Bibliography Update

Ive added a new book to my slowly growing bibliography.
Check out The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Seaby Philip Hoare.
I definitely recommend this book for anyone interested in the relationship between man and whale. It both informed and infuriated me as it dove in to the history of the whaling industry, and educated me on aspects of whales in natural history that I had never even considered. Pick it up!

I'm currently eating through an interesting text about Big Cat fossils and evolution, so check for that soon!

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Bowhead Whale

Well, Mythological Creatures Week is now over and I certainly had an interesting time fishing for information on some well, and not so well known legendary beasts. But alas! It is time to return to the realm of fact!

Image From SuperCentenarian.com

I've been reading Philip Hoare's The Whale lately, (which will be up on the Bibliography once I actually finish it) and have stumbled across a fact that blew my mind. Bowhead Whales (Balaena mysticetus) can live to be over 200 years old. Until a few decades ago, no one really thought that these rare, Arctic dwellers lived any longer than the standard 60-70 years for whale... and then they found the harpoons. Individual whales were found that had harpoon tips that hadn't been manufactured since the 1860s and 70s. Those whales had been swimming around with broken tips in their skin for over a hundred years. More and more specimens were found with these odd instruments, and with subsequent Amino Acid testing it has now been determined that Bowheads can live to a ripe age of 200. How do they do it? Well, their year-round Arctic habitat probably helps to slow down their metabolism. They are one of the few whales that live in such conditions for their entire lives.

Bowhead Whales are baleen whales, meaning that they consume plankton which is filtered through large keratin plates in their mouths. The baleen of a Bowhead can grow up to 13ft in length, which made it highly sought after by the commercial whaling industry. Bowheads are so named because their heads resemble an archer's bow, and the almost triangular shape of their head may help them to break through the Arctic Ice. Bowheads are able to reach lengths of 50ft, and weights of 60tons. They resemble the three Right Whale species that share their family, Balaenidae, but they are the only extant species within their genus.

Sadly, the Bowhead Whale was hunted to near extinction for their oil and baleen. A ban on hunting since the 1980s has allowed their numbers to steadily rise, and now only indigenous peoples are able to collect set numbers of them each year. The total worldwide population is unknown.

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Chupacabra

All of the Mythical Creatures covered this week have been beast rooted in hundreds of years of legend and tradition. Such is not the case with today's creature. Chupacabras, the "Goat-Suckers," have only been around and popular since the mid-90s, which is when most of the incidents began.

Image from VirtueScience

What are these incidents? Well, on multiple occasion and in multiple locations across Latin America, livestock has been been found dead.... and completely drained of blood. Often there are no tracks around the corpses, and they have strange puncture marks. The first of these incidents was in Puerto Rico in 1995, where 8 sheep were found bloodless. A few other occurrences date to the 1970s, but those may not be linked, as the sightings and livestock killings happened in huge numbers post 1995. Most of these incidents have happened in Latin America, but some have been reported as far away as Oregon and Michigan.

Chupacabras are described in a wide manner of ways. They are dog like, yet lizard like. They have wings, they don't have wings. There are a handful of people who claim they've killed Chupacabras, but the animals they find always turn out to be something else (like a Coyote baby Raccoon!) So what could the Chupacabra be? Some think its related to the Vampire Bats, which are also found in Latin America. Some think it's a government experiment gone very, very wrong. Some point to Aliens. And others believe it's a pack of wild dogs doing all of the damage. No one knows for sure, and incidents and sightings keep happening. Awesome.

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The Loch Ness Monster

How could I do a mythical creatures special without mentioning one of Cryptozoology's favorite mysteries? Stories of the Loch Ness Monster date back hundreds of years. One particular example from 565 CE tells of Saint Columba saving a swimmer in the Ness. This story was even recorded in chapter 28 of Adamnan's 7th century Life of St. Columba.

The Surgeon's Photo (1934)

Modern interest in "Nessie" arose during the 1930s after a road was built alongside the 25 mile long lake. Perhaps the most iconic depiction comes from a 1934 photograph known as the "surgeon's photo." This image cemented the Loch Ness Monster as a plesiosaur-type creature. The surgeon's photo is now believed to be a fake, but even without it, there have been dozens, if not hundreds of sightings, including other photographs and videos.

What could Nessie be? Well, there are some that believe it is a relic of prehistoric times. This is probably not the case, as the lake has only existed for 10,000 years (since the last Ice Age). Others think it might just be a seal, or large river otter, or just a bunch of logs or waves. According to calculations based upon the number of fish, and the size of the lake, the Loch Ness monster could weigh no more than 660lbs. But with an animal that big, wouldn't we have seen some evidence by now? Bones perhaps? And if it were a Plesiosaur or large mammal, it would need to come up to breathe! There have been numerous sonar scans of the lake, with the largest, Operation Deep Scan, undertaken in 1987. None of these scans, including the most recent in 2003, have turned up any evidence of an animal that large.

So is Nessie really out there? Are the hundreds of sightings over nearly 80 years all completely wrong? We don't know. Science points to the fact that there is probably nothing down there, and especially nothing like a Plesiosaur, which went extinct 65 million years ago. But either way, the Loch Ness Monster provides an interesting tourist industry, raking in several million dollars a year. Hey, even I've been there. Sightings have gone down in recent years, perhaps we have just become more skeptical, but I don't think the Nessie legend is going to go away any time soon.

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Basilisk

Ah the Basilisk, king of serpents! Even it's name comes from Basileus, a Greek word for King. The oldest descriptions of the Basilisk place it as simply a large snake, however, over time it evolved into a truly strange creature. Depictions of Basilisks range from the standard serpent, to a creature with the feet and head of a Rooster,  or even with the face of a man. In heraldry, it has a bird's body, a rooster's head, and a serpents tail. They may or may not have wings.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The first mentions of Basilisks come from the Ancient Greek and Roman Traditions. Legend says that looking into the eyes of a Basilisk causes instant death. This is of course very bad to those who come across it, but also provides a method of killing the creatures. Holding up a mirror to the eyes of the Basilisk would cause it to kill itself. Also interestingly, hearing the crow of a Rooster also proved fatal. Weasels are also dangerous to the Basilisk. A second type of Basilisk is also found in mythology, and that is a creature that burns whatever it touches. So either way, you're in trouble.

Basilisks are sometimes interchangeable with the Cockatrice. There really doesn't seem to be much of a  different between the two. They have the exact same death stare, and same aversion to roosters and weasels. The Basilisk legends most likely spawned out of accounts from real life, poisonous snakes. The King Cobra, with it's fanned out hood, may have played a part. Today, we have small lizards known as Basilisks. They most certainly do not set everything on fire, nor can they kill with a glance. What they can do however, is walk across water!

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Roc

The Roc, also known as the Rukh, is a stupendously gigantic bird of prey that comes out of Persian legends. It appears in texts around the 8th century CE, and is present in numerous Middle Eastern stories, atural histories, and sailors' tales, including the 1001 Nights. Sinbad's second voyage includes a run-in with a Roc.

A lot of what we "know" about the Roc comes from the writings of 13th century explorer Marco Polo, who wrote about these birds in his highly embellished travel log. He claimed that they were flying birds of prey with 48 foot wingspans, 24 foot long flight feathers, and eggs that measured almost 150 feet in circumference. It is unclear what Polo was actually trying to describe, as no bird of prey has ever come close to that size. (the largest bird of prey ever discovered went extinct 6 million years ago and it had a 25ft wingspan) Perhaps he had them confused with the Elephant Birds of Madagascar, though they were flightless and had no wingspan to speak of. Their eggs however, while not 150ft in circumference, could hold 2.5gallons of water which may have assisted in Marco Polo's embellishment.

Rocs are typically described as being white, with a resemblance to either eagles or vultures, depending on the source. Because they are so large, their meals consist of large prey! Rocs were said to capture entire elephants in their claws, killing them by dropping them on to rocks from high places. This is similar to methods employed by real life birds of prey. Vultures drop bones from high up to crack them and get the marrow. Eagles will capture large prey, such as this goat, and drag them off of cliffs. So once again, we've taken a look at a mythical creature based in some fact!

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Ahuizotl

Most of you readers out there have probably heard of Unicorns and Krakens before. But have you ever heard of the Ahuizotl? Because one of my purposes of this blog is to inform about some of the lesser known beasts out there, I thought this would be a good pick for Mythical Creatures Week!

Cast of Ahuizotl Stone Plaque, Aztec
ca. 1500
Peabody Museum

Ahuizotl is a creature out of Aztec mythology. It is described in the Florentine Codex, a 16th century encyclopedia commissioned by a missionary and completed by indigenous artists. It describes the Ahuizotl as a small, smooth, dog-like creature, with a monkey's hands and a tail that includes an additional hand at the end. They live in underwater caverns and snatch all those who come near their lair. The most disturbing and frightful aspect of this mythical creature is that it loves to consume human nails, eyes, and teeth, and it's victims would be fished out of the water untouched... except with those things completely removed.

The Ahuizotl is linked to an Aztec emperor of the same name, who probably took his moniker from the creature. He ruled when the civilization was prosperous, and before the coming of the Spaniards. Montezuma, the emperor at the time of first contact, was Ahuizotl's nephew and successor. His tomb made news when it was discovered by archaeologists in 2007.

Like most mythical beasts, the Ahuizotl probably has some basis in fact. Due to the descriptions provided from the Florentine Codex and other primary source documents, the smooth, shiny, small-eared, long-tailed, handed creature may have been an otter. Otters possess most of those traits (minus the hand tail and stealing human nails and teeth of course) and could most certainly be the basis for the Ahuizotl myth.

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