Sea monsters are beings fromfolklore believed to dwell in the sea and are often imagined to be of immense size. Marinemonsters can take many forms, including seadragons,sea serpents, or tentacled beasts. They can be slimy and scaly and are often pictured threatening ships or spouting jets of water. The definition of a "monster" is subjective; further, some sea monsters may have been based on scientifically accepted creatures, such aswhales and types ofgiant andcolossal squid.
Sea monster accounts are found in virtually all cultures that have contact with the sea. For example,Avienius relates ofCarthaginian explorer Himilco's voyage "...there monsters of the deep, and beasts swim amid the slow and sluggishly crawling ships." (lines 117–29 ofOra Maritima).Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed to have encountered a lion-like monster with "glaring eyes" on his return voyage after formally claimingSt. John's, Newfoundland (1583) for England.[1] Another account of an encounter with a sea monster comes from July 1734.Hans Egede, aDano-Norwegian missionary, reported that on a voyage toGodthåb on the western coast ofGreenland he observed:[2]
a most terrible creature, resembling nothing they saw before. The monster lifted its head so high that it seemed to be higher than thecrow's nest on themainmast. The head was small and the body short and wrinkled. The unknown creature was using giant fins which propelled it through the water. Later the sailors saw its tail as well. The monster was longer than our whole ship.
Ellis (1999) suggested the Egede monster might have been agiant squid.
There is aTlingit legend about a sea monster named Gunakadeit (Goo-na'-ka-date) who brought prosperity and good luck to a village in crisis, people starving in the home they made for themselves on the southeastern coast of Alaska.[citation needed]
In 1892,Anthonie Cornelis Oudemans, then director of the Royal Zoological Gardens atThe Hague, saw the publication of hisThe Great Sea Serpent, which suggested that many sea serpent reports were best accounted for as a previously unknown giant, long-neckedpinniped.
It is likely that many other reports of sea monsters are misinterpreted sightings of shark and whale carcasses (see below), floatingkelp, logs or other flotsam such as abandoned rafts, canoes and fishing nets.
Sea monster corpses have been reported since recent antiquity (Heuvelmans 1968). Unidentified carcasses are often calledglobsters. The alleged plesiosaur netted by the Japanese trawlerZuiyō Maru off New Zealand caused a sensation in 1977 and was immortalized on a Brazilian postage stamp before it was suggested by theFBI to be the decomposing carcass of abasking shark. Likewise,DNA testing confirmed that an alleged sea monster washed up on Newfoundland in August 2001, was asperm whale.[3]
Another modern example of a "sea monster" wasthe strange creature washed up inLos Muermos on the Chilean sea shore in July 2003. It was first described as a "mammothjellyfish as long as abus" but was later determined to be another corpse of asperm whale. Cases of boneless, amorphic globsters are sometimes believed to be giganticoctopuses, but it has now been determined that sperm whales dying at sea decompose in such a way that the blubber detaches from the body, forming featureless whitish masses that sometimes exhibit a hairy texture due to exposed strands ofcollagen fibers. The analysis oftheZuiyō Maru carcass revealed a comparable phenomenon in decomposing basking shark carcasses, which lose most of the lower head area and the dorsal and caudal fins first, making them resemble a plesiosaur.
In May 2017,The Guardian published an article claiming a giant sea monster's corpse was found in Indonesia, and also published an alleged photograph of "it."[4]
Cormac Ua Liatháin in the 6th century supposedly saw a horde of tiny creatures the size of frogs that had spines, which attacked his boat in the North Atlantic according to an account written byAdomnan of Iona[5]
The sea monster fromMonkeybone is an inhabitant of Down Town and is performed by Nathan Stein. It resembles apiscine humanoid that is protruding from the back of its large seahorse-like mount.
InNinjago: Seabound, Wojira is a giant Sea Serpent/Dragon that can control water and wind using the storm and wave amulets.
