the one at Tanagra. The Tritones have the following appearance. On their heads they grow hair like that of marsh frogs not only in colour, but also in the impossibility of separating one hair from another.

The rest of their body is rough with fine scales just as is the shark. Under their ears they have gills and a man’s nose; but the mouth is broader and the teeth are those of a beast. Their eyes seem to me blue, and they have hands, fingers and nails like the shells of the murex. Under the breast and belly is a tail like a dophin’s instead of feet.”

Aelian, On Animals 13. 21 (trans. Scholfield) (Greek natural history C2nd A.D.) :
“Concerning Tritones, while fishermen assert that they have no clear account or positive proof of their existence, yet there is a report very widely of certain monsters in the sea, of human shape from the head down to the waist. And Demostratos in his Treatise on Fishing says that at Tanagra he has seen a Triton in pickle. It was, he says, in most respects as portrayed in statues and pictures, but its head had been so marred by time and was so far from distinct that it was not easy to make it out or recognise it. ‘And when I touched it there fell from it rough scales quite hard and resistant. And a member of the Council, one of those chosen by lot to regulate the affairs of Greece and entrusted with the government fro a single year, intending to test and prove the nature of what he saw, removed a small piece of the skin and burnt it in the fire; whereupon a noisome smell from the burning object thrown into the flames assailed the nostrils of the bystanders. But’ he says, ‘we were unable to guess whether the creature was born on land or in the sea. The experiment however cost him dear, for shortly afterwards he lost his life while crossing a small, narrow strait in a short, six-oared ferry-boat. And the inhabitants of Tanagra maintained,’ so he says, ‘that this befell him because he profaned the Triton, and they declared that when he was taken lifeless from the sea he disgorged a fluid which smelt like the hide of the Triton at the time when the man cast it into the fire and burnt it.’

As to the quarter from which the Triton strayed and how he came to be cast ashore here, the inhabitants of Tanagra and Demostratos must explain. In view of these facts I blow to the god, and a witness of such authority claims our belief; and Apollon Didymois (of Didyma) [oracle of Apollon Brankhos in Miletos] must be sufficient to guarantee to every man of sound mind and strong intelligence. At any rate he says that the Triton is a creature of the sea, and his words are: ‘A child of Poseidon, portent of the waters, a clear-voiced Triton, encountered as he swam the rush of a hollow vessel.’

If then the omniscient god says that Tritones do exist, we should entertain no doubts on the subject.”
Pausanias, Guide to Greece - Greek Geography C2nd A.D.
Aelian, On Animals - Greek Natural History C2nd - C3rd A.D

Source Credit(s): theoi.com/Thaumasios/Tritones.html

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What is the Scariest Cryptid You’d Never Want to Meet? -=PART 2!=-

On Mythical Sea Creatures Being Aquatic Apes

For anyone who was interested in or watched the 90-minute documentary on Animal Planet last month called Mermaids: The Body Found, about a team of scientists with forensic evidence of “mermaids” (aquatic apes that split from our line some 7 million years ago), you may be interested in knowing the Aquatic Ape theory was actually proposed in New Scientist as early as 1960!

“Mermaids: The Body Found” is fiction based but they have presented an actual hypothesis about human evolution, in documentary style presenting a story that blends fiction, myth and phenomena with first-hand accounts and the theory that suggests ‘aquatic apes’ might account for mermaid legends.

The mermaid legend has been around since before the Romans ruled the earth, and even back then, guys were asking the same question: How did these womanly fish have sex?

It’s a question that dogged filmmaker Charlie Foley when he started work on his his speculative documentary “Mermaid: The Body Found,” which recently re-aired, from his own father, no less.

“It was the first thing my dad asked me when I told him about the special,” Foley laughed to The Huffington Post. “We had to think about this, and I assume that mermaid sex organs would evolve like those of whales, seals and porpoises. Their bodies are streamlined, but those parts ‘pop out’ when needed.”

Sorry, fish fetishists, the special doesn’t show mermaids and mermen splashing around in icthyological intercourse, but there is a scene of a CGI mermaid giving birth.

Foley isn’t saying that mermaids exist, but finds it fascinating that the comely sea creatures have been talked about for thousands of years and show up in the writings of numerous cultures — even among cultures that had no contact with each other.

But despite being hailed as a “new theory” by various news outlets for Animal Planet PR, it was actually first proposed by German pathologist Max Westenhöfer in 1942, and then independently by British marine biologist Alister Hardy in 1960. After Hardy, the most prominent proponent has been Welsh screenwriter Elaine Morgan, who has written several books on the topic.

The ‘aquatic ape’ theory - that a separate strand of primates evolved to live in the sea is often dismissed as pseudoscience.

But, early hominids certainly lived near the sea - and were sailing surprisingly early.

Stone Neanderthal tools dating back at least 100,000 years have been found on the Greek mainland and on the Greek islands of Lefkada, Kefalonia and Zakynthos, which means they must have been travelling in boats.

The documentary argues that as apes evolved into ‘pre-human’ hominids, some evolved to live in water becoming aquatic ape-like creatures.

From 1930, marine biologist Alister Hardy had hypothesized that humans may have had ancestors more aquatic than previously imagined. Because it was outside his field and he was aware of the controversy it would cause, Hardy delayed reporting his hypothesis. After he had become a respected academic, Hardy finally voiced his thoughts in a speech to the British Sub-Aqua Club in Brighton on 5 March 1960. A national newspaper reported a distorted interpretation of Hardy’s ideas, which he countered by explaining them more fully in an article in New Scientist on 17 March 1960. Hardy defined his idea:

My thesis is that a branch of this primitive ape-stock was forced by competition from life in the trees to feed on the sea-shores and to hunt for food, shell fish, sea-urchins etc., in the shallow waters off the coast. I suppose that they were forced into the water just as we have seen happen in so many other groups of terrestrial animals. I am imagining this happening in the warmer parts of the world, in the tropical seas where Man could stand being in the water for relatively long periods, that is, several hours at a stretch.

The idea received some interest after the article was published, but was generally ignored by the scientific community thereafter. In 1967, the hypothesis was briefly mentioned in The Naked Ape, a book by Desmond Morris in which can be found the first use of the term “aquatic ape”. Writer Elaine Morgan read about the idea in Morris’ book and was struck by its potential explanatory power, becoming its main promoter and publishing six books over the next 40 years.

Human beings are the only naked bipeds. We carry a layer of subcutaneous fat substantially thicker than in any other primate. We exude, through our eyes and sweat glands, greater quantities of salt water than any other mammal. We are the only species of mammal to mate face to face, other than aquatic mammals. We are the only primate capable of overriding our unconscious breathing rhythms, alongside the elaborate use of lips and tongue, to produce speech ability which separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We are also the only primate with a descended larynx, thought to increase the variety of sounds we can produce.

Hardy argued that these features indicate a level of adaption to an aquatic environment. Thus, humans become bipedal to wade in water, and lost their hair to streamline their bodies for swimming. The fat layer kept them warm and buoyant, their secretions prevented build-up of excess salt from sea water and their larynx was protected against submersion. Language evolved because glare from the water meant signalling was no longer an efficient means of communication.

The AAH “Aquatic Ape Hypothesis” or AAT (Aquatic Ape Theory) is a fascinating, thought-provoking, and attractive idea, but one that is far from proven, though it does remain a real hypothesis about human evolution with many supporters.

Sources: huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/mermaid-the-body-found-animal-planet_n_1544087.html, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis, dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2148761/Were-mermaids-real-New-theory-suggests-aquatic-apes-account-legends.html, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis Fourth illustration by Christian Bocquée

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