THE GIANT STONE TORTOISES OF KARAKORUM – A MONUMENTAL MYSTERY FROM MONGOLIA

 

Giant stone tortoise at Karakorum, Mongolia (© Frithjof Spangenberg/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 2.5 licence)

In the Russian republic of Buryatia (in southcentral Siberia), the Russian Far East, the Korean Peninsula, and, particularly, Mongolia (which, incidentally, contains no known present-day chelonians of any kind), a number of very large stone statues of tortoises can be found – but these are no ordinary tortoises, as documented by chelonian expert and palaeobiologist Prof. Viacheslav Mikhailovich Chkhikvadze, from the Georgian Academy of Sciences in Tbilisi.

In a Priroda article from 1988, Prof. Chkhikvadze focused much of his attention upon three such statues in Mongolia, still standing amid the palace ruins at Karakorum, which was once the Mongol Empire's capital city. The biggest of these statues dates back to the 13^th Century, and measures 92 ft long, 34.5 ft wide, and 41 ft high. The Mongolian name for it sounds like 'jastmel'chij'.

 

A second giant stone tortoise at Karakorum, Mongolia (© Methos31/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

They all portray a type of huge long-shelled tortoise with a giant head on a thick neck, protruding eyes, and – incongruously for a tortoise - a pair of short, closely-pressed ears. Equally odd are the sharp teeth that project from the upper jaw (chelonians are normally toothless), and all four feet have five long claws. One of the statues incorporates an inset seat for visitors to sit upon.

A particularly old example of these statues, dating from the 8^th Century, was found in Mongolia's northern province, and has subsequently become the subject of much study at the archaeological department of the Academic History Institute in Ulan Bator. Moreover, there were further examples at each gate on the four sides of the city wall at Karakorum. Steles (pillars) were present on the backs of these tortoises, which were crowned with beacons for travellers in the steppe.

 

The giant stone tortoise originally on the grave mound of Asikui, now at Khabarovsk Museum (© Glucke/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

Perhaps the most famous of the giant stone tortoise monuments outside Mongolia is the example discovered by early Russian settlers in 1868, on the grave mound of the Jurchen general Asikui, where it had been installed in c.1193. Originally sited near the village of Nikolskoye (today the city of Ussuriysk) in what is now the Russian Far East, in 1895 it was transported to the I.N. Grodekov Khabarovsk Territorial Museum of Regional Studies. It dates from the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234).

What made them so intriguing to Prof. Chkhikvadze is that in his view, their basic tortoise form that is revealed once its stylised non-chelonian features – ears, teeth – are stripped away bears a remarkable similarity to the American snapping turtle Chelydra serpentina. In prehistoric times, its taxonomic family, Chelydridae, was distributed widely in Europe, Asia, and the New World, but today it is confined exclusively to the Americas (except of course for snapping turtle escapees/releases from captivity, several of which have been found living in British and other European ponds and lakes during recent years – click here to read about some sizeable, highly-publicised examples that were found some years ago very near to my home in the West Midlands, England).

 

American snapping turtle, 1842 engraving from John Edwards Holbrook's book North American Herpetology (public domain)

Consequently, as noted by Chkhikvadze, it remains a riddle how Central Asiatic sculptors in the Middle Ages knew a type of tortoise that in the Old World had been considered extinct for the past two million years. There is a remote possibility that these sculptors had seen fossilised remains of prehistoric Asian chelydrids. Unusual or eyecatching fossils have inspired a number of medieval representations in a wide range of localities globally, so such a situation would hardly be unique. Also remote, but again not impossible, is that a species of large Asian chelydrid survived into much more recent times than is currently known from the fossil record, and either directly or via generations of verbally-transmitted descriptions inspired the sculptors responsible for the statues.

Incidentally, such explanations as these may also account for another anomalous portrayal, but this time at Marcahausi, which is a plateau 13,000 ft above sea level, and situated some 50 miles northeast of Lima, in Peru. It was here that in 1952 Dr Daniel Ruzo discovered a series of fascinating megalithic sculptures. Not only did they include some enormous human figures carved from the rocks but also a wide range of animals, including lions, camels, elephants – and one that in Ruzo's opinion seemed to represent an amphichelydian – i.e. belonging to a taxonomic group of prehistoric chelonians characterised by their non-retractable neck.

 

Modern-day statue of a Chinese bixi (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Interestingly, the carving of giant stone tortoises in the Far East underwent an evolution of its own down through the ages, witnessing as already noted the popular addition of a stele to the tortoise's back, so that it became a symbol of heavy loads and burden. And in more modern times, especially in China where dragons have always played such a significant and diverse role in this country's mythology, the giant tortoise has itself acquired the head of a dragon - yielding a ferocious-looking hybrid monster known as a bixi. (NB – this name is also applied more generally to all giant tortoise sculptures by some researchers, including those from Mongolia documented by me here.)

This ShukerNature blog article is excerpted from my book Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History.

 

My little feng shui bixi (© Dr Karl Shuker)

 

THE CONGOLESE NDENDECKI – A VERITABLE DINOSAUR TURTLE?

 

Reconstruction of the possible appearance in life of the Congolese ndendecki, alongside a local pygmy for scale purposes (© David Miller/Prof. Roy P. Mackal)

During the 1980s, Prof. Roy P. Mackal, famous as both a Chicago University biochemist and an enthusiastic spare-time cryptozoologist, led two expeditions to the Republic of the Congo (formerly the French Congo) in search of a mysterious water beast known as the mokele-mbembe, which apparently bears a remarkable resemblance to a small sauropod dinosaur. Sadly, they did not encounter any such creature while there, but they did discover that it was only one of several different types of very large mystery reptile claimed by the local pygmies and Western missionaries to inhabit the vast and virtually inaccessible Likouala swamplands in this country's central region.

Among this assortment of cryptozoological curiosities was the ndendecki, which Mackal's expeditions nicknamed the dinosaur turtle due to its huge size, at least according to reports from eyewitnesses living in the village of Boha and collated by Gilbert Bonguenele Manengue. He was a public security agent commissioned by the military governor general of Brazzaville (this country's capital) to gather together for Mackal's expeditions any available information appertaining to putative unknown animals, and was himself born in Boha.

Life-sized fossil replica of a Stupendemys carapace (© Chris Gladis aka MShades-Wikipedia - CC BY 2.0 licence)

The shell of this gargantuan freshwater chelonian was claimed by the Boha villagers to be conspicuously rounded in shape and to measure some 12-15 ft in diameter, which is very considerably bigger than that of any known species of aquatic chelonian alive today. It even exceeds the largest known fossil freshwater chelonian, the aptly-named Stupendemys, a side-necked turtle from South America's Miocene epoch that may have grown up to 11 ft long, but slightly less in diameter. Happily, however, the ndendecki apparently poses no threat to humans, browsing harmlessly upon detritus at the bottom of rivers and lakes.

As it happens, the Likouala swamps are already known to harbour one fairly large species of freshwater turtle, the African softshell Trionyx triunguis – a well-documented chelonian found in many parts of Africa. However, this species rarely exceeds 3 ft across. Nevertheless, Congolese zoologist Dr Marcellin Agnagna, who has participated in several mokele-mbembe expeditions and has extensive knowledge of the Likouala's fauna, is convinced that this species and the gigantic ndendecki are one and the same, dismissing the appreciable size difference between the two as nothing more than exaggeration upon the part of the eyewitnesses.

 

Softshells, plus an African hoopoe (public domain)

Yet such exaggeration would need to be on a very grand scale indeed to enlarge a 3-ft turtle by approximately four to five times, and it seems unlikely that locals would be prone to such an overestimation of size for a species that is very common here and must therefore be a familiar sight to them. Consequently, it seems more plausible to believe that amid the Likouala's immense and yet scarcely explored wilderness of lakes, rivers, and swamps are some extra-large individuals of T. triunguis that have lived to great ages and continued growing throughout their protracted lives. Perhaps 13-16.5 ft is indeed an exaggeration, but even a softshell only half as big would still be an extremely imposing creature to encounter, and could certainly explain the ndendecki.

More information concerning the ndendecki can be found in Roy Mackal's book A Living Dinosaur? (1987).

 

Prof. Roy P. Mackal and his book A Living Dinosaur? (© Prof. Roy P. Mackal/E.J. Brill)

 

STUPENDOUS SEA TURTLES - MORE THAN JUST A MARITIME MYTH?

Skeleton of Archelon (public domain)

Do the vast oceans of our planet conceal great sea turtles far larger than any that are officially known to exist there?

In this present ShukerNature article, I survey a number of very intriguing cases that provide tantalising intimations that this may indeed be possible. 

A meeting with a mega-turtle - might this scary scenario actually happen one day? (© Hodari Nundu)

The largest species of sea turtle ever known to have existed was Archelon ischyros, which lived some 70 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period in the seas around what is now North America.

The largest specimen on record measured over 13 ft long and roughly 16 ft across from flipper to flipper.

Leathery turtle on beach (public domain)

In comparison, the largest species known to exist today, the leathery (leatherback) turtle Dermochelys coriacea, attains a maximum recorded length of a 'mere' 9.8 ft, but averages only 6-7 ft.

However, reports of substantially larger sea turtles are also on file – veritable behemoths, in fact, which if their existence were ever scientifically confirmed would rival even the mighty Archelon itself.

 

FATHER-OF-ALL-THE-TURTLES

In his classic if highly controversial tome In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents (1968), Belgian cryptozoologist Dr Bernard Heuvelmans postulated the existence of a number of hypothetical creatures to explain hundreds of reports of sea serpents from around the globe. One of them was what he termed the 'Father-of-All-the-Turtles' – a name originally given by native Sumatran fishermen to a traditional sea deity in which they vehemently believe, and which allegedly assumes the guise of a gargantuan marine turtle.

Father-of-All-the-Turtles (© Tim Morris)

Alternative sea serpent classification systems subsequently devised by other cryptozoologists have also included this category, and there are several notable eyewitness accounts on file indicating that a turtle of truly immense size may indeed have been encountered in various far-flung maritime localities.

 

GIANT TURTLES IN ANTIQUITY AND MEDIEVAL TIMES

Perhaps the earliest report dates back as far as the 3^rd Century AD. This was when Roman scholar Claudius Aelianus (popularly known merely as Aelian), writing in his 17-volume treatise De Natura Animalium, referred to the existence in the Indian Ocean of turtles so colossal in size that their huge shells – said to be as much as 23.5 ft in circumference – were sometimes used by the native people as roofing material! Modern-day sceptics have claimed that if such shells truly existed, they must have been fossils. And it is certainly true that portions of fossilised shells from the land-living prehistoric giant tortoise Megalochelys [=Colossochelys] atlas have been unearthed in the rich deposits of Nepal's Siwalik Hills. Yet fossil shells would surely have been too brittle and much too heavy for roofing purposes.

Megalochelys [=Colossochelys] atlas reconstructions (© Vjdchauhan/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

Writing in his own magnum opus, Geography, which he completed in 1154 AD, Muhammad al-Idrisi, a notable Moroccan Islamic traveller, cartographer, and archaeologist, referred to comparably immense turtles, up to 20 cubits (33 ft) long, living in the Sea of Herkend, off the west coast of Sri Lanka, whose females contained up to a thousand eggs. Although he never personally visited Asia, he collated considerable amounts of detailed information from Islamic explorers and merchants, and recorded on Islamic maps. Having said that, however, turtles generally lay no more than a hundred eggs at a time, not a thousand, so perhaps some such reports were exaggerated (which may also account for the huge size claimed for these Herkend turtles?).

 

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND ANNIE L. HALL

Possibly the most famous eyewitness of a reputed mega-chelonian was none other than New World discoverer Christopher Columbus. In early September 1494, along with several of his crew, he witnessed an extraordinary creature likened to a whale-sized turtle with a visible pair of flippers and a long tail that kept its head above the water surface while swimming by as his vessels were sailing east along the southern coast of what is now the Dominican Republic, occupying the right-hand half of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

Posthumous painting allegedly depicting Christopher Columbus, by Sebastiano del Piombo, 1519; no confirmed paintings of Columbus are currently known (public domain)

On 30 March 1883, while aboard the schooner 'Annie L. Hall' in the North Atlantic's Grand Banks, Captain Augustus G. Hall and his crew spied what they initially took to be an upturned vessel but which, when they approached to within 25 ft of it, proved to be an enormous turtle. By comparing its dimensions with those of their vessel, they were able to estimate its total length as being at least 40 ft, its width as 29.5 ft, and its height from its carapace's apex to its plastron or under-shell's most ventral point as 29.5 ft. Even its flippers were immense – each one approximately 20 ft long. Not surprisingly, the captain deemed it inadvisable to attempt capturing this shell-bearing leviathan!

 

TURTLES OF A (VERY) DIFFERENT COLOUR!

During the 1950s, two ultra-giant turtles were reported that were highly distinctive due not only to their great size but also to their very unusual colouration. One of these was an alleged 14-ft-long yellow turtle witnessed on 8 March 1955 by L. Alejandro Velasco while stranded on a raft off Colombia's Gulf of Urabá. Its claimed length is greater than that of the largest leathery turtle on record.

Using a hawksbill turtle as its basis, a species native to the waters off Colombia, might the mysterious Colombian yellow sea turtle have looked something like this? (© Dr Karl Shuker)

The other was a 44-ft-long pure-white turtle with 14-ft flippers that was sighted south of Nova Scotia, Canada, in June 1956 by crew on board the cargo steamer 'Rhapsody'. According to their account, this huge creature could raise its head 8 ft out of the water.

 

ENCOUNTERING THE SOAY BEAST

Perhaps the most famous and controversial modern-day sighting of an alleged giant sea turtle occurred just a few years later, off the Scottish Inner Hebridean island of Soay. On 13 September 1959, while fishing here for mackerel, holidaying engineer James Gavin and local fisherman Tex Geddes were very startled to observe an extremely large sea creature swimming directly towards their boat, its head and back readily visible above the sea surface, until it was no more than 60 ft away.

According to their description, documented in a major Illustrated London News report of 4 June 1960, the head of this remarkable beast was definitely reptilian and resembled a tortoise's, with lateral eyes and a rounded face plus a horizontal gash for a mouth when closed, but it was as big as a donkey's, and the neck was cylindrical. The exposed portion of its back was humped in shape, and running down the centre was a series of triangular-shaped spines or serrations, like the teeth of a saw. The animal was so close that when it opened its mouth to breathe, emitting a very loud whistling roar, they could see the red lining inside, and what looked like loose flaps of skin hanging down from the roof, but there were no teeth.

Sketches of Soay Beast's alleged appearance, from Illustrated London News, 4 June 1960 ((© Illustrated London News – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

After remaining in sight for five minutes, their extraordinary visitor dived forward and vanished beneath the water surface, then emerged again almost a quarter of a mile away, before disappearing completely as they watched it. Moreover, the crews of two lobster boats, fishing north of Mallaig on the Scottish mainland, also spied this mysterious creature, much to their alarm!

Due to its mid-dorsal serrations, British zoologist Dr Maurice Burton wondered whether it may have been an escapee iguana, but the remainder of the Soay beast's description does not correspond with such an identity at all, and much more readily recalls a chelonian. Moreover, certain terrapins even possess dorsal serrations, though terrapins are of course freshwater species, not marine.

 

COULD UNDISCOVERED MEGA-TURTLES EXIST TODAY?

Reading through the above reports, various objections to the possibility of giant turtles existing undiscovered by science soon come to mind, but are they insurmountable? For instance: all known species of sea turtle have only short tails, so the long tail of the specimen sighted by Columbus and his crew is unexpected. Yet there are no sound anatomical or physiological reasons why a long-tailed species might not exist. In any case, it may be that at least part of the tail's length was an optical illusion, caused by the wake created as it swam by.

The odd colours of the two specimens reported during the mid-1950s pose another problem. However, perhaps the yellow colouration of the Colombian individual was merely due to reflected sunlight, or it might have been a rare xanthic (yellow mutant) individual. Equally, the white 'Rhapsody'-spied turtle may conceivably have been an albino or leucistic specimen – such individuals have been reported from many reptilian species, even ones as large as crocodiles and alligators. Indeed, a scan through Google will soon turn up a number of spectacular photographs of leucistic sea turtle specimens, confirming that such creatures can indeed arise (click here to see them). Having said that, some hawksbill turtles Eretmochelys imbricata can appear golden-brownish in colour, and even some non-leucistic green turtles Chelonia mydas look quite pale. Nevertheless, they do not attain the huge sizes claimed for the Colombian and 'Rhapsody' specimens respectively.

Exquisite vintage illustration of a leathery turtle by Ernst Haeckel, 1902 (public domain)

The cold-water regions in which the 'Rhapsody' specimen and the Soay beast were sighted argues on first sight against their being reptiles. However, the leathery turtle is famed for its ability to withstand coldwater temperatures, and of particular note in relation to the Soay case is the remarkable but fully-confirmed fact that in August 1971 a leathery turtle was caught near Mallaig!

If mega-turtles do truly exist, they must be at least predominantly pelagic in occurrence, otherwise they would have been seen far more frequently. Yet even if this is so, surely they would have been observed on land at some point, coming ashore to lay their eggs? Possibly – then again, there are countless small, remote, uninhabited tropical islands and island groups that have never been visited by humans. Indonesia, for instance, consists of over 17,500 islands, and more than 7,100 constitute the Philippines.

Alongside the model of a gigantic sea turtle hatchling at Birmingham Sea Life Centre, 2013 (© Dr Karl Shuker)

So perhaps it is beneath the coastal sands of tiny isles such as these, emerging at night for just a few hours only once every 2-3 years and far removed from prying human eyes or from other potential sources of danger to their precious offspring, where these shy reptilian giants (so adept when at sea but so vulnerable when on land) entrust their precious eggs and, while depositing them, their own lives too, before returning once more to the safety of their vast maritime domain.

Who knows? One day, possibly, an intrepid adventurer may visit one of these anonymous specks of land and there encounter a trail of huge flipper prints left behind by some great chelonian Man Friday.

Olive ridley sea turtles Lepidochelys olivacea ashore on a Mexican beach (© Claudio Giovenzana/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

This ShukerNature blog article is excerpted and adapted from my book Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History.

SEEKING THE SANDWELL VALLEYGATOR!

North America's common snapping turtle, from John Edwards Holbrook's book North American Herpetology (1842) (public domain)

It may be the town in which I was born, but West Bromwich in the West Midlands, England, is more readily associated with football, courtesy of West Bromwich Albion FC, than cryptozoology - until the Sandwell Valleygator came on the scene, that is, as now recalled in this ShukerNature retrospective.

Also nicknamed the Sandwell Snapper in early media accounts and initially likened to a crocodile, caiman, or alligator, this elusive aquatic cryptid first reared its snouted head on 30 March 1999. That was when fisherman Mike Sinnatt saw what he initially thought to be "a marvellously shaped piece of wood", measuring over 2 ft long, suddenly come alive and attempt to seize an unsuspecting Canada goose on Swan Pool.

Partial view of Sandwell Valley RSPB Reserve (© Bill Payer/Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 2.0 licence)

Situated in an RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) reserve within the Sandwell Valley Country Park - a verdant oasis for nature right in the heart of urbanised West Brom - Swan Pool measures more than a mile in circumference, and is not only inhabited by a rich variety of waterbirds but also is popular for angling, yachting, and wind-surfing.

Or at least it was until, within a short time of Sinnatt's sighting, a dozen other similar reports had surfaced, all describing a fairly sizeable four-legged aquatic beast with a notable snout, long tail, and a penchant for snapping at anything avian or piscean that came too near. Eyewitnesses included local angler Tony Price and pool lifeguard Ricky Downes, who spied its two "very chunky" hind legs and tail.

Was an alligator lurking in the Sandwell Valley?? (public domain)

Occurring so close to the beginning of April, the Sandwell Valleygator was originally dismissed by sceptics as a hoax, but this was strenuously denied by Sandwell Council, who were so concerned about the potential danger posed to the general public by the creature that they closed the pool to all watersports throughout the Easter Bank Holiday (3-6 April 1999). Needless to say, however, the considerable media publicity generated not only locally but also nationally and even internationally by Swan Pool's stealthy snapper resulted in a massive influx of visitors here (estimated at more than 9,000) during the Bank Holiday, all eagerly scanning the reed beds and shallows in search of its cryptic alligatorian (or crocodilesque?) interloper.

As I deemed it highly unlikely that the creature would appear when confronted by such a barrage of human activity, however, I waited until the holiday period was over before visiting Swan Pool myself. Walking around this sizeable lake, peering at the large island present at its centre, at the smaller pools and marshes fringing its border, and down into its murky depths, it swiftly became evident that an aquatic creature of the proportions described by the Valleygator's eyewitnesses could live out a secluded, rarely-spied existence here indefinitely.

I’m keeping a sharp lookout for the Sandwell Valleygator! (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Yet although neither the Valleygator itself nor any convincing reports of it surfaced during the Bank Holiday or my own subsequent visit, official opinion as to its identity had by now veered away from the scenario of a vicious snap-happy crocodile, caiman, or suchlike to the rather more placid scenario of a giant salamander. Specifically, the North American hellbender Cryptobranchus alleganiensis, which measures up to 30 in long, subsists upon small animal life such as frogs, fishes, snails, crustaceans, and insect larvae, and is native to the eastern United States.

Such a beast could certainly survive, therefore, in the prey-filled, temperate waters of Swan Pool. However, the fatal flaw in this otherwise promising proposal is that unlike certain crocodilian species the hellbender is hardly ever maintained in captivity by private individuals, especially in Britain. So the chance of one having escaped (or been deliberately released) and taken up residence in Swan Pool is extremely remote.

Head-on with a hellbender (public domain)

On 7 April, Swan Pool was formally re-opened, with the Sandwellmander, as it had by now been redubbed in media accounts, no longer deemed to pose a risk to watersport enthusiasts. Or, to quote from a local newspaper report the optimistic words of Sandwell's senior countryside ranger Roy Croucher: "We have decided to re-open the pool on the basis that this thing is not going to leap out of the water and grab someone around the throat".

Less than a week later, however, an unexpected water beast did make an appearance - a North American common snapping turtle Chelydra serpentina, discovered sunbathing on a marsh close to Swan Pool. As its name suggests, this belligerent, sturdy species of freshwater tortoise is famous for snapping viciously, possesses a prominent snout, a long tail, and can grow up to 2 ft long (its close relative the alligator snapping turtle Macrochelys temminckii can reach lengths of almost 3 ft). Hence it exhibits the very same features consistently described by eyewitnesses of the Swan Pool mystery beast. Moreover, in sharp contrast to the hellbender, the snapping turtle is commonly kept by professional and amateur herpetological enthusiasts alike, so an escapee (or even a deliberately released) specimen of this species turning up here is by no means implausible.

Handle with care! A common snapping turtle (public domain)

All of which only adds, therefore, to the mystery of why, or how, an unnamed Sandwell Council spokesman could confidently state in subsequent media accounts that this captured snapping turtle was not the elusive Swan Pool cryptid. How did he, or anyone else, know? Snapping turtles are readily able to walk on land, so one could easily have made its way back and forth between Swan Pool and any of the neighbouring marshes

In late July 2001, moreover, a notable sequel occurred - the netting in Swan Pool of an 18-in-long American common snapping turtle, weighing in at a hefty 4 lb. Captured alive but in a distinctly irate state by teenager Harry Billingham, assisted by his stepdad Mark, Harry's brother Jack, and friend Dean Cooke, the aggressive reptile was swiftly brought to the attention of the local RSPCA office by its astonished captors.

A snapper rises to the occasion (public domain)

As this species is not native to Britain or anywhere else in Europe, the Swan Pool specimen must have been abandoned there by someone, no doubt when it was much smaller - hence quite some time ago, and possibly far back enough for it to have been responsible for the 1999 Sandwell Valleygator flap? Perhaps, when some initial media accounts nicknamed it the Sandwell Snapper, they were closer to the truth than anyone realised.

Further support for this identity as a plausible solution to the Valleygator mystery was obtained on 18 July 2003, when a second sizeable adult American common snapping turtle, sporting a shell diameter of 14 inches and believed to be up to 20 years old, was snared in another West Midlands pool, this time one just north of Slacky Lane in Walsall. As for the Valleygator itself, meanwhile, nothing more has been seen or heard of it, so one or both of the above-mentioned snappers captured respectively near to or at Swan Pool may indeed have been responsible for those pre-Easter sightings of it back in spring 1999. Then again...

A snapper seen underwater (© Manfred Werner/Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)