THE SIX-LEGGED SEA SERPENT OF STRONSAY - STILL BASKING IN CRYPTOZOOLOGICAL CONTROVERSY?

Modern-day artistic representation of what the Stronsay beast might have looked like if it had literally resembled in life the eyewitness descriptions of it in death (© Tim Morris)

Down through the centuries, countless reports of mysterious sea ‘monsters’ have been reported, often grouped together within that infamously heterogeneous cryptozoological conglomerate popularly known collectively as the Great Sea Serpent. In most cases, such reports consist entirely of eyewitness sightings, unsubstantiated by anything tangible that can be directly examined afterwards by interested researchers. Occasionally, however, physical evidence IS obtained…

Perhaps the most famous of such cases occurred at Stronsay, one of the Orkney Islands off northern Scotland. On 26 September 1808, farmer John Peace was fishing east of Rothiesholm Point when he saw what seemed to be the carcase of a whale, cast up onto the rocks, above which were flocks of circling seabirds. He rowed up to it in his boat and examined it, and found that it was a very peculiar-looking creature, which did not resemble anything known to him. At that same time, another farmer, George Sherar, was watching Peace from the shore, and was able to confirm all of this. About 10 days later, moreover, he was able to see it for himself, because it was washed ashore on Stronsay, lying on its belly just below the high tide mark.

When Sherar discovered it there, he measured it, and found it to be 55 ft long. At least two other eyewitnesses (the afore-mentioned Peace and carpenter Thomas Fotheringhame) also measured it, and they obtained the same result. It was very serpentine, almost eel-like in general build, but possessed a 15-ft neck, a small head, and a long mane running along its back to the end of its tail. Most bizarre of all, however, was that it seemed to have three pairs of legs, and each foot had five or six toes. Sherar salvaged some vertebrae and the skull of this extraordinary creature – duly dubbed the Stronsay beast.

From the Wernerian Natural History Society's memoirs for 1808-1810, published in 1811, a sketch of the Stronsay sea serpent based upon eyewitness George Sherar's description and agreed by Sherar to be "an exact resemblance" of what he saw (public domain)

Details of its discovery and description ultimately reached Patrick Neill, secretary of Edinburgh's Wernerian Natural History Society, and at a meeting of the society on 19 November 1808 Neill released some details on this subject. At the next meeting, on 14 January 1809, he gave the Stronsay beast a formal scientific name - Halsydrus pontoppidani *, 'Pontoppidan's water snake of the sea' (after Erik Pontoppidan, an 18^th-Century Norwegian bishop who had collected many sea serpent reports).

Erik Pontoppidan (public domain)

At that same meeting, Scottish anatomist Dr John Barclay, who had examined some of the beast's remains in Orkney, presented a paper in which he described the vertebrae, skull, and one of the creature's legs. His paper, accompanied with detailed diagrams, was published in 1811, within the society's memoirs, and attracted a great deal of attention. The vertebrae were very striking, resembling cotton reels, and were cartilaginous, but with calcification that radiated from the centre of each vertebra in a star-like pattern. The leg was also cartilaginous, but was not a real, jointed leg at all; it was merely a fin.

Dr John Barclay, 1820 portrait (public domain)

To many people, these features meant little, but they meant a great deal to the eminent naturalist Sir Everard Home, who was working at that time upon an exhaustive study of the basking shark Cetorhinus maximus - the world's second largest species of shark, but generally harmless, living on plankton. When Home heard about the Stronsay beast, he felt sure that it must have been a shark. This is because the only creatures to have cartilaginous vertebrae are sharks and rays, and the only creatures to have cartilaginous vertebrae with star-shaped calcification are sharks. Furthermore, when he compared the Stronsay beast's vertebrae, skull, and other salvaged remains with the corresponding portions of a known specimen of basking shark, they matched very closely.

Sir Everard Home (public domain)

Yet the long-necked, six-legged, mane-bearing Stronsay beast looked nothing like a basking shark - so how could this drastic difference in appearance be resolved? In fact, it was quite simple.

Stronsay beast vertebrae, an engraving from Barclay's 1811 paper (public domain)

When basking shark carcases begin to decompose, the entire gill apparatus falls away, taking with it the shark's characteristic jaws, and leaving behind only its small cranium and its exposed backbone, which have the appearance of a small head and a long neck. The triangular dorsal fin also rots away, sometimes leaving behind the rays, which can look a little like a mane - especially when the fish's skin also decays, allowing the underlying muscle fibres and connective tissue to break up into hair-like growth.

Additionally, the end of the backbone only runs into the top fluke of the tail, which means that during decomposition the lower tail fluke falls off, leaving behind what looks like a long slender tail. The pectoral and sometimes the pelvic fins remain attached, but become distorted, so that they can (with a little imagination!) look like legs with feet and toes. The resulting deceptively plesiosaur-like carcase is popularly (and fittingly) dubbed a pseudo-plesiosaur.

Finally, male sharks have a pair of leg-like copulatory organs called claspers, which would yield a third pair of 'legs', as happened with the Stronsay beast. Suddenly, a male basking shark has become a hairy six-legged long-necked sea serpent!

How a basking shark carcase decomposes into a pseudo-plesiosaur (© Markus Bühler/Journal of Cryptozoology)

Over the years, almost all of the Stronsay beast's preserved remains have been lost or destroyed, but three vertebrae are retained in Edinburgh's Royal Museum of Scotland - the last remnants of Stronsay's world-famous hexapodal sea serpent. Its mystery, conversely, continues to the present day, and for very good reason. The longest conclusively-identified basking shark that has been accurately measured was a truly exceptional specimen caught in 1851 in Canada's Bay of Fundy; whereas the average length for its species is under 26 ft, this veritable monster was a mighty 40 ft 3 in. Yet even that is almost 15 ft less than the length claimed by eyewitnesses for the Stronsay beast. Even the largest scientifically-measured specimen of the world's biggest fish - the whale shark Rhincodon typus - was only(!) 41.5 ft long.

Accordingly, in 2008 archaeogeneticist Dr Yvonne Simpson, who had been studying the Stronsay beast's few preserved remains since 2001, was reported in various media interviews as stating that due to its size she wondered whether it may have been some other species of shark rather than a basking shark, and was hoping to conduct DNA tests upon some newly-recovered bone fragments from this contentious carcase that had been given to her by a private collector (Daily Telegraph, 8 September 2008). However, nothing further seems to have emerged regarding this potentially exciting prospect.

Some cryptozoologists have also questioned whether the 55-ft Stronsay beast really was a basking shark, speculating that it may have belonged to a still-unknown, giant relative. One of the world's largest known sharks, the formidable megamouth Megachasma pelagios, remained wholly unknown to humankind until 15 November 1976, when the first recorded specimen was accidentally hauled up from the sea near the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Consequently, the prospect of undiscovered species of extra-large shark still eluding scientific discovery in modern times is far from being as unlikely as one might otherwise assume.

Megamouth shark (© FLMNH Ichthyology/Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)

Alternatively, might the Stronsay beast simply have been an exceptionally large specimen of basking shark after all? In a Facebook comment concerning this classic sea monster carcase posted on 16 October 2019, American cryptozoologist Ken Gerhard offered the following pertinent thoughts:

Of course there were more outsized fish in those days - before population explosions, pollution and aggressive, industrialized fishing took hold. Perhaps the Stronsay Beast represented one of the last monster-sized basking sharks? 

This is the possibility that I personally consider most reasonable.

A third option is that the latter beast's size may have been measured inaccurately by its eyewitnesses – the option favoured by Home, who discounted the claimed 55-ft total length in favour of a more conservative yet still very impressive 36 ft. Yet if so, it seems very strange that three separate people measured it (one of whom, Thomas Fotheringhame, was a carpenter and therefore skilled in accurate measurement) and all obtained the same 55-ft total length for it. As is so often true with cryptozoological cases that date back quite considerably, it is likely that no conclusive answer will ever be obtained, so the controversy surrounding the Stronsay beast seems destined to persist indefinitely.

Having said that: during December 1941, history somewhat repeated itself in the Orkneys when a strange carcase, 25 ft long, was washed ashore at Scapa Flow. Its superficially prehistoric, plesiosaurian appearance was presumably sufficient for Provost J.G. Marwick, who had documented it in detail in a local newspaper account (Orkney Blast, 30 January 1942), to dub this enigma 'Scapasaurus'. Fortunately, a single vertebra from its remains was preserved and retained at London's Natural History Museum, which readily identified it as a basking shark.

* Taxonomic tail-note: Halsydrus pontoppidani Neill, 1809 is currently designated as a junior synonym of the basking shark's officially-recognised binomial name, Cetorhinus maximus Gunnerus, 1765.

Basking shark (public domain)

GLOBSTERS ABOUNDING! - PART 2: SEEKING GIANT OCTOPUSES… BUT FINDING ROTTING SPERM WHALES

Vintage illustration of a deepsea octopus, by Ernst Haeckel (public domain)

In Part 1 of this ShukerNature blog article (click here), I surveyed a wide range of globsters, including the celebrated Trunko, and I also chronicled a selection of reports featuring alleged giant octopuses – traditionally, the most popular identity for globsters. As now revealed, however, modern-day studies of these latter anomalous entities have unveiled a very different explanation for them.

UNMASKING THE GLOBSTERS, AND UNVEILING THE QUASI-OCTOPUS

Thanks to the advances in DNA technology during the past two decades, science now has a reliable tool with which to investigate and expose the hitherto-cryptic identity of globsters, and in the past few years this is precisely what has happened, with eye-opening results.

The first notable globster to be unmasked by DNA analyses was the Fortune Bay specimen from Newfoundland. In February 2002, a team of researchers led by Newfoundland molecular systematics expert Dr Steven M. Carr published their findings in the Biological Bulletin scientific journal, summarising them as follows:

"DNA was extracted from the carcass and enzymatically amplified by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR): the mitochondrial NADH2 DNA sequence was identified as that of a sperm whale (Physeter catodon). Amplification and sequencing of cryptozoological DNA with "universal" PCR primers with broad specificity to vertebrate taxa and comparison with species in the GenBank taxonomic database is an effective means of discriminating otherwise unidentifiable large marine creatures."

Effective it has certainly been. One South Florida scientist with a longstanding interest in globsters is Dr Sidney K. Pierce, and in recent years he has led several studies of preserved globster remains, culminating in a detailed Biological Bulletin paper of June 2004 co-authored by Carr and several other researchers, which concentrated upon the Chilean globster but also examined samples from various additional specimens.

Chilean globster (© Dr Elsa Cabrera – Fair Use/Educational Purposes Only)

The team announced:

"Electron microscopy revealed that the remains [of the Chilean globster] are largely composed of an acellular, fibrous network reminiscent of the collagen fiber network in whale blubber. Amino acid analyses of an acid hydrolysate indicated that the fibers are composed of 31% glycine residues and also contain hydroxyproline and hydroxylysine, all diagnostic of collagen. Using primers designed to the mitochondrial gene nad2, an 800-bp product of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was amplified from DNA that had been purified from the carcass. The DNA sequence of the PCR product was 100% identical to nad2 of sperm whale (Physeter catodon). These results unequivocally demonstrate that the Chilean Blob is the almost completely decomposed remains of the blubber layer of a sperm whale. This identification is the same as those we have obtained before from other relics such as the so-called giant octopus of St. Augustine (Florida), the Tasmanian West Coast Monster, two Bermuda Blobs, and the Nantucket Blob. It is clear now that all of these blobs of popular and cryptozoological interest are, in fact, the decomposed remains of large cetaceans."

Yet how can a decomposed sperm whale transform in shape and texture so dramatically that it becomes a globster, sometimes even equipped with apparent tentacles? As I revealed in my book, Extraordinary Animals Revisited (2007), the answer is fascinating, and also has a notable precedent:

"There is a notable precedent for such dramatic misidentification when dealing with beached remains, which is known as the pseudo-plesiosaur effect. When a basking shark Cetorhinus maximus dies and its body decomposes, it undergoes a remarkable transformation. The gill apparatus falls away, taking with it the shark's jaws, leaving only its small cranium and exposed backbone, thus resembling a small head and long neck. The end of the shark's backbone only runs into the upper fluke of its tail, so during decomposition the lower fluke falls off, leaving what looks like a long slender tail. And to complete the plesiosaur deception, the shark's pectoral fins, and sometimes its pelvic fins too, remain attached, resembling two pairs of flippers. Little wonder, therefore, why a number of amazingly plesiosaurian carcases have been reported over the years, only for anatomical and biochemical analyses to expose them as sharks.

"Now, moreover, we have confirmation that an analogous transformation is responsible for at least some of the hitherto perplexing globsters that have come to light - a transformation that I propose should hereafter be referred to as the quasi-octopus effect. As detailed by Drs Pierce, Carr, and Letelier, after a whale dies its body can float for months, decomposing, until eventually its heavy backbone and skull dissociate from their encompassing skin-sac of rotting blubber, and sink to the sea bottom, leaving behind a thick gelatinous matrix of collagen - the tough protein found in skin and connective tissue. It is this mass of collagen, still encased in its skin-sac, that washes ashore, as a globster. Furthermore, if a few of the whale's ribs remain within the collagen matrix, and any 'fingers' of fibrous flesh are attached to them, these resemble tentacles [or even a trunk, in the case of Trunko]. And if the whale is a sperm whale, the spermaceti organ gives the resulting globster a bulky shape reminiscent of an octopus."

So does that mean that globsters are a dead-end as far as providing evidence for the reality of giant octopuses is concerned? Not quite, perhaps...

VERRILLY A GIANT OCTOPUS?

The grand-daddy of all globsters was washed ashore near St Augustine, Florida, on 30 November 1896. Its prodigious remains, pinkish-grey and pear-shaped, were over 6 m long, 1.6 m wide, and 1.3 m high, and were estimated to weigh 5 tons. What appeared to be the stumps of five massive tentacles were clearly visible in photographs taken of this monstrous carcase by local physician DeWitt Webb, as was what seemed to be a severed tentacle, measuring 8.7 m long and 20 cm thick. Webb sent a sample of its tough flesh to Yale University cephalopod (squid and octopus) expert Prof. Addison E. Verrill, who announced that the carcase had been a giant octopus, which he formally christened Octopus giganteus. Later, however, Verrill recanted, claiming that it was merely the spermaceti organ of a sperm whale.

St Augustine globster (public domain)

A second sample, sent to the Smithsonian Institution, has been tested on numerous occasions via several different techniques, and has yielded differing results. Whereas Pierce’s studies indicated that it was indeed of sperm whale origin, analyses by eminent Chicago University biochemist and longstanding cryptozoological investigator Prof. Roy P. Mackal strongly supported an octopus identity. However, the sample has been preserved for so long that it has probably been contaminated and rendered useless for detailed study - which would explain the greatly diverging results - unless future advances in technology can overcome this obstacle. If they can, then interested researchers should apply to the Institute of Creation Research (ICR) in El Cajon, California, for it is here that the only surviving sample of tissue from the St Augustine globster can be found, donated by Prof. Mackal in 2003 to the ICR’s Professor of Biology, Dr Kenneth Cummings.

Drawing of St Augustine globster by Prof. Addison E. Verrill (public domain)

How ironic it would be if the existence or otherwise of what would be (if real) one of the largest marine creatures alive today – the elusive giant octopus – is ultimately determined by this tiniest sliver of substance, the last remnant from one of cryptozoology’s most enduring enigmas. For a further picture and details concerning this globster, click here to access my ShukerNature-reprinted interview conducted back in the 1990s with Prof. Mackal.

THE MULTI-LIMBED MONSTER OF ANTIBES

In addition: A truly bizarre sea monster was allegedly sighted between Antibes and Nice in 1562. Oval in shape, with a pig’s head at one end and a trunked elephant-like head at the other, it boasted no less than eleven claw-bearing limbs.

Antibes multi-limbed sea monster (public domain)

Is it possible that this weird entity, depicted in the Paralipomena (supplement) to the second edition of Conrad Gesner’s Historiae Animalium Liber IV: Piscium et Aquatilium Animantium Natura (1604), was a distorted description of a giant octopus?

GIANT OCTOPUS, OR MYSTERY JELLYFISH?

Finally: In 1953, while testing a new type of deep-sea diving suit in the South Pacific, an Australian diver named Christopher Loeb encountered a Lovecraftian horror from the ocean’s unpenetrated depths, which I documented as follows within my book From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (1997):

"The diver had been following a shark, and was resting on the edge of a chasm leading down to much deeper depths, still watching the shark, when an immense, dull-brown, shapeless mass rose up out of the chasm, pulsating sluggishly, and flat in general outline with ragged edges.

"Despite appearing devoid of eyes or other instantly-recognizable sensory organs, this malign presence evidently discerned the shark's presence somehow, because it floated upwards until its upper surface made direct contact. The shark instantly gave a convulsive shudder, and was then drawn without resistance into the hideous monster's body. After that, the creature sank back down into the chasm, leaving behind a very frightened diver to ponder what might have happened if that nightmarish, nameless entity had not been attracted towards the shark!"

Cirrothauma murrayi, a species of deepsea cirrate octopus (public domain)

In the past, a deepsea octopus has been offered as a possible identity for this disturbing creature, but as I discussed in detail within my book, a far more satisfactory candidate is a deepsea jellyfish.

Whereas all octopuses have tentacles, some deepsea jellyfishes do not. What they do have, however, are potent stinging cells called nematocysts on their bodies (and tentacles if they possess any), armed with venom that swiftly paralyses their prey. This would readily explain the immediate paralysis of the shark. Moreover, jellyfishes do not possess true eyes but they are equipped with sensory structures responsive to water movements. Consequently, the creature would have learnt of the shark’s presence by detecting its movements in the water. How lucky, then, that the diver had remained stationary!

Artistic representation of the deadly Chilean hide (© Icarito)

Interestingly, Chilean legends tell of a very similar beast called el cuero or the hide, as it is likened in shape and size to a cowhide stretched out flat, with countless eyes around its perimeter, and four larger ones in the centre. As it happens, jellyfishes possess peripheral sensory organs called rhopalia that incorporate simple light-sensitive eyespots or ocelli.

Moreover, some jellyfishes also have four larger, deceptively eye-like organs visible at the centre of their bell, though in reality these organs are not eyes at all. Instead, they are actually portions of the jellyfishes' gut, known as gastric pouches, with the jellyfishes' horseshoe-shaped gonads sited directly underneath these pouches and also very visible (as in the familiar moon jellyfish Aurelia aurita).

Exquisite illustration of various jellyfish species revealing their four centrally-sited gastric pouches, depicted by Ernst Haeckel (public domain)

So perhaps the deadly hide is more than a myth after all, lurking like so many other maritime horrors reported down through the ages in the deep oceans' impenetrable black abyss, but only very rarely encountered by humankind – which in view of the dreadful fate that befell the hapless South Pacific shark in 1953 may be just as well!

A sinister-looking deepsea octopus in a 19th-Century illustration (public domain)

For further details concerning globsters and Trunko, check out my books Extraordinary Animals Revisited and Mirabilis.

TWO SEA MONSTERS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!

 

Photograph #1 - Kent sea monster carcase 1976, with pseudo-plesiosaur portion above mini-globster portion (Juliet Lilienthal)

Sea monsters can be very deceiving, even when dead. For example, it is well known, especially in cryptozoological circles, that the decomposing carcase of a beached basking shark Cetorhinus maximus often transforms very dramatically, and deceptively, to yield what on first sight looks remarkably like a long-necked, four-flippered, slender-tailed, hairy plesiosaur-like creature. This is the so-called pseudo-plesiosaur effect, in which the jaw and sizeable gill apparatus fall away, revealing a lengthy portion of vertebral column that superficially resembles an elongate neck, coupled with the shark's dried-out pectoral and pelvic fins looking like flippers, its lower tail fin dropping off, and its skin's exposed collagenous connective fibres gaining the appearance of thick fur.

Similarly, when a sperm whale Physeter macrocephalus dies at sea and its carcase gradually rots, its heavy skull and skeleton eventually sink down to the ocean floor, but sometimes a very sizeable skin-sac of rotting blubber, surfaced externally with exposed connective tissue fibres, will remain afloat - encasing a thick matrix of collagen and often not only the substantial spermaceti organ too but also a few isolated ribs with fibrous flesh still attached. If subsequently washed ashore, becoming what is popularly dubbed a globster, this hairy, bulky gelatinous mass, with the ribs protruding like tentacles, is sometimes mistaken for the mortal remains of a gargantuan octopus – an extraordinary metamorphosis just as radical as the pseudo-plesiosaur effect, and one, therefore, that a few years ago I christened the quasi-octopus effect.

Obviously, however, as a pseudo-plesiosaur only arises with decomposing sharks whereas a quasi-octopus only arises with decomposing whales, there is no mechanism by which both of these artefacts - these charlatan sea monsters - could result from the same carcase. Or at least that is what I had always assumed – until the following case (not previously published online) was brought to my attention.

How a basking shark carcase decomposes into a pseudo-plesiosaur (Markus Bühler/Journal of Cryptozoology)

It was on 6 February 1996 that Roger C. Reeves from Brisbane in Queensland, Australia, wrote a short letter to me informing me of what he referred to as a mysterious rotting sea creature that had been seen – and photographed - lying on a beach in Kent, England, in 1976 by his secretary, Mrs Juliet Lilienthal, who lived there at that time. Mr Reeves kindly provided me with his secretary's current address, and after writing to her I received four excellent close-up photos of the carcase, three of which are reproduced here (the fourth was merely a paler duplicate of Photo #1).

With the photos (which she kindly permitted me to retain and use for my researches if I so chose), Mrs Lilienthal enclosed the following short letter:

"The enclosed photographs were taken in 1976 and I was wondering if the creature was a form of shark. It was washed up on the beach, it had a form of scales on the body and seemed like feathers on the neck – the head was only bone and gristle, the tail was long, similar to a crocodile with (which seemed) elephant hair at the base of the tail. It must have been damaged by a boat because the lungs were spread out on the beach (as seen in photo. It had flippers and feet, and was pregnant."

Combined with the above description, the photos depict a classic pseudo-plesiosaur, from the cartilaginous (gristle) skull or chondrocranium possessed by sharks, and the long neck created by the jaw and gill apparatus falling away, to the flippers, and the long crocodile-like tail, resulting from the breaking off during decomposition of the lower fin, leaving behind only the upper fin (into which a shark's backbone runs).

The scales were the rough, tooth-like dermal denticles borne in the skin of sharks, and the neck 'feathers' were strands of exposed connective tissue, as were the 'elephant hair' at the tail base. So far, so good.

Photograph #2 - Kent sea monster carcase 1976, with pseudo-plesiosaur portion on the left (head lowermost) and mini-globster on the right (Juliet Lilienthal)

As can be clearly seen in Photos #1 and #2, however, also present was what looked for all the world like a mini-globster, lying on the beach a little way apart from the rest of the carcase (i.e. the pseudo-plesiosaur portion), and possibly placed there specifically by one or more of the various interested onlookers (of which there were many, judging from the photos), but still physically linked to it by tissue. In her note, Mrs Lilienthal presumed that this peculiar object was the creature's lungs, but as the creature was a shark it obviously did not possess lungs, respiring via gills instead. So just what was the mini-globster?

As it was part of the shark carcase, it was evidently not a true globster, i.e. a quasi-octopus, composed of whale blubber and collagen. Instead, it was undoubtedly an organ of some kind, but in view of its very large size in relation to the main, pseudo-plesiosaur portion of the carcase it was no ordinary one.

Photograph #3 - Kent sea monster carcase 1976, showing close-up of pseudo-plesiosaur portion's body and the tissue section linking it to the mini-globster and containing the apparent gill arches (Juliet Lilienthal)

Looking at Photos 2# and 3#, the mini-globster appeared to be connected to the pseudo-plesiosaur portion via a series of white, bony-looking arches, which I assumed were the gill arches component of the gill apparatus. As for the mini-globster itself, the only organ in sharks that attains such a size is the liver. In some species, this massive bilobate, oil-storing mass can account for as much as 25 per cent of the shark's total body weight, and can occupy up to 90 per cent of the total space present within its body cavity! Moreover, with regard to the basking shark, the liver is so substantial that in a 2072-lb (940-kg) individual, it can yield as much as 549 gallons (2270 litres) of shark liver oil!

Keen to receive some independent opinions, however, I showed the photos to two colleagues who share my interest in 'sea monster' carcases. One was German cryptozoological researcher Markus Hemmler, with whom in September 2010 I had already successfully uncovered the identity of a uniquely perplexing sea monster – the enigmatic Trunko (click here, here, here, and here). The other was British palaeontologist Dr Darren Naish, who has surveyed a number of classic sea monster corpses online in his Tetrapod Zoology blog (click here); as, indeed, has Markus in his own Kryptozoologie-Online blog (click here). What were their views?

Markus agreed that the white arches were probably the gill arches, and he prepared a version of Photo #3 in which he ringed these in red (Photo #3a). As for the mini-globster itself, he wondered whether this may constitute some remains from the shark's pectoral girdle.

Photograph #3a - Photo #3 of Kent sea monster carcase 1976, with the apparent gill arches ringed in red by Markus Hemmler (Juliet Lilienthal/Markus Hemmler)

Conversely, noting that the mini-globster seemed to lack any vertical bars, which should still be present if it was part of the gill apparatus, and also that it looked much too solid in form to be the latter, Darren leaned towards it being the liver, confirming that the liver of sharks is indeed huge, extending for much of the body's length. Moreover, the texture of the mini-globster is somewhat liverish in appearance.

Although I wrote back to Mrs Lilienthal requesting any further information that she could offer me, particularly in relation to the precise location in Kent where the carcase had turned up, I didn't receive any further response from her, and I have no knowledge of whether any samples were taken from it for scientific analysis.

Even so, the photos (which are among the best that I have seen of a supposed sea monster carcase) and her written description are sufficiently informative for me to state with an unexpected degree of confidence when dealing with such notoriously ambiguous specimens as sea monster carcases that the Kent 'two for the price of one' carcase from 1976 was assuredly a highly decomposed shark, probably a basking shark in view of its large size (using the onlookers surrounding it as a scale), with the mini-globster most probably either a portion of its gill apparatus or (the identity I personally favour) the shark's liver.

If any ShukerNature readers happened to be among those onlookers who in 1976 viewed the Kent sea monster carcase documented here, and could provide additional information concerning it, I would love to receive your comments and information here!

I wish to offer my sincere thanks to Robert C. Reeves and Juliet Lilienthal for bringing this very noteworthy case to my attention via their letters and photographs, and to Markus Hemmler and Dr Darren Naish for their much-valued opinions concerning it.

A living, pre-pseudo-plesiosaur basking shark!

THE GOUROCK SEA SERPENT - METAPHORICALLY EXHUMING A LONG-BURIED CRYPTO-MYSTERY

Representation of the Gourock sea serpent carcase, based upon a sketch by eyewitness Charles Rankin (Dr Karl Shuker)

The history of cryptozoology is embarrassingly well-supplied with classic cases of lost opportunities, and the long-running saga of the sea serpents has provided quite a number of these over the years. One of the most notable examples took place on the shores of Gourock, on Scotland's River Clyde. This was where, in summer 1942, an intriguing (if odiferous!) carcase was stranded that was closely observed by council officer Charles Rankin.

Measuring 27-28 ft long, it had a lengthy neck, a relatively small flattened head with sharp muzzle and prominent eyebrow ridges, large pointed teeth in each jaw, rather large laterally-sited eyes, a long rectangular tail that seemed to have been vertical in life, and two pairs of 'L'-shaped flippers (of which the front pair were the larger, and the back pair the broader). Curiously, its body did not appear to contain any bones other than its spinal column, but its smooth skin bore many 6-in-long, bristle-like 'hairs' - resembing steel knitting needles in form and thickness but more flexible.

Rankin was naturally very curious to learn what this strange creature could be, whose remains resembled those of a huge lizard in his opinion; but as World War II was well underway and this locality had been classed as a restricted area, he was not permitted to take any photographs of it, and scientists who might otherwise have shown an interest were presumably occupied with wartime work. Consequently, this mystery beast's carcase was summarily disposed of - hacked into pieces and buried in the grounds of the municipal incinerator, but which have since been converted into a football pitch. All that remained to verify its onetime existence was one of its strange 'knitting needle' bristles, which Rankin had pulled out of a flipper and kept in his desk, where it eventually shrivelled until it resembled a coiled spring.

Great white shark - was this, or some similar canivorous shark species, the identity of the Gourock sea serpent?

When considered collectively, features such these bristles (readily recalling the ceratotrichia - cartilaginous fibres - of shark fin rays), the carcase's lizard-like shape, vertical tail (characteristic of fishes), lack of body bones, and smooth skin suggest a decomposing shark as a plausible identity (i.e. adopting the deceptive 'pseudoplesiosaur' form so frequently reported for rotting basking sharks).

Yet the large pointed teeth argue against this traditional basking shark explanation in favour of one of the large carnivorous species. However, if Rankin's estimate of its size was accurate, it must have been a veritable monster of a specimen - the world's largest known species of carnivorous shark, the notorious great white shark Carcharodon carcharias, rarely exceeds 20 ft.

If only some taxonomically-significant portion of the Gourock sea serpent's body could have been retained for formal examination - in particular its skull, a flipper, or at least some teeth. Instead, they have presumably been pounded ever deeper into the earth by the studs of a succession of soccer teams - oblivious to the cryptozoological treasure trove lying forgotten beneath their feet.

Diagram revealing how a decomposing basking shark (top) transforms into a deceptively plesiosaurian carcase, known as a pseudoplesiosaur (centre), with a genuine plesiosaur (bottom) for comparison (Markus Bühler)

Incidentally, it hardly need be said that the local council would definitely not be best pleased if anyone should attempt to dig up the grounds in search of this creature's remains without having first received permission to do so!!