Photographs of the moss-overgrown skeleton
and skull of a supposed water-horse at Ord, on the Inner Hebridean Isle of
Skye, Scotland – please click
to enlarge (©
Leanne Geraerts)
Whereas Ringo Starr of The Beatles famously wrote and
first performed in the 1960s his delightful song Octopus's Garden (one
of my all-time favourite Beatles songs) about wanting to be under the sea in the
garden of an eight-limbed cephalopod mollusc, all of which in turn irresistibly
inspired me when deciding upon a title for this present ShukerNature blog
article of mine, the rather more mysterious aquatic entity documented here is beside
rather than beneath the sea, and only its mortal remains, well, remain – but they
are in a garden, and overshadowed – indeed, overgrown – by moss. Let me
explain.
On 15 October
2016, longstanding friend and fellow cryptozoological enthusiast Mike Playfair
shared with me on Facebook some fascinating photographs recently snapped by a
mutual friend, Leanne Geraerts, during her recent visit to the Inner Hebridean
island of Skye. What made them so fascinating was their subject – the alleged
skeleton of an each uisge, the much-dreaded Scottish water-horse!
Beautiful
artistic representation of a water-horse (© Randi MacDonald)
Although a local
attraction at Ord on Skye, where it is ensconced in the garden of a private
home next to Ord's beach and easily observed in close-up detail by passers-by,
this remarkable specimen has attracted surprisingly little cryptozoological
attention, and these were the first photos of it that I had ever seen. According
to the somewhat laconic public information plaque alongside it:
EACH UISGE EARBALLACH
HYDRO EQUUS EXTENDUS
LONG-TAILED WATER HORSE
This is the only known example of this rare beast - a
distant relative of the better known Monstra Nessium Hydro[.] E.E. is usually
sighted only twice a year when it swims inshore to browse on whelks. This
specimen was stranded at an exceptionally low tide in 1967.
The skeleton is nowadays
greatly overgrown with moss, but its basic anatomical features were still
clearly visible, revealing it to be some form of whale. Scouring for more
visual material online, I discovered a handful of websites that mentioned it
briefly and included a few additional pictures (click here
for the Faery Folklorist's observations and photos of it), but surprisingly
its precise taxonomic identity did not appear to have ever been investigated.
Consequently, I duly posted in my Journal of Cryptozoology Facebook group and
several others some links to these sites and their photos, which attracted
considerable interest.
The
Ord water horse's skull (left) and a skull of Cuvier's beaked whale (right) (©
Leanne Geraerts / © OpenCage/Wikipedia CC BY-SA 2.5 licence)
Moreover, based
upon close comparisons of photos of its skull with ones depicting those of the
various cetacean species known to inhabit or visit Scottish waters, I was able
to determine that the water horse of Ord had actually been a Cuvier's beaked
whale Ziphius cavirostris. This identity was also fully supported by
fellow cryptozoological investigators Markus Bühler, Markus Hemmler, and
Cameron McCormick. Incidentally, a Cuvier's beaked whale skull also proved to
be the identity of another interesting initially-unidentified specimen (click here
for details and for sight of an excellent photo of the skull, in turn providing
an additional comparison with that of the Ord water horse).
For although its
skull superficially resembles that of the northern bottlenose whale Hyperoodon
ampullatus, the shape of the vertex (the upper skull portion, composed of
four bones - the frontal, the paired parietals, and the occipital) corresponds much
more favourably to that of one of the latter species' relatives, Ziphius,
which is commonly found in waters surrounding the British Isles. Another cryptozoological
mystery solved.
A
skeleton and model of Cuvier's beaked whale exhibited at Geneva
Museum, Switzerland (©
Eveha/Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)
My sincere
thanks to Leanne Geraerts for very kindly making her photographs available to
me, to Mike Playfair for bringing yet another fascinating cryptozoological
specimen to my attention, and to Markus Bühler, Markus Hemmler, and Cameron
McCormick for their much-valued thoughts and opinions.
This
ShukerNature blog article is excerpted and expanded from my Alien Zoo cryptozoology
news-roundup column in Fortean Times #348 (Christmas 2016 issue).
The public information plaque present alongside the Ord water-horse's skeleton (© Leanne Geraerts)
Posts
I was hoping the sign next to the skeleton was tongue-in-cheek - I think the quip about browsing on whelks proves that!
ReplyDeleteYes indeed, hence my describing it as being laconic.
DeleteFascinating isn't it! Good to see you've solved the mystery of which cetacean it belongs to :)
ReplyDeleteThanks very much, and yes, absolutely, it is fascinating - I'd love to see it in person, so perhaps one day my path will wend its way over the sea (or nowadays across the bridge!) to Skye.
DeleteMy father Raonull would have smiled that his 50-year old installation and mischievous notice still get attention!
DeleteWe hope to reerect the sign soon, which is temporarily down for letter repainting (Sept 2021).
We'd had correspondence with Clive Martin agreeing the Cuvier's beaked whale i.d. but are reluctant to amend the sign's more interesting story!