Comments on: Sea Serpents Likely To Be Discovered

By: twas brillig

twas brillig — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 05:56:14 +0000

I’m surpised, nobody in article or posts mentioned the bunyip, so I’m mentioning it.

BUNYIP!!!

The “BUNYIP” described in some instances as a having characteristics of a giant otter as well as other entanglements of various other creatures/species. Thus a giant tiger-seal like creature COULD fit something along those lines, maybe. Perhaps these creatures would explain such accounts of the legendary Bunyip.

Also, nobody mentioned the similarity of the “Merhorse” to the “TURKISH LAKE MONSTER”!

The first creature in the illustration above they are calling a “merhorse” and is illustrated with ridges and the first thing that popped into my mind was the description of the “Turkish Lake Monster”. The Turkish Lake monster has been described as being very large, and having a horse or camel-like face by eye witnesses, much like the creature described in the article, it may also have a ridge along it’s back as also portrayed in the illustration.

The Turkish lake monster does have footage, and the footage demonstrates that whatever the creature is, it is blowing bubbles and appears to be creating a subsonic vibration which can be interpreted as a warning signal, similar if not exactly the same to what hippos or crocodiles/alligators do.

One might also wonder what creatures rumored to have been seen by Jeac Cousteau in the depths of the Siera Nevada Lake Taho? Don’t quote me on the lake and I appologize for my terrible spelling, but it was something along those lines.

By: Loren Coleman

Loren Coleman — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:37:27 +0000

Darren Naish has discovered that a typo swam into the press release for this paper, in which he had incorrectly given another name for the (correct) tizheruk. Therefore, I have expunged that wrong cryptid name (tizhurek) from this posting.

By: MattBille

MattBille — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:23:44 +0000

I should have added that the authors’ methodology is not confined to marine animals. It could, for example, be used on birds, crocodilians, or primates, where it might shed an interesting light on the quest for unknown large primates that occupies so much of cryptozoology.

By: MattBille

MattBille — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:17:16 +0000

Having read the paper, I now understand that the authors were not trying to explain all or even most sea serpents (SS) as pinnipeds. SS identity was not the problem they were trying to solve.
They started with the question of whether there might still be pinnipeds left to discover and then looked at SS reports for sightings that might support the idea of unknown pinnipeds. They came away with the conclusion, based on statistical analysis, sighting reports, and other tools/inputs, that there might be as many as three pinnipeds, all unusual and one spectacular, left to be discovered. One interesting inference is that we may have found all the “normal” pinnipeds (that is, the ones whose habits and appearance are what we expect for the order Pinnipedia.
You might say that what they did was take Charles Paxton’s question of how many large marine animals were left to be discovered and narrow it to ask how many of a certain group, in this case pinnipeds, might be unclassified.
This does not mean all SS are pinnipeds: there is room left for giant eels and whatever other conjectured creatures might fit certain reports.
The authors are to be commended for a new approach to the whole “mystery animal” question, creating a repeatable methodology others might apply to sharks, eels, whales, or other groups.

By: AKDADEVIL

AKDADEVIL — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:45:39 +0000

Personally I think outside the scientific community, the term “serpent” has always been used to describe a very diverse range of animals.

In particular, many articles (i.e. even the official German Wikipedia article) describe the leopard seal as having decisively reptile-like features. Do a photo-search on Google and judge for yourself.

I therefore favor another large unknown species of the genus Hydrurga as a possible candidate for at least one of the “yet-to-be-discovered” sea serpents. Imagine a huge cousin of the leopard seal… could be a PMP (pretty mean predator) …

By: crapple

crapple — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:41:41 +0000

ONLY ONE GOOD-SIZED PROBLEM: A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK THAT WE ARE ALL LOONY

Its going to be difficult to discover more species without more people with us, and we would have to catch one that everyone says is fake and have it confirmed as a real species before more people start joining in, though there will always be someone who thinks they faked it.

The more the merrier.

By: cryptidsrus

cryptidsrus — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:15:18 +0000

MattBille:

I THINK you were addressing me. The quote from Keel I got from one of his books. He probably was paraphrasing Sylvia Earle. Probably so.

Who knows…

By: Big H

Big H — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:44:04 +0000

Great article. But why do large cryptids from the ocean tend to be called “serpents?” To me, the word “serpent” implies its some kind of snake or reptile. How about just calling them “sea creatures” instead?

By: Remus

Remus — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:59:04 +0000

Water borne cryptids have always been my favorite subject, probably because I have always lived on the shore.

Men of earlier ages have never struck me as being less intelligent than we are. They simply did not have the scientific framework built upon documentation by others. Printing and publishing powered the great leaps we’ve made in modern times.

My point is this. Since the age of sail (which is a virtually soundless form of propulsion allowing explorors to more easily approach shy creatures), these animals have been identified overwhelmingly as “serpents”. Even allowing for the lack of scientific classification systems, this word usually denoted a snake, a “dragon” or a reptile of some sort.

I would think that any experienced explorer would recognise a giant seal.

I’m not saying there are no large pinipeds. But I don’t think that theory covers all the descriptions.

I witnessed a large “sea-serpent” many years ago (at a distance) in Portsmouth, RI. I’m certain it was an enormous eel.

By: DWA

DWA — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:11:31 +0000

Glad to see Darren is still carrying the torch for real exploratory science.

If there are any undiscovered pinnipeds, they are almost certainly pelagics that never come to land. (Unless we’re just not noticing one of those hairline “species” distinctions in populations of known ones.) The elephant seal, to name one, is far enough in that direction that I can certainly see one going the extra step and skipping the land part.

I guess though that I don’t see moving from “new beaked whales” to “almost certainly undiscovered pinnipeds.” There’s no more of a connection there than there is between recent mammal discoveries and the possibility of hairy hominoids. Just me, maybe, but there it is.