Other researchers responded that McMenamin was seeing what he wanted to see in the patterns.
"To my mind, this hypothesis is like looking at clouds—being able to see what you desire," Glenn Storrs, the curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Cincinnati Museum Center, told LiveScience.
Mythical krakens are now thought of as giant squid or octopuses, capable of bringing down a ship with their tentacled arms. But many of the earliest kraken reports were of creatures so enormous that they grew vegetation on their backs like islands. These krakens dragged down anchored ships or swamped them by surfacing suddenly. [Read Get Kraken: Why Scientists Should Study Sea Monsters]
The 1816 "Universal Dictionary of the Arts, Sciences Literature, Etc.," (advertised as "intended to supersede the use of other books of reference") defines the kraken as "a most amazing large sea animal," said to be "of a crab-like form."
"Its back or upper part, which seems an English mile and a half (some have affirmed more), looks at first like a number of small islands, surrounded with something that floats like seaweeds," the dictionary author writes. "At last several bright points of horns appear, which grow thicker the higher they emerge, and sometimes stand up as high and large as the masts of middle-sized vessels. In a short time, it slowly sinks, which is thought as dangerous as its rising; as it causes such a swell and whirlpool as draws everything down with it."
Den of the Yeti
October's most recent cryptozoology report comes courtesy of Russia, where researchers claim to have found "indisputable proof" of the yeti, a hairy ape-like creature not unlike Bigfoot.
This "proof" takes the form of a few strands of gray hair and some tracks in the snow, but similar claims have come up short in the past. Some Sasquatch claims have even been brazen hoaxes, such as a 2008 press conference in which two Georgia men claimed to have the body of Bigfoot in a freezer. The "corpse" turned out to be a rubber ape suit.
There's no way of knowing yet whether the Russian yeti enthusiasts are out to pull the wool over anyone's eyes, or whether they genuinely believe their yeti evidence is real. The yeti fur was supposedly found in Azasskaya cave in western Siberia during a yeti conference. [Mythical Creatures: Beasts that Don't Exist]
"During the expedition to the Azasskaya cave, conference participants gathered indisputable proof that the Shoria mountains are inhabited by the 'Snow Man,'" a spokesman for the region told LiveScience's sister site Life's Little Mysteries. "They found his footprints, his supposed bed, and various markers with which the yeti uses to denote his territory."
No word on where the supposed yeti went or why researchers didn't stick around with cameras. Unlike the Cyclops shark, it seems this yeti finding may not stand up to scrutiny.
- Our 10 Favorite Monsters
- Rumor or Reality: The Creatures of Cryptozoology
- Dangers in the Deep: 10 Scariest Sea Creatures
Copyright 2011 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved.
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Add CommentThis shark believes that the universe revolves around the earth which is roughly 6,500 thousand years old, prehistoric man lived with dinosaurs, Wall Street is not responsible for the problems we face economically, Cain's 999 plan is the only answer and anyone who does not believe in God is going to burn in hell for eternity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a card carrying Tea Partying Conservative that is thankful to BP for the clarity of vision by only needing one eye. He thinks that Mercury in heavy amounts is a required daily vitamin and will chew you apart if you don't agree with him (allowing that he can catch you to start with).
All that said, as a child my grandmother use to take me to the zoo in San Diego and the first specimen displayed as you walked in was a two headed snake. I was amazed that such a creature could exist and my grandmother was the greatest source for my being curious of how the world and life works. The above was just having fun with those who are willing to buy into ideals that have no basis in truth and probably take the cyclops as a sign of the end of the world.
I do differ with Darwin in that I think the greatest evolution patterns were due to catastrophic extinction events of ecosystem break downs which today the above mentioned are working very hard at as we are experiencing one of the greatest extinction events over the last 8,000 years and accelerated over the last one hundred and fifty years by greed and lack of foresight. As systems broke down and feed back systems in place failed new openings were created and what ever had the best opportunity moved in. This would explain the variety of finches much better time slowly evolving which has merit but does not cover the quickness often seen in the real world.
The current experiment of Mt. St. Helen would be a good place to study to see if this ideal has merit.
You're idea suggests Stephen J. Gould's "punctuated equalibrium" theory, that evolution proceeds at a very slow pace over long periods of time, but those long periods are interrupted by very short spasms of rapid evolutionary change. Most likely massive natural disasters, or sudden echological collapses instigate the rapid changes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHmmm... first signs of Fukushima?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have discovered a lot more extinction events some large such as the one 65 million years ago but also some quite recently 13,000 years ago more apparent in the northern hemisphere that may have had more impact on mega fauna than man. But since the last 8,000 years and especially in the last 100 years we are seeing mass extinction similar to the one that took down the dinosauars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think entire ecosystems create feed backs loops and if enough feed back loops are removed the system crashes and allows for new or developing species to take over. Also I think we come with somewhat an adaptable set of genes that allows for speciation creation in a fairly quick amount of time once it becomes seperated from the basic stock group ei the differination of finches Darwin experienced in his studies. (I apoligize for any spelling errors the normal checker seems to have taken a break).
There is surely some evolution change over time but I think it is more which species can find feed back systems and protect them better than slow mutations which explains why some species appear to have had no change over millions of years. The one thing I have to keep in mind is the amount of time we are talking about and because it is so vast I would agree that evolution does happen in Darwins model also but remember we as a species are more a regression than progression.
Humans have less muscle mass, more fragile bones, smaller canines, lack of hair and a need of technology to stay alive. All other creatures come somewhat more complete to compete.
Although a rare finding, the "cyclops" is nothing new. Humans have a similar condition called holoprosencephaly which is often a lethal congenital defect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/holoprosencephaly/holoprosencephaly.htm
Radioactivity is not particularly teratogenic. For that you need chemicals. It's far more likely to be thanks to Deep Horizon, IMHO
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumans need technology to survive... and koalas need eucalyptus leaves. And pandas bamboo shoots. And the yucca needs the yucca moth. Show me a species without an Achilles heel and I will show you a chimera.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree on the ideal we need but I see a suicidal pattern in how we sprawl and we have become very removed from mother earth which in the end will bite us in the rear. As we continue to remove feed back systems and interdependent loops we do so at our own peril.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour are correct and the one with the most possession is the winner (read Robert Arbrey for a good analysis) but as we continue to throw the earth out of balance the earth has a habit of righting itself at the peril of the vehicle that is causing the harm. Again we are at a sweet spot in the evolution of the planet from the solar systems point of view and in 1 billion years the earth will no longer support life like us at least on the surface. But I doubt seriously in 1 billion years we will be the top of the food chain.
Once we decided that we could do better with technical answers than natural answers and we set aside morals and ethics in the race to be supreme we set our fate and now we are watching the results. I still feel for a creature with our intelligence we have a very myopic view of how we and nature fit together. If all we needed was bamboo shoots I don't think we would be seeing one of the largest mass extinction events in 65 million years.