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![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.DSource Credit(s): theoi.com/Thaumasios/Tritones.html
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What is the Scariest Cryptid You’d Never Want to Meet? -=PART 2!=-](http://25.media.tumblr.com/d41d0daae81465c4afd1fa45be7c5318/tumblr_mmgf1gDLW81r6ti0go1_500.jpg)
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!=-
Brosnya: Russia’s Lake Dwelling Dragon
Far away, in a remote region of Russia…
The weekly Karavan+Ya published in the Russian city of Tver, became widely popular 15 years ago when it was first to report about a monster from Lake Brosno in the Andreapol District of the Tver Region. After the first publication in the weekly, the news about a dinosaur from Brosno spread all over the world. Journalists from Moscow and from abroad were seeking sensational publications about the monster from the Russian province. Hundreds of publications and TV programs about the Brosno monster made the creature a world sensation. The Tver weekly Karavan from time to time organizes small expeditions to Lake Brosno to visit the mysterious creature that became so much popular thanks to the newspaper.
Numerous witnesses say that they saw a head of a big beast above water that looked like a dinosaur or a dragon head and a long thin tail. The people said that the creature was covered with scales like a reptile and was about five meters long.
Researchers, who believe that a mysterious big creature does live in Lake Brosno and who work on the mystery of the creature, say that Brosnya (this is the name given to the monster) cannot be a reptile. Otherwise, it would be frozen and died in the climate of the middle geographic zone when dormant. If the strange creature has come to life, it means it is a mammal and breeds through syngenesis. However, some problems arise in this connection. First of all, the lake is too small for an entire population of large predators to live and breed there. Second, a group of these big mysterious creatures needs much food, which is also a problem in the small lake. There is a hypothesis saying that some water systems join lakes, seas and oceans. If so, Scotland’s Nessy may be a relative to Brosnya living in Russia’s province.
It is rumored that the strange giant creature has been living the Lake Brosno for several centuries already. One of the legends says that the lake monster scared to death the Tatar-Mongol army that headed for Novgorod in the 8th century. Baty-khan stopped the troops to have some rest on the sides of Lake Brosno. Horses were let to drink water from the lake. However, when horses came down to the lake, a huge creature emerged from the water roaring and started devouring horses and soldiers. The Baty-khan troops were so terrified that they turned back, and Novgorod was saved. Old legends say that some enormous mouth devoured fishermen. Chronicles mention some “sand mountain” that emerged above the lake surface from time to time. Once, Varangians wanted to hide stolen treasures in the lake. But when they approached the small island, a dragon came to the surface from the lake and swallowed the small island up.
The terrible monster disturbed people’s minds over the 18-19th century. It was rumored that the giant creature emerged on the lake surface in the evenings, but immediately submerged when people approached. It is said that during WWII the beast swallowed up a Fascist plane. Today, there are lots of witnesses who say they chanced to see Brosnya walking in the water. People say that it turns boats upside-down and has to do with disappearance of people.
Everything said by locals and tourists who witnessed Brosnya proves that the creature (either a dragon or a dinosaur) does exist. However, some people treat the issue skeptically and still say that the creature may be a mutant beaver or a giant pike of 100-150 years. Others conjecture that groups of wild boars and elks cross the lake from time to time. Do boars and elks dive and stay under water for a long time? However, local people witnessed neither boars, nor elks, and the Karavan newspaper and other expeditions spoke about some other creature.
There are some more scientific hypotheses concerning Brosnya. One of them is a gas version saying that when hydrogen sulphide goes up from the lake bottom it makes water boil up; this boiling in its turn resembles a dragon head. But the amount of hydrogen sulphide must be considerable to produce this effect. Other version says that there is a volcano in Lake Brosno that makes ejections on the water surface from time to time. It is well-known that there are several fractures at the bottom of the lake, the depth and the direction of the fractures cannot be defined. It is not ruled out that the volcano crater is inside of one of the fractures. This explains why the volcano, if it actually exists, has not been discovered yet.
Gennady Klimov says: “The lake actually keeps some secret. When the depth of Lake Brosno was measured, it turned out that in some parts it was 120-160 meters deep. It means that Lake Brosno is the deepest in Europe. What is more, the lake belongs to the preglacial epoch that is why mysterious phenomena are quite possible in it. As for me, my concerns about the whole of the story are quite particular. I am interested in the mechanism according to which global myths arise. I say that the administration of the Andreapol District where the lake is situated could have been more adroit to form economy of the district depending upon the Brosnya myth. Today, I do not personally care if the creature exists or not. But this is a really precious myth from the point of view of the future. Much is spoken about monster called Brosnya in different parts of Russia and in other countries, but nothing is said here in the Tver Region where the creature “lives”. It is believed that Loch Ness creature does exist. The whole of the county where is lives is connected with the creature myth. The nature here in the Tver Region is wonderful and pure. There is a unique technology of making and using myths. These technologies will be extremely important in the future.”
Marina Gavrishenko, the journalist who took part in the expedition says: “At first sight, the whole of the monster story looks like a fairytale. After the expedition to Lake Brosno, I do believe that the place is actually mysterious. Stories told by witnesses prove this opinion. We met with local people who were perfectly sane and adequate. What is more, all legends about the mysterious monster trace the roots back to the old times. I am sure that legends and rumors cannot arise from nothing.”
Nikolay Ishchuk, the head of the Tver Regional Legislative Assembly press-service says: “I do not believe in wonders. What we chanced to see at Lake Brosno is actually mysterious and incomprehensible. If the phenomenon can be explained with the laws of the planet’s life, I believe this is a miracle indeed. I recollect our expedition to Lake Brosno and our attempts to take pictures of the creature as a wonderful journey. This is wonderful that people may have such interesting adventures. May it be so that the expedition actually came across some miracle? Inexplicable things must exist in this world. When people do not understand some things they want to know more and reveal more new facts.” - Sofya Vorotyntseva - Pravda.ru
Brosnya is described as being 5 meters long (16 feet), and iridescent. Some have reported that it glows.
The bio-luminescent, aquatic reptile has inspired terror in the fishing villages surrounding Russia’s little known Lake Brosno for generations. Reports of this luminous beast, which allegedly lurks near the bottom of their lake, date back to at least 1854.
That having been said, the legends of this aquatic horror have been told and retold for centuries. One of the most famous tales associated with the dragon concerns its encounter with the Tatar-Mongol army that headed for Novgorod in the 13th century. Their leader, Batu Khan, allegedly stopped his troops on the shore of Lake Brosno to rest and allow the horses to drink but, when the horses ventured to close to the lake, a colossal roaring beast emerged from the dark water and devoured animals and soldiers alike. The troops were so terrified that they turned back and Novgorod was saved.
Other ancient legends describe an “enormous mouth” that ate fishermen and a “sand mountain” that appeared on the surface of the lake. More recently, locals claim that during World War II, the dragon – apparently an Allied sympathizer – managed to swallow a Nazi airplane.
This bizarre form of bio-luminescence is rare among cryptids, and has been reported in only two other animals, the winged predators known as the DUAH and the ROPEN, both of which are reputedly “flying” creatures that hail from across the globe.
Babushka Tanya (Grandmother Tanya) and her husband, whose house is metres away from the shore, claim to have seen the monster on more than one occasion. Tanya took a Reuters Television camera crew to the lakeshore site from where she claims to have seen the monster. “I only saw a head of this creature, so I was not scared at all,” she said while trying to draw the beast. “It is now on the bottom of the lake, deep, and it is hiding from the winter cold”, she explained. Local press reports describe a creature about five metres (16 feet) long living in Lake Brosno, 80 km (50 miles) northwest of the Russian capital, and have published photographs, though they are too indistinct to be convincing according to some experts. Natalya Istratova, Professor of Biology at Moscow State Zoo, says it is “absolutely impossible” to say what kind of animal the monster might be without examining it. However one Lake Brosno resident, Baba Nadya (Grandmother Nadya), is terrified of the beast fearing it will crawl out of the lake and into her house “any day.” A local press report describes a creature about five metres long. It quoted a local palaeontologist, Nikolai Dikov, as saying the creature’s alleged shape suggests an extinct order of reptiles with teeth like mammals. Recent palaeontological excavations at Russia’s old lakes of the tectonic origin, like Lake Brosno, are reported to have provided evidence to a theory linking the Brosno monster to pre-historic dinosaurs. Near the Siberian lake of Shestakovo, palaeontologists are said have found the bones of a pre-historic creature, quite similar to the descriptions of Brosno’s babushkas. - www.nfo.ac.uk
Fishermen say that the underwater world of Lake Brosno has a structure of several levels. From time to time burbots and perchs can be found in the lake. This is strange at all that some sorts of fish can be found in the area at all. For example, herring can be found in a lake in Peno District in the Tver Region. This is strange that the sea fish may live in the lake at all. Smelt shoals from time to time can be found in Lake Brosno as well. The phenomenon of Brosnya can be explained from the physical point of view: huge smelt shoals are reflected on the water surface through refraction of light and produces the effect of a huge reptile head. Physicists say that any mirage appears in hot weather. Indeed, witnesses say that they came across Brosnya in summer. However, origin of the strange monster is still a mystery.
Source Credit(s): Posted by Lon Strickler at Phantoms and Monsters naturalplane.blogspot.com/2011/06/brosnya-russias-lake-dwelling-dragon.html
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Cryptids spotlighted in a text viewed as the foundation of modern zoology
Carl Linnaeus’ parents wanted their son to enter the priesthood, a noble profession in the 18th Century. Linnaeus, like many children, rebuffed his parent’s desires and followed his own interests. In doing so, he created the foundation of modern zoology.
Carl Linnaeus wrote the Systema Naturae, an early attempt to classify life on Earth. Though he was trying to be as scientific as possible, Linnaeus nevertheless included several cryptids, or mythical animals, in his taxonomies of “suspect” animals. This list would later prove doubly interesting as several of the suspect animals are now known to exist.
Carl Linnaeus and Systema Naturae
Linnaeus’ family initially sent him to school to pursue the priesthood, but his studies ventured further and further into botany and medicine. He quickly became a popular lecturer, botanist, and physician.
In time, Linnaeus turned to the systematic classification of the living creatures, forming the foundation of modern zoology by writing and editing the Systema Naturae. Linnaeus also converted the Celsius scale to its modern form along the way.
Swedish by birth, Linnaeus wrote the Systema Naturae in Latin, akin to how modern scientific papers are overwhelmingly written in English regardless of the source country of the authors.
Initially published as a twelve page leaflet in 1735, Carl Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae is a gargantuan attempt to systematically break down and separate the organisms within the animal and plant kingdoms. Linnaeus turned a critical eye to his previous work and boldly made changes, with a superb example coming in the reclassification of whales as mammals and not fish in later editions.
Linnaeus’ greatest achievement, the Systema Naturae separated animals, plants, and minerals into three separate kingdoms. Linnaeus constantly added to the the text, including further classification dividing creatures into class, order, genus and species to make for a five point classification system.
The Animalia Paradoxa
Linnaeus included a variety of animals in the Systema Naturae with questionable data supporting their existence. He deemed these creatures Animalia Paradoxa; populating the list from the reports of explorers, stories passed down through the centuries, and literature.
Among these suspect animals is the hydra, a multi-headed, snake-like creature. The mayor of Hamburg, Germany believed he owned the taxidermied head of a hydra. Upon examination, Linnaeus found the creature to be a fake, featuring the heads of several animals glued and sewn together. The mayor of Hamburg hoped to sell the preserved hydra for a large sum of money, leading Linnaeus to flee the city in fear.
Included in this list of unusual and suspect animals are tiny frogs that revert back to tadpoles and a plant that grows sheep as fruit. Mythological creatures like the phoenix, sirens, dragons, and the Sphinx-like manticore also make Linnaeus’ cut. Several creatures included in the list of Animalia Paradoxa are now known to be real, including the pelican, antelope, the barnacle goose, the death watch beetle, and the narwhal.
The list of Animalia Paradoxa only survived the first five editions of Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae, one of the many edits Linnaeus made to improve the text. The 10th edition is particularly beloved and viewed as the beginning of modern zoological nomenclature. The twelfth edition of System Naturae would be Linnaeus’ last. By the time of its printing, the twelve page leaflet became a two thousand plus page text.
Source Credit(s): io9.com/5931316/cryptids-spotlighted-in-a-text-viewed-as-the-foundation-of-modern-zoology
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![The Creature Of Tagua Tagua Lagoon
The legend of this creature is little known, even for residents of San Vicente in the country’s 6th region, but this discovery returns a piece of their history to them. The horrible creature in the etching that accompanies this article is the little-known Monster of Tagua Tagua lagoon, a legendary creature that not even the residents of San Vicente, in Chile’s 6th region, have ever heard of.
The indescribably horrifying creature was relegated to oblivion for over 2 centuries until two Spanish researchers discovered the drawing among thousands of documents in the Madrid National Library. Thus, the anonymous etching made in Chile in 1784 became the poster for the exposition “Monsters and Other Imaginary Beings” that took place in the Spanish capital to great popular acclaim.The winged, two-tailed figure with scales and a human face had a well-deserved presence among nearly 200 images, just as unreal, belonging to such artists as Goya, Durero, Ribera, Brueghel, Holbein, Picart and Kircher. Plates extracted from classics of literature and scientific texts—largely from the 15th and 18th centuries, were also on exhibit. Under the drawing of the monster, a true bibliographic jewel, it can be read that it appeared in early 1784 at the farm of Don Próspero Elso and that “it did great damage, eating all manner of animals and drinking from the lagoon, until 100 men stealthily ambushed it with firearms and caught it alive.” The description is very detailed: “It measures three and a half rods long and its tail is bigger than its body. It legs are nearly a quarter [rod] but its claws are much larger. Its mane reaches the ground so that it entangles around its feet. The upper tail…helps it to catch its prey. The teeth are some 30 cm long and the mouth is as wide as its face. Its horns are a rod and a half long and very well-turned, and finally, it ears are are three quarters of a rod long. Even more curious: an address — Calle de Carretas No.8 — is given for those interested in seeing it. The spectacular Madrid exposition, unprecedented in Europe, featured cyclops, dwarves, giants, two headed or six-fingered creatures, hermaphrodites, lion-men, bearded or multi-breasted women. However, the organizers of this exhibit — Javier Moscoso, a professor with the University of Murcia, and Antonio Lafuente, fellow of the Superior Center for Scientific Research — believe that “the presence of horns is one of the definite signs of monstrosity. Our selection has been based, on the one hand, by the richness of the image and by the historical importance, on the other. To some residents of San Vicente de Tagua Tagua, the legend that gave rise to the monster was possibly a reflection of the fears, nightmares and anguish felt at the time. After all, this wasn’t the first time that the existence of fantastic creatures in the area was suspected, and sometimes quite rightly. That was where the Inca Empire came to an end, and in recent decades the remains of 14 mammoths from 11,000 years ago were discovered, making the place one of the richest sites in America for modern archaeology. However, no one imagined that the most recent discovery would be an item forgotten thousands of kilometers away, in Madrid’s National Library. San Vicente residents recall that the Tagua Tagua Lagoon — drained in the 1930s — was notorious for its “chivines”: floating islands formed by a dense and firm network of roots, so resilient that they could bear the weight of a horse. Deceived by the large size of some of these “chivines”, cattle would climb onto them to graze, realizing only too late that the floating island had been taken away by the current without any hope of escape. That’s how the legend emerged among natives and Spaniards about a monster that dragged cattle into the lake. Armed groups of hunters were even organized to capture it. Originally featured in La Tercera (Santiago de Chile) 1-13-2 p.18 Translation (c) 2005, Scott Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Liliana Núñez.mitológicos del territorio nacional. Source Credit(s): Copyright © Scott Corrales INEXPLICATA - The Journal of Hispanic UfologyArchivos Forteanos de Latinoamérica6-9-5 http://rense.com/general66/tagua.htm Copyright Jeff Rense © rense.com
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Discover more cryptids and mysterious creatures at Cryptid Chronicles and please vote in our Cryptid Tournament!If you enjoyed this post please comment, Like ❤ and share! Also follow on twitter @cryptidfans and now on http://www.facebook.com/CryptidChroniclesThank you!Your Chronicler,Sydney C. Squidneycryptidchronicles.tumblr.com](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mem7uwjJHs1r6ti0go1_400.jpg)
The Creature Of
Tagua Tagua Lagoon
The legend of this creature is little known, even for residents of San Vicente in the country’s 6th region, but this discovery returns a piece of their history to them. The horrible creature in the etching that accompanies this article is the little-known Monster of Tagua Tagua lagoon, a legendary creature that not even the residents of San Vicente, in Chile’s 6th region, have ever heard of.
The indescribably horrifying creature was relegated to oblivion for over 2 centuries until two Spanish researchers discovered the drawing among thousands of documents in the Madrid National Library. Thus, the anonymous etching made in Chile in 1784 became the poster for the exposition “Monsters and Other Imaginary Beings” that took place in the Spanish capital to great popular acclaim.
The winged, two-tailed figure with scales and a human face had a well-deserved presence among nearly 200 images, just as unreal, belonging to such artists as Goya, Durero, Ribera, Brueghel, Holbein, Picart and Kircher. Plates extracted from classics of literature and scientific texts—largely from the 15th and 18th centuries, were also on exhibit.
Under the drawing of the monster, a true bibliographic jewel, it can be read that it appeared in early 1784 at the farm of Don Próspero Elso and that “it did great damage, eating all manner of animals and drinking from the lagoon, until 100 men stealthily ambushed it with firearms and caught it alive.”
The description is very detailed: “It measures three and a half rods long and its tail is bigger than its body. It legs are nearly a quarter [rod] but its claws are much larger. Its mane reaches the ground so that it entangles around its feet. The upper tail…helps it to catch its prey. The teeth are some 30 cm long and the mouth is as wide as its face. Its horns are a rod and a half long and very well-turned, and finally, it ears are are three quarters of a rod long.
Even more curious: an address — Calle de Carretas No.8 — is given for those interested in seeing it.
The spectacular Madrid exposition, unprecedented in Europe, featured cyclops, dwarves, giants, two headed or six-fingered creatures, hermaphrodites, lion-men, bearded or multi-breasted women. However, the organizers of this exhibit — Javier Moscoso, a professor with the University of Murcia, and Antonio Lafuente, fellow of the Superior Center for Scientific Research — believe that “the presence of horns is one of the definite signs of monstrosity. Our selection has been based, on the one hand, by the richness of the image and by the historical importance, on the other.
To some residents of San Vicente de Tagua Tagua, the legend that gave rise to the monster was possibly a reflection of the fears, nightmares and anguish felt at the time. After all, this wasn’t the first time that the existence of fantastic creatures in the area was suspected, and sometimes quite rightly. That was where the Inca Empire came to an end, and in recent decades the remains of 14 mammoths from 11,000 years ago were discovered, making the place one of the richest sites in America for modern archaeology. However, no one imagined that the most recent discovery would be an item forgotten thousands of kilometers away, in Madrid’s National Library.
San Vicente residents recall that the Tagua Tagua Lagoon — drained in the 1930s — was notorious for its “chivines”: floating islands formed by a dense and firm network of roots, so resilient that they could bear the weight of a horse. Deceived by the large size of some of these “chivines”, cattle would climb onto them to graze, realizing only too late that the floating island had been taken away by the current without any hope of escape. That’s how the legend emerged among natives and Spaniards about a monster that dragged cattle into the lake. Armed groups of hunters were even organized to capture it.
Originally featured in La Tercera (Santiago de Chile) 1-13-2 p.18
Translation (c) 2005, Scott Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Liliana Núñez.
mitológicos del territorio nacional.
Source Credit(s): Copyright © Scott Corrales INEXPLICATA - The Journal of Hispanic UfologyArchivos Forteanos de Latinoamérica6-9-5 http://rense.com/general66/tagua.htm Copyright Jeff Rense © rense.com
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![The Roc - Old World Thunderbird
Seven hundred years ago, Arab traders told of a bird so huge it could lift elephants into the sky.
The Roc, also known as Rukh, is the Old World version of the thunderbird. Rocs derive from ancient Arabic and Persian legends. These spectacular avian giants were said to be eagle-like and subsist primarily on elephants, which they would kill by flying to a great height then dropping the unfortunate creature to crash to its death on the rocks below and then carried it away to their nests.Sailors said it lived on an island off the southern coast of Africa and it is mentioned in both Marco Polo’s Book of Travels and in the Arabian collection of folktales called One Thousand and One Arabian Nights as the mythological bird of Arabia.Marco Polo describes rocs living in Madagascar, and envoys from Madagascar allegedly presented the great Kubla Khan of Cathay with a Roc feather that was 90 spans long (about 67 feet.)
In Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, the genie refers to a roc’s egg as his master:
“[The princess told Aladdin that] her pleasure in the [palace built by the genie] was spoiled for the want of a roc’s egg hanging from the dome. ‘If that is all,’ replied Aladdin, ‘you shall soon be happy.’ He left her and rubbed the lamp, and when the genie appeared commanded him to bring a roc’s egg. The genie gave such a loud and terrible shriek that the hall shook. ‘Wretch!’ he cried, ‘is it not enough that I have done everything for you, but you must command me to bring my master and hang him up in the midst of this dome? You and your wife and your palace deserve to be burnt to ashes …’”In The Second Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, Sinbad uses a roc to escape a desert island, and later describes a roc carrying off both a rhinoceros and an elephant:
“I had before me one of the legs of the bird, which was as big as the trunk of a tree. I tied myself strongly to it with the cloth that went round my turban, in hopes that when the roc flew away next morning she would carry me with her out of this desert island.”
“The rhinoceros fights with the elephant, runs his horn into him, and carries him off upon his head; but the blood of the elephant running into his eyes and making him blind, he falls to the ground, and then, strange to relate, the roc comes and carries them both away in her claws to be food for her young ones.”
Sinbad hitching a ride on the legendary RocIn The Fifth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, a roc couple avenge the death of their child by destroying Sinbad’s ship:
“… we found an egg of a roc … The merchants whom I had taken on board my ship … broke the egg with hatchets, and … pulled out the young roc piece by piece, and roasted it. … Scarcely had they made an end of their feast, when there appeared in the air, at a considerable distance from us, two great clouds. … it was the cock and hen roc that belonged to the young one … [They] approached with a frightful noise, … [and] carried between their talons stones, or rather rocks, of a monstrous size. When they came directly over my ship, they hovered, and one of them let fall a stone … so exactly upon the middle of the ship that it split into a thousand pieces.”
Relation of the roc to the constellation Cygnus:
“The origin of the representation as bird of these stars is Greek. It is thought that the original figure of the mesopotámica tradition had taken the name of Urakhga, prototype of the Rukh Arab, more known in the West like the great “Roc”, a fiction personage inspired by the merchants of Bagdad, the story of Sinbad the Sailor, content in Thousands and the One Nights.”
In fact a giant ostrich-like bird called the Aepyornis maximus or elephant bird once lived on the island of Madagascar, off the coast of Africa. This gigantic bird may not have become extinct until the sixteenth century, and it is said to have been the largest bird that ever lived - believed to have been 3 metres (10 ft) tall and weighing close to half a ton – 400 kilograms (880 lb). But while huge like the roc, this bird was not able to fly, however, its large eggs probably helped fuel the legend of the mythical Roc.Aepyornis maximus H.G.Wells wrote a short story called Aepyornis Island in which a marooned sailor hatches an Aepyornis egg and lives with the bird, far larger than any recorded in history, for several years.Remains of Aepyornis adults and eggs have been found; in some cases the eggs have a circumference of over 1 meter (3.3 ft) and a length up to 34 centimetres (13 in). The egg volume is about 160 times greater than a chicken egg.It is widely believed that the extinction of Aepyornis was an effect of human activity. The birds were initially widespread, occurring from the northern to the southern tip of Madagascar. One theory states that humans hunted the elephant birds to extinction in a very short time for such a large landmass. There is indeed evidence that they were killed. However, their eggs may have been the most vulnerable point in their life cycle. A recent archaeological study found fragments of eggshells among the remains of human fires, suggesting that the eggs regularly provided meals for entire families.Aepyornis is not the only giant bird to give rise to legends. The Maori people have long told of a giant eagle that once lived in New Zealand. Evidence such as bones and talons have proved the giant bird, now called Haast’s eagle, was more than a myth. And unlike Aepyornis, it could fly. It had a wingspan of nearly three meters (10 feet) and preyed on moas, large flightless birds related to ostriches. Haast’s eagle (Harpagornis moorei) lived until about AD 1500-recent enough to possibly have been encountered by Maori ancestors. Giant Haast’s eagle attacking New Zealand moaThe Aepyornis elephant bird was not a moa, but the other flightless giant island-living birds had members in its family which were taller than the elephant bird at 7 ft (2 metres) to the middle of the back and 13 ft (4 metres) to the head (twice the height of a tall man). New Zealand was even more isolated than Madagascar and had no land mammals except bats. The first Polynesians arrived in New Zealand around the 10th century, becoming the Maori. The dominant life-forms were the giant land birds that lived in the fringes of the semi-tropical forests and on the grasslands and which the Maoris called ‘Moas’. Encountering the huge birds, the Maoris made legends of the giant moa, calling it the Poua-Kai and describing it as a huge bird of terrific size and strength which, in a great battle, destroyed half the warriors of a powerful tribe with its terrible rending talons and thrusting beak Moas were huge ratite ‘running birds’ like the Elephant Bird, but they inhabited the grasslands and forest-fringe in extraordinary numbers and variety. Scientists later gave them the family name Dinornithidae, ‘terrible birds’. The aggressive Polynesian invaders became a Moa-hunting culture and for the moa, which had had no predators in 100 million years, the effect was devastating.By the time Europeans discovered the islands in 1770, the giant moas had been hunted to extinction; their official extinction date is given as 1773. Europeans did not learn of the moa’s existence until bones were discovered in the 1830s. With only one natural predator large enough to tackle them, the Haast’s Eagle, they were the dominant terrestrial species on the islands.
INTERTWINED TALES
Is it possible the legendary Roc was based on a combination of the very real Elephant Bird and Giant Haast’s Eagles that actually existed? Many Cryptozoologists do believe the mythical bird could have been based upon actual sightings of these giant birds. That Roc feather mentioned earlier was later suggested by Marco Polo’s translator, Sir Henry Yule, to be a frond of a Raphia palm that the Great Khan was conned by. Raphia palms grow up to 16 m tall and are remarkable for their compound pinnate leaves, the longest in the plant kingdom; leaves of R. regalis up to 25.11 m long and 3 m wide are known. If you were alive back in this age of wonder, you too may have experienced bewildered awe of anyone who first saw them.Source Credit(s): www-v1.amnh.org/exhibitions/mythiccreatures/air/strike.php, monsters.monstrous.com/roc.htm, ennex.com/~Roc/name/index.asp, messybeast.com/extinct/moa.htm, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aepyornis, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raffia_palmRoc top illustration (with permission) © Gonzalo Ordóñez Arias genzoman.deviantart.com
Cryptid Chronicles readers, what do YOU think??
Please post your comments!
Discover more cryptids and mysterious creatures at Cryptid Chronicles and please vote in our Cryptid Tournament!If you enjoyed this post please comment, Like ❤ and share! Also follow on twitter @cryptidfans and now on http://www.facebook.com/CryptidChroniclesThank you!Your Chronicler,Sydney C. Squidneycryptidchronicles.tumblr.com](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_meght885pE1r6ti0go1_500.jpg)
The Roc - Old World Thunderbird
Seven hundred years ago, Arab traders told of a bird so huge it could lift elephants into the sky.
The Roc, also known as Rukh, is the Old World version of the thunderbird. Rocs derive from ancient Arabic and Persian legends. These spectacular avian giants were said to be eagle-like and subsist primarily on elephants, which they would kill by flying to a great height then dropping the unfortunate creature to crash to its death on the rocks below and then carried it away to their nests.
Sailors said it lived on an island off the southern coast of Africa and it is mentioned in both Marco Polo’s Book of Travels and in the Arabian collection of folktales called One Thousand and One Arabian Nights as the mythological bird of Arabia.
Marco Polo describes rocs living in Madagascar, and envoys from Madagascar allegedly presented the great Kubla Khan of Cathay with a Roc feather that was 90 spans long (about 67 feet.)
In Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, the genie refers to a roc’s egg as his master:
“[The princess told Aladdin that] her pleasure in the [palace built by the genie] was spoiled for the want of a roc’s egg hanging from the dome. ‘If that is all,’ replied Aladdin, ‘you shall soon be happy.’ He left her and rubbed the lamp, and when the genie appeared commanded him to bring a roc’s egg. The genie gave such a loud and terrible shriek that the hall shook. ‘Wretch!’ he cried, ‘is it not enough that I have done everything for you, but you must command me to bring my master and hang him up in the midst of this dome? You and your wife and your palace deserve to be burnt to ashes …’”
In The Second Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, Sinbad uses a roc to escape a desert island, and later describes a roc carrying off both a rhinoceros and an elephant:
“I had before me one of the legs of the bird, which was as big as the trunk of a tree. I tied myself strongly to it with the cloth that went round my turban, in hopes that when the roc flew away next morning she would carry me with her out of this desert island.”“The rhinoceros fights with the elephant, runs his horn into him, and carries him off upon his head; but the blood of the elephant running into his eyes and making him blind, he falls to the ground, and then, strange to relate, the roc comes and carries them both away in her claws to be food for her young ones.”
Sinbad hitching a ride on the legendary Roc
In The Fifth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, a roc couple avenge the death of their child by destroying Sinbad’s ship:
“… we found an egg of a roc … The merchants whom I had taken on board my ship … broke the egg with hatchets, and … pulled out the young roc piece by piece, and roasted it. … Scarcely had they made an end of their feast, when there appeared in the air, at a considerable distance from us, two great clouds. … it was the cock and hen roc that belonged to the young one … [They] approached with a frightful noise, … [and] carried between their talons stones, or rather rocks, of a monstrous size. When they came directly over my ship, they hovered, and one of them let fall a stone … so exactly upon the middle of the ship that it split into a thousand pieces.”
Relation of the roc to the constellation Cygnus:
“The origin of the representation as bird of these stars is Greek. It is thought that the original figure of the mesopotámica tradition had taken the name of Urakhga, prototype of the Rukh Arab, more known in the West like the great “Roc”, a fiction personage inspired by the merchants of Bagdad, the story of Sinbad the Sailor, content in Thousands and the One Nights.”
In fact a giant ostrich-like bird called the Aepyornis maximus or elephant bird once lived on the island of Madagascar, off the coast of Africa. This gigantic bird may not have become extinct until the sixteenth century, and it is said to have been the largest bird that ever lived - believed to have been 3 metres (10 ft) tall and weighing close to half a ton – 400 kilograms (880 lb). But while huge like the roc, this bird was not able to fly, however, its large eggs probably helped fuel the legend of the mythical Roc.
Aepyornis maximus
H.G.Wells wrote a short story called Aepyornis Island in which a marooned sailor hatches an Aepyornis egg and lives with the bird, far larger than any recorded in history, for several years.
Remains of Aepyornis adults and eggs have been found; in some cases the eggs have a circumference of over 1 meter (3.3 ft) and a length up to 34 centimetres (13 in). The egg volume is about 160 times greater than a chicken egg.
It is widely believed that the extinction of Aepyornis was an effect of human activity. The birds were initially widespread, occurring from the northern to the southern tip of Madagascar. One theory states that humans hunted the elephant birds to extinction in a very short time for such a large landmass. There is indeed evidence that they were killed. However, their eggs may have been the most vulnerable point in their life cycle. A recent archaeological study found fragments of eggshells among the remains of human fires, suggesting that the eggs regularly provided meals for entire families.
Aepyornis is not the only giant bird to give rise to legends. The Maori people have long told of a giant eagle that once lived in New Zealand. Evidence such as bones and talons have proved the giant bird, now called Haast’s eagle, was more than a myth. And unlike Aepyornis, it could fly. It had a wingspan of nearly three meters (10 feet) and preyed on moas, large flightless birds related to ostriches. Haast’s eagle (Harpagornis moorei) lived until about AD 1500-recent enough to possibly have been encountered by Maori ancestors. 
Giant Haast’s eagle attacking New Zealand moa
The Aepyornis elephant bird was not a moa, but the other flightless giant island-living birds had members in its family which were taller than the elephant bird at 7 ft (2 metres) to the middle of the back and 13 ft (4 metres) to the head (twice the height of a tall man).
New Zealand was even more isolated than Madagascar and had no land mammals except bats. The first Polynesians arrived in New Zealand around the 10th century, becoming the Maori. The dominant life-forms were the giant land birds that lived in the fringes of the semi-tropical forests and on the grasslands and which the Maoris called ‘Moas’. Encountering the huge birds, the Maoris made legends of the giant moa, calling it the Poua-Kai and describing it as a huge bird of terrific size and strength which, in a great battle, destroyed half the warriors of a powerful tribe with its terrible rending talons and thrusting beak Moas were huge ratite ‘running birds’ like the Elephant Bird, but they inhabited the grasslands and forest-fringe in extraordinary numbers and variety. Scientists later gave them the family name Dinornithidae, ‘terrible birds’. The aggressive Polynesian invaders became a Moa-hunting culture and for the moa, which had had no predators in 100 million years, the effect was devastating.
By the time Europeans discovered the islands in 1770, the giant moas had been hunted to extinction; their official extinction date is given as 1773. Europeans did not learn of the moa’s existence until bones were discovered in the 1830s.
With only one natural predator large enough to tackle them, the Haast’s Eagle, they were the dominant terrestrial species on the islands.
INTERTWINED TALES
Is it possible the legendary Roc was based on a combination of the very real Elephant Bird and Giant Haast’s Eagles that actually existed? Many Cryptozoologists do believe the mythical bird could have been based upon actual sightings of these giant birds.
That Roc feather mentioned earlier was later suggested by Marco Polo’s translator, Sir Henry Yule, to be a frond of a Raphia palm that the Great Khan was conned by. Raphia palms grow up to 16 m tall and are remarkable for their compound pinnate leaves, the longest in the plant kingdom; leaves of R. regalis up to 25.11 m long and 3 m wide are known. If you were alive back in this age of wonder, you too may have experienced bewildered awe of anyone who first saw them.
Source Credit(s): www-v1.amnh.org/exhibitions/mythiccreatures/air/strike.php, monsters.monstrous.com/roc.htm, ennex.com/~Roc/name/index.asp, messybeast.com/extinct/moa.htm, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aepyornis, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raffia_palm
Roc top illustration (with permission) © Gonzalo Ordóñez Arias genzoman.deviantart.com
Cryptid Chronicles readers, what do YOU think??
Please post your comments!
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If you enjoyed this post please comment, Like ❤ and share! Also follow on twitter @cryptidfans and now on http://www.facebook.com/CryptidChronicles
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Sydney C. Squidney
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Cryptid Cupcakes: Leviathan Sea Monster, Mothman and the Sea Elephant!
Wow, how cool are those?!
Cryptid Chronicles is incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to be reaching so many people interested in cryptozoology and to have a loyal fan base that have embraced it like they have.
I am always amazed at how many awesome folks are so engaged and open to connecting to the community in their own ways. One such super supportive CC fan is Lauren at http://halfbakedart.tumblr.com who had entered our Cryptid Chronicles 1st Annual Cryptid Cupcake Creations Contest with her Leviathan, Mothman and Sea Elephant cupcake creations!
Lauren was very creative in how she went about making these cryptid cupcakes in the spirit of celebrating the field of cryptozoology in a fun and interesting way!
Basing them off these legendary creatures in ways that accented their features and even using melted chocolate/merckens candy melts to shape them!
She based the Leviathan off of this picture:
And even made a shark for it to devour, showing the Leviathan’s immense size!
See more of the Leviathan sea monster cupcake and how she did it http://halfbakedart.tumblr.com/leviathan
For the Mothman cupcake she included eerily large wings:
See more of the Mothman cryptid cupcake and how she did it http://halfbakedart.tumblr.com/mothman
For the Makara aquatic pachyderm, she was sure to borrow from an illustration showing this mythical creature with the head of an elephant:
See more of the mythical sea elephant cupcake and how she did it http://halfbakedart.tumblr.com/seaelephant
I would like to thank Lauren for participating in this contest and contributing to our little community here. These are some fine and delicious looking creations!
Please give Lauren a round of applause for her wonderful work!
Discover more cryptids and mysterious creatures at Cryptid Chronicles and please don’t forget toVote in our Cryptid Tournament to determine Featured Cryptids for Cryptid Chronicles 1st Annual Fan Art Competition in 2013!
If you enjoyed this post please comment, Like ❤ and share! Thank you!
Your Chronicler,
Sydney C. Squidney
cryptidchronicles.tumblr.com
Follow on twitter @cryptidfans and now on http://facebook.com/CryptidChronicles
A Cryptid Chronicles Book Review: Monsters of the Sea
Author: Richard Ellis, 448 pages
Sydney C. Squidney’s rating: 5/5
Bookshelves: folklore, cryptozoology, marine-biology, reference, research, sea-monsters, ancient-mysteries, ocean-science-and-history, mythology
Originally posted at http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/310064976
The review:
A great voyage of discovery
“Monsters of the Sea” is for those with a great curiosity about the mysterious creatures that lurk beneath the surface of the sea that humans have sometimes been granted glimpses of.
For as long as we’ve been curious, our access to the oceans’ mysteries have and still remain so limited that sea monster legends have endured to this day.
Sea monsters are often considered some of the earliest cryptids to inspire countless popular myths and recent discoveries of giant squids (such as the massive 25 foot-long cephalopod photographed nearly 3,000 feet beneath the North Pacific Ocean off Japan’s Ogasawara Islands in September 2004) have lent a basis of fact to some of those legends.
Holy Squid! First Glimpse of Live Deep-Sea Giant (National Geographic News September 27, 2005)
In a revealing, well-composed and enthralling assemblage, marine biologist Richard Ellis charts the origins of an assortment of legendary “sea monsters” including sea “serpents”, giant squids (kraken), sharks and the “leviathan” or whale that frightened mariners of centuries past and brings the natural history and science of the real animals behind the myths.
All the Kraken stories and rumors about sea monsters going back centuries are outlined and then using scientific exploration and (sometimes speculative) scientific evidence, the world’s deep sea monsters are explained leading the reader into the vast world of marine biology.
I particularly enjoyed the alternating between the mythological accounts about sea monsters and the reviewing of the ocean animals for what they actually are based on available facts, including 150 fascinating illustrations showing how actually a certain known marine animal was reasonably mistaken for a “monstrous” sea creature.
Another favourite I had was the chapter about globsters (organic masses that wash up on the shoreline distinguished from normal beached carcasses by being hard to identify) and how he theorises that Octopus giganteus could account for some of these phenomena.
If you don’t want to have your sense of wonder debunked, you may want to stay away from having the sea monster myths and realities separated by Ellis, since that is the primary structure of this book, however he does leave some room for speculation and because he is also a Great white shark expert, it is mind-boggling that he has concluded that the monster shark Megalodon has only become extinct as close as 10,000 years ago in another of his books, Great White Shark.
This is a great voyage of discovery for those interested in fantastic accounts of myths, legends, and unexplained sea monster sightings and learning more of the story behind them.
Monsters of the Sea provides a comprehensive overview of sea monsters, so there is a lot to cover and can be a little heavy at times, but well worth the read.
If you’re interested in obscure accounts of historical legends, early naturalists, cryptozoology or marine biology you will probably have a lot of fun with this very well researched resource.
One thing is for certain, if one of America’s leading marine biologists thinks that the St. Augustine monster that washed ashore a century ago was actually a 200 foot octopus, then we still have much to learn about the legendary and mysterious Monsters of the Sea!
If you enjoyed this book review please comment, Like ❤ and share! Thank you!
Discover more cryptids and mysterious creatures at Cryptid Chronicles and let me know what cryptid you most believe in!
Your Chronicler,
Sydney C. Squidney
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Lusca: Tentacled Sea Monster from the Caribbean - was it Octopus giganteus?
The Bahamian island, Andros, has an array of what the natives call blue holes, formed during the prehistoric Ice Ages. Researchers discovered that they are an immense network of underwater caves, linking Andros’ lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. Divers of these blue holes have described their experiences in many ways ranging from beautiful and fascinating to eerie and haunting. The eerie feeling you get while diving the blue holes might be from the presence of Lusca, the mythical beast of Bahamian legend. Lusca is half-shark, half-octopus. She lurks deep among the waters of the blue holes and inland caverns that are found throughout the Bahama island chain.
Local legend holds that the tidal currents of the inland blue holes are none other than the breath of Lusca. As she breathes in, water pours in strongly enough in some caverns to form a whirlpool, and when she exhales, cold, clear water boils to the surface.
It has been suggested by cryptozoologists that the lusca is actually a gigantic octopus, far larger than the known giant octopuses of the genus Enteroctopus which includes the giant Pacific octopus which can be found in the coastal North Pacific, usually at a depth of around 65 m (215 ft) and has a recorded arm span of up to 4.3 m (14 ft).
One of the first fairly well-documented sightings of an unknown giant octopus occurred around on the evening of November 30 of 1896. Two bicycling boys discovered an enormous light pink mass that had washed up on the beach at St. Augustine, Florida.
When the young men first saw the carcass, it had sunk into the sand because of its immense weight. The next day, Dr. DeWitt Webb, founder of the St. Augustine Historical Society and Institute of Science, arrived on the scene. The skin was of an extremely light pink color with a silvery tint to it. They concluded it weighed roughly five tons and the visible portions were twenty-three feet in length, four feet high, and eighteen feet across the widest part of the back. Webb decided that it was not a whale but instead some kind of octopus.
Over the course of the next few days, Webb and the rest of the party returned and photographed the creature. Also, two drawings based on the snapshots were made by A. Hyatt Verrill, son of Dr. Verrill. 
Published in the Pennsylvania Grit, 1897.
For decades, the photographs taken were lost and these drawings were all that existed pictorially of the event. Then, in 1993, some of Dr. Webb’s original photos were discovered / recognized! The photographer Dr. Webb had used, Mr. Van Lockwood, had compiled an album of photos he had taken from 1885 to 1899. Upon Lockwood’s death, he had bequeathed the album containing the photos to the St. Augustine Historical Society and Institute of Science. Somehow decades later this album was discovered / recognized while in the possession of Mrs. Marjorie Blakoner, of California. Here they are:
Panoramic view of the crowd of some 50 persons, who had come by foot, bicycle, horse, or car, to see the “Florida monster”.
Two horses and a harness, on the left side; to the center is the carcass, a domed mass, with a cable around it’s middle and a post on it’s left. On the right are 3 other men, of which the first one is Dr. Webb.
One assistant reportedly found fragments of arms while digging in the sand nearby. He was unfortunately alone at the time so his statement is uncorroborated. Evidently, it was attacked while still in the sea and had been dismembered before the carcass washed to shore. Soon afterwards, a storm dragged it out to sea where it again washed ashore two miles to the south of its original position.
It was then that Webb sent several letters describing the carcass to scientists. Professor Verrill of Yale read one of them. Verrill, a zoologist, was recognized for his work on cephalopods, especially giant squid. In a note in the American Journal of Science, published January 1897, he concluded the animal was a giant squid, not an octopus, but much larger that the Newfoundland specimens he had examined. Webb then forwarded more photographs and information to Verrill, who changed his theory to an octopus. He wrote more notes to the American Journal of Science describing the new giant octopus. He concluded the specimen’s tentacles to be approximately seventy-five to one hundred feet long by eighteen inches at the base. He then designated the new creature Octopus giganteous verrill, after himself.
It would be into the second week of January that the work on the specimen would continue. The carcass had been washed out to see again resulting in further losses of body parts and mutilation of the carcass. He reported to both Verrill and Professor William Healy Dall, curator of mollusks at the National Museum in Washington DC, now called the Smithsonian, by letter. In spite of this, neither Verrill nor Dall made any effort to investigate the carcass for themselves nor were they willing to provide the time and money to properly preserve the animal.
Using teams of horses and the efforts of local citizens and companies, Webb was able to move the carcass further up the beach. This protected the remains from being permanently washed out to sea where they would have been lost forever. He then prepared specimens for Verrill and Dall. They were both taken from the mantle of the creature and preserved in formaldehyde. This would turn out to be the only hard evidence to future scientists to study. Webb was, however, interested in preserving the whole carcass and preservatives were forwarded.
Verrill received Webb’s preserved specimen on February 23 and wrote letters of reaction that were published in Science on March 5, 1897, and in the Herald on the seventh. He described the samples visually and concluded they could not be octopus tissue because they resembled the blubber found in some crustaceans, despite the fact that little oil was found in them. Professor Frederic Augustus Lucas, of the National Museum, also examined the specimens and stated “the substance looks like blubber, and smells like blubber, and it is blubber, nothing more nor less.”
Verrill finally concluded, after further examination of the tissues, that the bag-like section of the carcass was most likely the upper head and nose of a sperm whale. In the issues of the American Journal of Science and the American Naturalist for April, he does not try to make the objections and problems with his sperm whale theory less obvious. He pointed out that other zoologists that examined the carcass still believe it is an unknown cephalopod related to the octopus.
No work was done on the specimen until 1957 when Dr. Forrest Glenn Wood became interested and involved Dr. Joseph F. Gennaro Jr. Dr. Wood was a specialist in biology for the Naval Undersea Research and Development Laboratory of San Diego (California), and was reviewing the archives of the Marineland Research Laboratory (Florida) in support of its research on octopi.
This lead to a long research effort uncovering all of the published accounts of the event, many of which made mention of specimens being sent to the Smithsonian. Wood was unsuccessful in getting the Smithsonian to cooperate, so the more influential Gennaro made a trip to the Smithsonian to collect the specimen and wrote:
There by the sink was a glass container about the size of a milk can. Inside it was a murky mixture of cheesecloth, formalin (and I think some alcohol), and half a dozen large white masses of tough fibrous material, each about as large as a good sized roast. We lifted them up with the cheesecloth, then took them out with forceps.
He noted that the material corresponded to Webb’s description. He was allowed to remove what he wanted with a dissecting knife with replaceable blades. The two pieces he removed were wrapped in cheesecloth, placed in a jar, and transported by himself to his laboratory.
Initial examination proved disappointing. There were no features such as suckers, identifiable skin structures, or muscular masses. He then viewed them through a microscope along with control specimen samples of known octopus and squid. He was disappointed to find no cellular fine structure. He expected highly differentiated cells of a mammal if it was from a whale or structures typical of a squid or octopus. Then he viewed his control samples. They also revealed little if any cellular structure. Differences of connective tissues were more striking. Octopus tissue was different from squid tissue and neither could be mistaken for mammalian tissue.
Using polarized light, Gennaro decide to compare connective tissues. His findings were as follows:
Now differences between the contemporary squid and octopus samples became very clear. In the octopus, broad bands of fibers passed along the plane of tissue and were separated by equally broad bands arranged in a perpendicular direction. In the squid there were narrower, but also relatively broad, bundles arranged in planes of the section, separated by thin partitions of perpendicular fibers….
It seemed I had found the means to identify the mystery sample after all. I could distinguish between octopus and squid, and between them and mammals, which display a lacy network of connective tissue fibers….
After seventy-five years, the moment of truth was at hand. Viewing section after section of the St. Augustine sample, we decided at once and beyond any doubt, that the sample was not whale blubber. Further, the connective tissue pattern was that of broad bands in the plane of the section with equally broad bands arranged perpendicularly, a structure similar to, if not identical with, that in my octopus sample….
The evidence appears unmistakable that the St. Augustine sea monster was in fact an octopus, but the implications are fantastic.
To Be Continued on Cryptid Chronicles!
Please check back for the conclusion to this post!
Source Credit(s): suite101.com/article/lusca-st-augustine-and-bahamian-cryptid-a364121, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusca, staynehoff.net/giant_octopus.htm
Cryptid Chronicles readers, what do YOU think??
Please post your comments!
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Sydney C. Squidney
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Night-Ravens - Or What’s In A Name?
What, if anything, is a mysterious winged creature known as the night-raven?
The answer to this question depends upon whether you are investigating it from an ornithological, cryptozoological, or zoomythological standpoint - because three entirely different creatures all share this same intriguing name.
In Norway, the nattravn (‘night-raven’) is simply a name given to the European nightjar Caprimulgus europaeus or goatsucker. End of story.
Conversely, the night-raven that appears in English literature is a much more diffuse subject. It was a certain William Shakespeare who penned the following tantalising lines: “The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;” (3 King Henry VI, V.vi.47), and “I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it.” (Much Ado About Nothing, II.iii.81). Equally, in his The Faerie Queene (II.vii.23), Edmund Spenser wrote: “And after him the owles and night ravens flew, the hateful messengers of heavy tidings,”. And according to John Lyly in his play Sappho and Phaon (1584), the owl’s shriek and the night-raven’s croak were fatal. But what is the night-raven, this ill-omened bird that appears in such esteemed works of literature yet is singularly absent from any comparably notable ornithological tome?
Several identities have been offered, including the nightingale (even though its famously musical, uplifting song hardly corresponds to the night-raven’s hoarse croak of doom), the afore-mentioned European nightjar, the bittern, various species of owl, and even the night heron (curiously, the latter’s scientific name is indeed Nycticorax – ‘night crow’ – although it shares no resemblance with any corvine bird). However, as elucidated by Edward Armstrong in The Folklore of Birds (1958), it is most likely that the night-raven is of mythological rather than ornithological status, deriving from Norse legends in which the raven is identified with Odin who in turn became identified with the Wild Hunt tradition, featuring spectral hunters riding through the sky at night with a pack of howling dogs – which in literature are extensively associated with the night-raven.
Undoubtedly the most fascinating member of the night-raven trio, however, is the mythological nattravnen (‘night-raven’) of southern Sweden. I first learnt of this extraordinary entity from Swedish cryptozoological artist Richard Svensson, whose wonderful illustration of it heads my present blog. On 2 October 2008, in response to a request of mine for information concerning it, I received the following detailed account from Richard, who kindly permitted me to publish it if I so wished, and which I am therefore delighted to do here, for the very first time anywhere:
“Nattravnen is found in the folklore of Sweden’s two southernmost regions, Skåne and Blekinge. It’s not very well known in general Swedish folklore, and it’s not considered a mystery beast per se, like the Lake Storsjö monster, for example. It’s called Nattravnen in Skåne and Leharven in Blekinge. The name “Nattravnen” is said to mean “the night raven”. Leharven is a more dubious name. “Le” is an old word for bodily joint (and I’ll get back to why that’s a part of its name). Nattravnen is seldom described in detail, but it is a bird-like monster, sometimes said to be dark in colour, but without any feathers. It belongs to a special group of monsters called “grimmar”. Grimmar are supernatural animals that cannot be killed by any normal weapons. They are either ghosts of animals or beasts created by sorcery.
“Nattravnen flies around during the night and is said to devour any lonely wanderer on the roads. But the monster was also dangerous in another way. If you looked up just as it passed the moon or when its body was illuminated by the moon rays, you would be able to see the skeleton (and its joints) through the creature’s thin hide. This was a very bad thing and the sight would render you horrible pains. Mostly you would fall terribly ill and vomit blood or get blood in your urine for at least a week.
“There is an old story from Blekinge concerning Lake Halen, where in old times a flying monster lived. This creature is not actually identified as Leharven, but it appears to have many similar traits. According to legend it resembled a vulture, but without any feathers. When returning to the lake it would not perch in a tree, but dive down under the water and disappear. In the 1970’s a local school adopted the creature as their mascot and dubbed it “Halengamen”, “the Halen Vulture”.
“If I’m not totally mistaken this aquatic connection rings a bell concerning the African “Kongamato”. And the feature about getting ill from watching the flying beast also seems familiar, from something in the West Indies, perhaps.
“There’s also a folktale about a giant vulture sweeping down and grabbing an oxen in an area of Blekinge called Jämshög. The name is said to be derived from “Gamshög” =”Vulture’s Peak”, a hill where the creature is said to have been observed seen sitting. This tale is generally considered as a tall-tale, with no real etymological verification to the name of Jämshög. It’s still interesting as a Swedish counterpart of the American “Thunderbird” tales.
“I’ve done two illustrations of Nattravnen, where I’ve chosen to depict it as very pterodactyl-like.”
From a Norwegian goatsucker and a corvid of Odin to a monstrous Swedish neo-pterodactyl - who would ever have guessed that a name as innocuous as ‘night-raven’ could have conjured forth such a dramatic diversity of creatures real and imaginary?
Source Credit(s): © Dr Karl Shuker 11 November 2010 karlshuker.blogspot.com/2010/11/night-ravens-or-whats-in-name.html
Top Illustration: The terrifying nattravnen or night-raven of southern Swedish folklore © Richard Svensson
Cryptid Chronicles readers, what do YOU think??
Discover more cryptids and mysterious creatures at Cryptid Chronicles and let us know what Cryptid you most believe in/find plausible!!
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Your Chronicler,
Sydney C. Squidney
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On this Sunday’s episode of Search for Hidden Beasts with Ken Gerhard
Hey CC fans, don’t forget to catch my friend Ken Gerhard’s show tonight, Search for Hidden Beasts at liveparanormal.com Blog Talk Radio @ 10pm EST (note the new, later time slot) Catch the show at http://liveparanormal.com/page/ken-gerhard
Don’t miss this week’s episode; listen in as Ken gets a little cosmic with special guest Dr. Rita Louise. She and Ken will be discussing giants and other mythological creatures, as outlined in her new book - Man Made: The Chronicles of our Extraterrestrial Gods.
Man-Made: The Chronicles Of Our Extraterrestrial Gods focuses on our most ancient of stories. It brings together myths from many cultures including the Sumerians, the Greeks, the Maya and the Aborigines of Australia!
A frequent consultant to the media, Dr. Louise has appeared as a keynote speaker at events such as the Whole Life Expo, Texas Ghost Show, History, Haunts and Legends Conference and has been a featured guest on shows such as Coast to Coast w/ George Nory.
Tune in for some fascinating discussion!
If you listen to the show, I hope you’ll please comment, Like ❤ and share and come back to discuss at Cryptid Chronicles! Thank you!
Your Chronicler,
Sydney C. Squidney
