As soon as the horror film ends, we calm the thumping heart - it’s all fiction, it’s make-believe, this doesn’t happen in life... Especially for you and only in the deep-sea edition of DARKER, in the arena of the underwater circus of nightmares - real creatures, creatures of the gloomy depths that await your fleshy bodies!
Every time he plunges into a body of water, the author of these lines panics and imagines death. Maniacal divers (a legacy of the “Amsterdam Nightmare” I watched as a child), algae wetly sliding over the body are the tentacles of an underwater creature, and further and deeper, bloodthirsty sharks await. But summer is coming. Melting in the city is unbearable. Everyone will take a vacation or go on vacation. Will go to the deep blue sea. When he gets tired of lying on the sand, he dives into the cool waves. And there, and there...
Goblin Shark
The goblin shark or scapanorhynchus (lat. Mitsukurina owstoni) is a deep-sea shark, the only representative of the genus Mitsukurina, the only genus of the scapanorhynchus shark family (Mitsukurinidae). The muzzle ends in a long beak-like outgrowth, and the long jaws can extend far. The color is close to pink (the blood vessels are visible through the translucent skin). The largest known specimen reached a length of 3.8 meters and weighed 210 kg. It is found at depths of over 200 m throughout the world from Australian Pacific waters to the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic.
Black sea devil
Ceraciformes or, simply put, angler fish. One of those creatures that you immediately think of when thinking about deep sea monsters. A terrible grin. Damn decoy flashlight. And the unusual body shape is the result of natural deformation: these fish live at great depths: from 1.5 to 3 kilometers. But as soon as you bring them to the surface... they become even uglier: the difference between internal and external pressure swells their bodies.
Giant squid
It was these animals that gave rise to legends about monsters who, with their powerful tentacles, drag sea ships to the bottom. Frequent characters in ancient engravings on a marine theme. The masterminds behind the stories of the Kraken. For a long time they were considered mythical creatures. They were first described by the Danish zoologist Iapetus Smit Stenstrup in 1857. But almost 100 years passed before their existence was documented by Norwegian researchers. The body of the mighty mollusk washed ashore. But almost half a century passed until, in 2004, the first images were obtained by Japanese oceanologists. Giant squids feed on fish, other squids and octopuses. And their only natural enemy... the sperm whale! Are you saying that sunken ships are just fairy tales?..
Mantis crab
Mantis sea crayfish (Odontodactylus scyllarus) - I want to talk more about this amazing animal. But I see that he has already taken a fighting stance with his jaws. There is a known case when this small (about 20 cm) crayfish broke an aquarium glass with one blow! And the unlucky divers, fearing decompression sickness, hurried to surface closer to the hospital to urgently reattach their finger. But this animal is worthy of the pen of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Pay attention to his unusual eyes. The marine mantis crayfish distinguishes 12 primary colors, focuses simultaneously on the foreground and background, and sees in the infrared, ultraviolet spectrum, and even in polarized light.
Giant isopod
Depth favors size. The force of gravity is compensated by the Archimedean force. That's why there are so many giant ones here. Isopods or isopods are one of the most numerous and diverse groups of crayfish: from boogers to those, as in the photo, the size of two palms of an adult man. Despite the fact that they are predators, giant isopods usually live in places where conditions are not conducive to good hunting. Therefore, as soon as “ocean manna” descends in the form of carrion, a hundred vile arthropods gather around the carcass of a dead whale or shark.
Iloglot
Needletooth
Even though the above image is a CGI work by the talented Ajdin Barucija from London, take a look at . Perhaps I will admire the work of the English artist and console myself with the fact that at least it is not real. The long-horned, or common sabertooth, or needletooth (lat. Anoplogaster cornuta) is a predatory fish that lives in tropical and subtropical waters of all oceans. It reaches a length of 15 cm, the weight of an adult is about 120 g. This fish is recognized as one of the most terrible animals. And the ratio of teeth to body among fish is the largest.
Sarcastic Bordered Head
Let's try to translate the English Sarcastic fringehead roughly like this. We don’t know who found them “sarcastic.” This fish behaves extremely aggressively. Defending its territory, it opens its mouth in an unusual, terrifying expression. How can one not remember the series? It is worth noting that an imaginary increase in one’s own size is a fairly common technique in the animal world. When two “bordered heads” grapple in a fight for territory or a female, they close their open mouths as if in a passionate kiss. They live in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of North America.
Moray
via Wikipedia
Huge underwater “snakes” fascinate and frighten at the same time. They can grow up to 3 meters and weigh about 50 kilograms. An experienced diver will never get close to a moray eel. Moray eels are predatory fish and extremely dangerous. They attack with lightning speed and frenzy. There are known cases of people dying from attacks by moray eels. In ancient times, it was believed that their bite was poisonous. After all, moray eels resemble snakes in their appearance. The reality is harsher. In the blink of an eye, a moray eel can tear human flesh so severely that the diver bleeds to death.
Japanese spider crab
The legs of the Japanese spider crab (an inhabitant of depths from 150 to 800 meters) can reach 3 meters in length. He lives about 100 years. This means that one individual can terrify several generations of arachnophobes. Still, Ray Bradbury was right in the story “A Matter of Taste” about the planet of huge intelligent spiders:
« - They are our friends!
- Oh God, yes.
And again tremble, tremble, tremble.
“But nothing will ever work out with them.” They're just not people».
Incredible facts
The modern ocean is home to many incredible creatures, many of which we have no idea about. You never know what lies there - in the dark, cold depths. However, none of them compares with the ancient monsters that dominated the world's oceans millions of years ago.
In this article we will tell you about lizards, carnivorous fish and predatory whales that terrorized marine life in prehistoric times.
Prehistoric world
Megalodon
Megalodon may be the most famous creature on this list, but it's hard to imagine that the school-bus-sized shark ever actually existed. Nowadays, there are many different scientific films and programs about these amazing monsters.
Contrary to popular belief, megalodons did not live at the same time as dinosaurs. They dominated the seas from 25 to 1.5 million years ago, which means they missed the last dinosaur by 40 million years. In addition, this means that the first people found these sea monsters alive.
The home of the megalodon was the warm ocean that existed until the last ice age in the early Pleistocene, and it is believed that it was this that deprived these huge sharks of food and the ability to reproduce. Perhaps in this way nature protected modern humanity from terrible predators.
Liopleurodon
If there was a water scene in the Jurassic Park movie that included some of the sea monsters of the time, Liopleurodon would definitely appear in it. Although scientists argue about the actual length of this animal (some say it was up to 15 meters), most agree that it was about 6 meters, with a fifth of the length being the pointed head of Liopleurodon.
Many people think that 6 meters is not so much, but the smallest representative of these monsters is capable of swallowing an adult. Scientists have recreated a model of Liopleurodon's fins and tested them.
During the research, they found that these prehistoric animals were not so fast, but they were not lacking in agility. They were also capable of making short, quick and sharp attacks similar to those made by modern crocodiles, which makes them even more terrifying.
Sea monsters
Basilosaurus
Despite the name and appearance, they are not reptiles, as it might seem at first glance. In fact, these are real whales (and not the most frightening ones in this world!). Basilosaurs were the predatory ancestors of modern whales and measured between 15 and 25 meters in length. It is described as a whale, somewhat resembling a snake due to its length and ability to wriggle.
It’s hard to imagine that, while swimming in the ocean, one could stumble upon a huge creature that looked like a snake, a whale and a crocodile at the same time, 20 meters long. The fear of the ocean would stick with you for a long time.
Physical evidence suggests that basilosaurs did not have the same cognitive abilities as modern whales. In addition, they did not have echolocation capabilities and could only move in two dimensions (this means that they could not actively dive or dive to great depths). Thus, this terrible predator was as stupid as a bag of prehistoric tools and would not be able to pursue you if you dived or came onto land.
Cancerscorpios
It's not surprising that the words "sea scorpion" only evoke negative emotions, but this representative of the list was the creepiest of them all. Jaekelopterus rhenaniae is a special species of crustacean scorpion that was the largest and most fearsome arthropod of its time: 2.5 meters of pure clawed terror under its shell.
Many of us are terrified of small ants or large spiders, but imagine the full spectrum of fear experienced by a person who would be unlucky enough to encounter this sea monster.
On the other hand, these creepy creatures went extinct even before the event that killed all the dinosaurs and 90% of life on Earth. Only a few species of crabs survived, which are not so scary. There is no evidence that ancient sea scorpions were poisonous, but the structure of their tails suggests that they may have been.
Read also: A huge sea monster washed up on the coast of Indonesia
Prehistoric animals
Mauisaurus
Mauisaurus was named after the ancient Maori god Maui, who, according to legend, pulled the New Zealand carcass from the ocean floor with a hook, so just from the name you can understand that this animal was huge. The Mauisaurus's neck was about 15 meters long, which is quite a lot compared to its total length of 20 meters.
His incredible neck had many vertebrae, which gave it special flexibility. Imagine a turtle without a shell with a surprisingly long neck - that’s what this creepy creature looked like.
He lived during the Cretaceous period, which meant that unfortunate creatures jumping into the water to escape velociraptors and tyrannosaurs were forced to come face to face with these sea monsters. Mauisaurs' habitats were limited to the waters of New Zealand, indicating that all inhabitants were in danger.
Dunkleosteus
Dunkleosteus was a ten-meter predatory monster. Huge sharks lived much longer than Dunkleosteus, but this did not mean that they were the best predators. Instead of teeth, dunkleosteus had bony growths, like some species of modern turtles. Scientists have calculated that their bite force was 1,500 kilograms per square centimeter, which put them on par with crocodiles and tyrannosaurs and made them one of the creatures with the strongest bite.
Based on facts about their jaw muscles, scientists concluded that Dunkleosteus could open its mouth in one fiftieth of a second, swallowing everything in its path. As the fish grew older, the single bony dental plate was replaced by a segmented one, which made it easier to obtain food and bite through the thick shells of other fish. In the arms race called the prehistoric ocean, Dunkleosteus was a real well-armored, heavy tank.
Sea monsters and monsters of the deep
Kronosaurus
Kronosaurus is another short-necked lizard, similar in appearance to Liopleurosaurus. What is noteworthy is that its true length is also known only approximately. It is believed that it reached up to 10 meters, and its teeth reached up to 30 cm in length. That is why it was named after Kronos, the king of the ancient Greek titans.
Now guess where this monster lived. If your assumption was related to Australia, then you are absolutely right. Kronosaurus's head was about 3 meters long and it was capable of swallowing an entire adult human. In addition, after this there was room inside the animal for another half.
Also, due to the fact that the flippers of kronosaurs were similar in structure to the flippers of turtles, scientists concluded that they were very distantly related and assumed that kronosaurs also went to land to lay eggs. In any case, we can be sure that no one dared to destroy the nests of these sea monsters.
Helicoprion
This shark, 4.5 meters long, had a lower jaw that was a kind of curl, strewn with teeth. She looked like a hybrid of a shark and a buzz saw, and we all know that when dangerous power tools become part of a predator at the top of the food chain, the whole world trembles.
Helicoprion's teeth were jagged, which clearly indicates the carnivory of this sea monster, but scientists still do not know for certain whether the jaw was pushed forward as in the photo, or moved slightly deeper into the mouth.
These creatures survived the Triassic mass extinction, which could indicate their high intelligence, but the reason could also be their living in the deep sea.
Prehistoric sea monsters
Melville's Leviathan
Earlier in this article we already talked about predatory whales. Melville's Leviathan is the most terrifying of them all. Imagine a huge hybrid of an orca and a sperm whale. This monster was not just a carnivore - it killed and ate other whales. It had the largest teeth of any animal known to us.
Their length sometimes reached 37 centimeters! They lived in the same oceans at the same time and ate the same food as megalodons, thus competing with the largest predatory shark of the time.
Their huge heads were equipped with the same echo-sounding devices as modern whales, making them more successful at hunting in murky waters. In case it wasn't clear to anyone from the start, this animal was named after Leviathan, the giant sea monster from the Bible and Herman Melville, who wrote the famous Moby Dick. If Moby Dick had been one of the Leviathans, he would certainly have eaten the Pequod and its entire crew.
Skeptics have long believed that all large animals on Earth have already been discovered, and the claims of cryptozoologists about real monsters living in the World Ocean and still unknown to scientists are only fictions seeking sensation. However, eyewitness accounts, instrument readings, photographs and videos, as well as the remains of mysterious creatures washed ashore by waves, indicate otherwise.
Ten tentacles and a powerful beak
It is difficult to imagine a more terrible image than the image of one of these huge monsters floating in the ocean depths, even more gloomy from the inky liquid released by these creatures in huge quantities; it’s worth imagining hundreds of cup-shaped suckers with which its tentacles are equipped, constantly in motion and ready at any moment to grab onto anyone or anything... and in the center of the interweaving of these living traps is a bottomless mouth with a huge hooked beak, ready to tear the victim apart, found herself in tentacles. Just thinking about it sends a chill through my skin.”
This is how the English sailor and writer Frank T. Bullen described the largest, fastest and most terrible of all invertebrates on the planet - the giant squid.
In ancient times, sailors called these monsters krakens. These terrible creatures have terrorized sailors for several centuries. Sometimes all sorts of fables were told about them, for example, that sailors mistook a kraken resting on the surface of the water for an island, landed on it and woke up the dormant monster. It sank sharply, and the resulting giant whirlpool pulled the ship and its people into the abyss. Of course, this was a clear exaggeration, but there is no doubt that krakens actually reach gigantic sizes and can be dangerous to humans.
In size, the giant squid is quite comparable to the average sperm whale, with which it often enters into mortal combat, although it is armed with very sharp teeth. The squid has ten tentacles: eight regular ones and two that are much longer than the rest and have something like spatulas at the ends. All tentacles are studded with suckers. The usual tentacles of a giant squid are 3-3.5 meters long, and the longest pair stretches up to 15 meters. With its long tentacles, the squid pulls its prey towards itself and, entwining it with its remaining limbs, tears it apart with its powerful beak.
Biologist and oceanographer Frederick Aldrich is confident that giant squids even 50 meters long can live at great depths. The scientist points to the fact that all the dead specimens of the giant squid, about 15 m long, that were found belonged to young individuals with suckers of a five-centimeter diameter, while on many sperm whales, harpooned or thrown ashore by a storm, traces of suckers of a 20-centimeter diameter were found...
Newspapers wrote about the worst encounter between a man and a giant squid in 1874. The steamer Strathoven, bound for Madras, approached the small schooner Pearl, bobbing on the water. Suddenly, the tentacles of a monstrous squid rose above the sea surface, they grabbed the schooner and dragged it under the water. According to the surviving captain of the schooner, his crew watched the fight between a huge squid and a sperm whale. The giants disappeared into the depths, but after a while the captain noticed that a short distance from the schooner a huge shadow would rise from the depths. It was a monstrous squid measuring about 30 meters. As he approached the schooner, the captain shot him with a gun, followed by a swift attack by the monster, which rammed the schooner and dragged it to the bottom.
Legendary sea serpent
If most scientists no longer doubt the reality of the giant squid, then many of them do not believe in another legendary monster - the Great Sea Serpent. Meanwhile, the first mention of a sea serpent was made two thousand years ago. Since then, the monster has been described more than once by various eyewitnesses in many languages of the world. Of course, many of these accounts are clearly fabrications or exaggerations, but some of the reports are quite reliable.
One of the most reliable reports was received from the sailors of the English ship Daedalus, who, off the west coast of Africa on August 6, 1848, noticed a snake-like creature approximately 30 meters long near the side of the ship. The animal, which was observed for 20 minutes, swam at a speed of about 15 knots. A drawing by one of the Daedalus officers shows an animal with its head in a medium-thick tree trunk, and one of the reports indicates that the monster had long, uneven teeth.
Scientists have already found one candidate for the “title” of the Great Sea Serpent. In 1959, Dutch researcher Anthony Bruun published a description of a 1.8-meter-long eel larva caught at a depth of 300 m off the coast of Africa. If the size of the larva of an ordinary eel is about 3 centimeters, then an almost 2-meter “baby” can easily grow into a 20-30-meter monster. Perhaps it was just such a giant eel that tourists saw and photographed in clear water near the Great Barrier Reef in 1965. It was a creature 20-25 meters long with a dome-shaped head and a body tapering towards the end with a long, whip-like tail. Another creature that, according to skeptics, may be mistaken for a sea serpent is the herring king, reaching a length of seven meters or more.
Fantastic monsters of the depths
If anyone believes that the mysterious monsters that were observed in ancient times in the seas and oceans have not survived to this day, then he is greatly mistaken. So, in the late 80s of the 20th century, sea captain S. Lebedev told cryptozoologist S. Klumov about an encounter with an unknown large animal in one of the Kuril straits. At first, on the whaling ship "Dolphin" under the command of S. Lebedev, they wanted to harpoon an unknown animal, but its size turned out to be so impressive (the part of the gray back that protruded from the water reached about 15 meters in circumference) that the sailors decided not to risk it.
Relatively recently, Australian scientists conducted a scientific experiment related to the migration of great white sharks along the coast. Suddenly, their thermal sensors, as Metro writes, detected a giant monster at depth. It swallowed whole a three-meter white shark, nicknamed Alpha, whose movements scientists recorded using a GPS navigator and thermal imagers. As researchers say, science has yet to find a creature capable of swallowing such large prey without tearing it into pieces.
By the way, a megalodon could swallow a three-meter white shark without any problems. This is an ancient shark of the species Carcharodon megalodon, which lived in the seas and oceans 2 million years ago. It is believed that this shark has long been extinct, but some researchers doubt this. The fact is that in 1918, Australian lobster fishermen saw a huge white fish 30 meters long in the sea. And among the megalodon teeth discovered by oceanologists on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, there was one that was only 11 thousand years old, and by historical standards, completely “fresh.” Based on the discovered remains of an ancient shark, scientists recreated its appearance. The length of the megalodon reached 25 meters, weight - 100 tons, and the two-meter mouth of the monster was dotted with 10-centimeter teeth.
The fact that incredible monsters are hiding in the depths is also evidenced by the mysterious sound in the ocean, nicknamed by the Americans Bloop. It was recorded in the ocean by employees of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Agency. Amazingly, the sound was so loud that it was picked up by two microphones 3,000 miles apart. According to scientists, all the characteristics of a sound indicate that it belongs to a living being. Scientists don’t know who “yells” like that in the ocean. No creature known to science is capable of producing such an impressive “scream.”
For those who still doubt the presence of monsters unknown to scientists in the World Ocean, I advise you to type just three words “monsters washed ashore” into a search engine and look at pictures on this topic. You will see many photographs of the most incredible creatures; I think that after watching this, your skepticism will noticeably decrease.
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Briefly about the article: Who can really be sure what is hiding there, in the many kilometers of ocean depths? Are all the stories about huge sea monsters fiction, or do the most natural monsters live right next to us? Look for answers on the pages of the World of Fantasy.
Troubled waters
Monsters of the deep sea
Understand death? Certainly. This is when the monsters finally get to you.
Stephen King, "Salimov's Lot"
Water is the best place for miracles. It's like a completely different world. Another universe is right at our fingertips. The creatures living in the ocean are completely different from those on earth and look like real aliens in comparison. Biblical monsters emerged from the “eternal sea,” and the giant Leviathan also lived there. People have already visited the Mariana Trench - the deepest place on the planet - but they still know very little about the inhabitants of those unimaginable depths that even Everest would not reach if we decided to turn it over into the water.
Nowadays, people no longer feel a mystical horror of the sea and treat it exclusively as a consumer (for example, about 90% of toilets in Hong Kong run on sea water). However, just a hundred years ago, terrible rumors about ships being dragged to the bottom by giant octopuses still circulated in port taverns, and science fiction writers populated the oceans with mystical creatures from other dimensions.
At the bottom
Remember what ancient nautical maps looked like. Whales, dolphins, newts, snakes and shells “swimmed” in the oceans. Stories about monsters inhabiting the expanses of water appeared almost before navigation itself and have successfully survived to this day. Deep monsters, hungry for human flesh, can be found in any culture that has had contact with the sea. Ancient authors described encounters with these creatures in rather vague terms, mentioning glowing eyes, a lion's mouth, horns, fur and other attributes of the classic “prefabricated creature” characteristic of those times.
When travel to other continents ceased to be as sensational as the current flights to the moon, stories of “deadly dangers” lost the flavor of heroic tales and began to resemble the truth. In 1734, the Norwegian missionary Hans Egede, a man of common sense and not prone to exaggeration, wrote about his voyage to Greenland:
The number of evidence of encounters with sea monsters in our time has sharply decreased, but even they are quite enough to make one wonder where such unanimity comes from? Most often, a large serpentine body is described (about 10-20 meters, which cannot be compared with ancient stories about sea dragons), or some kind of amorphous mass armed with tentacles.
It is interesting that the majority of such observations fall on the lot of fishermen or people of “land” professions who accidentally find themselves at sea. And those who work closely with the underwater world (submarine crews, oceanographers and even divers) encounter the mysteries of nature extremely rarely.
It is generally accepted that some (but not the most significant) part of such stories is an ordinary hoax, and the rest is a mistake or an optical illusion. Anyone who has been on the high seas understands how difficult it can sometimes be to identify a particular animal. Incessant excitement, natural optical distortions and significant observation distances - it is in such an environment that “monsters” are born. A writhing sea snake is likely to be algae, and the slimy carcass of a giant octopus is likely to be an ordinary seal.
One could put an end to this, but literally in recent years, nature seemed to have mercy on scientists and gave them irrefutable evidence of the existence of one of the most popular sea monsters.
| Brake fish |
In ancient times, people were afraid of another seemingly completely harmless sea “monster” - the remora (from lat. remora- delay), that is, the fish stuck. It was believed that these small shark riders were from the family Echaeneidae (from the Greek. echein- hold, and naus- ship) can stick around the ship, completely stopping its progress like sargassum algae. Pliny the Younger called them one of the reasons for the defeat of the fleet of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium. On the coasts of Africa and Australia, remora are used for fishing - they tie a live fish to a rope and release it into the sea. The stick swims up to the nearest turtle, attaches itself to it - and the fisherman easily pulls the prey ashore. A similar episode is described in Alexander Belyaev’s story “The Island of Lost Ships.” |
Kraken
The Kraken is a legendary sea monster that supposedly lives off the coast of Iceland and Norway. There is no consensus regarding his appearance. He could equally well be an octopus or a squid. The Danish bishop Erik Pontoppidan first spoke about the Kraken in 1752, describing it as a giant “crab fish” that easily drags ships to the bottom.
According to the bishop, the Kraken had the size of a small island and was dangerous for ships not so much because of its predatory habits as because of the speed of its descent into the depths of the sea - by diving, it could create an extremely strong whirlpool. As the Kraken rested at the bottom, large schools of fish swarmed around, attracted by its excrement. Pontoppidan also wrote that fishermen sometimes took risks and spread their nets directly over the monster’s lair, because this provided them with an excellent catch. On this occasion they even had a saying: “You must have fished on the Kraken.”
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Kraken, with the help of self-taught zoologists, turned into a giant octopus, but at the same time it was attributed the lifestyle of a cuttlefish or squid (most octopuses live at the bottom, squids live in the water column). Even the world famous naturalist Carl Linnaeus included the Kraken in the classification of real living organisms (the book “System of Nature”) as a cephalopod, but later changed his mind and removed all mentions of it.
Some sea disasters were blamed on the Kraken, and its relatives - giant octopuses under the common name "luska" - were allegedly found in the Caribbean Sea (it is not surprising that the heroes of the film "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" will have to fight a huge octopus). It was even called the “monk of the sea,” although the original term referred to a creature that washed up on the shores of Denmark in 1546 - a fish that, according to contemporaries, was “strikingly similar to a monk.”
Beer snack
And then the fairy tale became reality. In 1861, the French ship Alekton brought a piece of giant squid ashore. Over the next two decades, remains of similar creatures began to be found along the entire northern coast of Europe (it was later determined that changes in the temperature regime of the sea were to blame, driving these creatures to the surface). Fishermen also began to notice that the skin of some of the sperm whales they caught had strange markings - as if from very large tentacles.
In the 20th century, there was a real hunt for the once legendary Kraken, but either too young individuals (about 5 meters in length) or half-digested fragments of adults were found in fishing nets and in the stomachs of sperm whales. Luck smiled on researchers only in the 21st century.
Japanese oceanographers Kubodera and Mori spent two years trying to find the elusive Kraken by tracking the migration routes of sperm whales (these whales often hunt giant squid). On September 30, 2004, they arrived on a five-ton fishing boat near Ogasawara Island (600 miles south of Tokyo). Their tools were simple - a long steel cable with bait, a camera and a flash.
At a depth of 900 meters it finally took the bait. The giant squid, about 10 meters long, grabbed the bait, got entangled in its tentacle and spent four hours trying to free itself. During this time, several hundred photographs were taken confirming the extremely aggressive nature of this creature.
It has not yet been possible to catch live giant squids (architeuthis). However, dead, well-preserved specimens are already available to the general public. In December 2005, the Melbourne Aquarium put on public display a seven-meter-long Architeuthis frozen into a huge piece of ice (the monster was purchased for 100 thousand Australian dollars). Earlier this year, London's Natural History Museum showed off a nine-metre specimen preserved in formaldehyde.
Can giant squid sink ships? Judge for yourself. It can reach a length of over 10 meters (evidence of twenty-meter individuals is not confirmed by anything). Females are usually larger. Since approximately half the body length is made up of tentacles, the weight of this mollusk is measured at only a few hundred kilograms. This is clearly not enough for a large vessel (especially considering that the giant squid, like its small relatives, is completely helpless outside the water), however, taking into account the predatory habits of this creature, it can be assumed that Architeuthis poses a theoretical danger to swimmers.
Cinematic octopuses (“Rise from the Deep” or “Pirates of the Caribbean 2”) are able to playfully pierce the hull of ships with their tentacles. In practice, this is naturally impossible - the absence of a skeleton does not allow cephalopods to deliver a “precision strike”. They can only act on tearing and stretching. In their natural habitat, giant squids are quite strong - at least they don't give in to sperm whales without a fight - but, fortunately, they rarely rise to the surface. However, small squids are capable of jumping out of the water to a height of up to 7 meters, so it is not worth making clear conclusions about the “combat” qualities of Architeuthis.
The eyes of the giant squid are among the largest of all living creatures on the planet - over 30 centimeters in diameter. The powerful suckers of the tentacles (up to 5 centimeters in diameter) are supplemented with sharp “teeth” that help hold the victim.
An even larger species of giant squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) was recently classified. Outwardly, they are slightly different from architeuthis (larger in size, with short tentacles studded with hooks instead of “teeth”), but they are found much less frequently, and only in the northern seas and at depths of about 2 kilometers. In the 1970s, a Soviet trawler caught one young specimen, and in 2003 another was found. In both cases, the length of the squid did not exceed 6 meters, but scientists calculated that an adult specimen of this species grows to at least 14 meters.
To summarize the above, as of 2006, the legendary Kraken can be safely identified as a squid. Octopuses or cuttlefish comparable in size to the mollusks described above have not yet been found. If you go on vacation at the seaside, be on the lookout.
| Sun in claws |
If we talk about crustaceans (and the Kraken was first considered something like a crab), snapper shrimp (Alpheus bellulus) would be ideal for the role of a sea monster, if they were larger and more aggressive. By sharply slamming their claw, these crustaceans produce a miniature “explosion” in the water. The shock wave spreads forward and stuns small fish at a distance of up to 1.8 meters. But this is not the most interesting thing. When clicked, bubbles are formed, emitting a weak light invisible to the human eye. It is now believed that this phenomenon (“sonoluminescence”) occurs due to the effect of ultrasound on such a bubble. It contracts with incredible force, a microscopic thermonuclear reaction occurs (hence the release of light), and a droplet of air enclosed inside heats up to the temperature of the outer shell of the Sun. If this hypothesis is confirmed, then click shrimp can be called “floating reactors.” |
Hairy snakes
Giant sea serpents appeared in historical chronicles much earlier than the Kraken (around the 13th century), however, unlike him, they are still considered fictional. The Swedish priest and writer Olaf the Great (1490-1557) in his work “History of the Northern Peoples” gave the following description of the sea serpent:
In modern times, the most famous encounter with a sea serpent occurred almost 150 years ago. On an August day in 1848, the crew of the British ship Daedalus, heading to the island of St. Helena, observed a twenty-meter aquatic reptile with a luxurious mane of hair on its neck. It was unlikely that this was a mass hallucination, so the London Times immediately burst out with a sensational article about the “find of the century.” Since then, sea snakes have been seen more than once, but not a single reliable evidence of their existence has been obtained.
Among all the candidates for the “position” of the sea serpent, the belt fish (Regalecus glesne) is most suitable. This rather rare creature, living in tropical seas, is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest (up to 11 meters) bony fish in the world.
Strap fish. |
In appearance, the fish belt really looks like a snake. Its weight can reach 300 kilograms. The meat is jelly-like and inedible. The anterior rays of the dorsal fin are elongated and form a “plume” above the head, which from a distance can be mistaken for a tuft of hair. The belt fish lives at great depths (from 50 to 700 meters), but sometimes floats to the surface. Its unique feature is that it swims in an upright position, head up. Take a look at the photo. What might you think when you see this strange creature in the water?
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If the ancients did not lie about the Kraken, then maybe we should pay more attention to other legends? After all, there are “giant versions” of familiar aquatic creatures! The American lobster grows up to 1 meter in length and 20 kilograms in weight. The limb span of the Japanese spider crab reaches 4 meters. And the jellyfish Cyanea capillata is generally the longest living creature on the planet - its bell can be 2.5 meters in diameter, and its thin tentacles extend up to 30 meters.
In 1997, US Navy hydrophone stations tracking submarines off the coast of South America detected a very strange sound in the ocean, undoubtedly made by a living creature. The source could not be identified, however, judging by its acoustic power, none of the marine animals known today could “gurgle” so loudly.
Humanity is striving with all its might to understand the solar system, and then the entire Universe. It seems to people that somewhere there are the most important secrets and riddles that must be solved. But how much do we know about our own planet? She is still capable of surprising not only ordinary people, but also famous scientists, presenting various surprises. After all, every now and then stories appear where monsters unknown to science appear, terrifying and trembling the entire population of the planet. It’s as if they penetrated our world from another reality. But is this really so? What is it like, the animal world of our planet? And is there room for various monsters in it?
The real monsters of the world - who are they?
Human civilization has populated the planet so densely that it has driven many representatives of the animal world to the most remote corners of the Earth. Some of them simply disappeared from the face of the planet, while others are threatened with extinction. Animal rights activists are trying their best to preserve rare animal species, but not a single official list includes monsters that humanity has been talking about for many centuries.
If you carefully study all the eyewitness accounts, you may get the impression that animal monsters have always existed. They were seen by people of different professions and social status, and each such meeting was accompanied by fear of contact with something unknown. Only at the end of the nineteenth century did scientists begin to take evidence of encounters with monsters seriously and even tried to photograph and video these extraordinary creatures. Every documented evidence of the existence of monsters issued to society was carefully studied, but most often classified as falsification. Until now, the scientific world has not been able to obtain real confirmation of the fact that we do not know everything about the creatures living on the planet. But this does not at all bother adventure lovers who are ready to spend a lot of time on expeditions in order to take one successful photo and give the world the truth.
Monster Classification
The most famous monsters in the world have long had their own classification. Seekers of the unknown divided them into the following three categories:
- underwater;
- ground;
- anthropoid.
Of course, these categories are very conditional, but they still give some idea of what the most terrible monsters in the world look like and where they live. We collected information about those monsters that were noticed by people and repeatedly invaded their normal lives. It’s worth starting with underwater creatures, which are considered the most common.
Over the last century, there have been enough references to various lizards that live in lakes. Characteristic is the fact that they are found only in freshwater bodies of water. But experts say that lizards will feel great in sea water.
Mentions of underwater lizards are found among different peoples. The Scots, Yakuts, Canadians, Kazakhs and Chinese have similar evidence. This suggests that the legend about monsters living in lakes has a basis in reality.
Scientists, having analyzed sketches of monsters and video footage provided by eyewitnesses, came to the conclusion that they can be classified as the last dinosaurs on Earth. They resemble ancient plesiosaurs, which lived in large numbers in the water bodies of our planet. These creatures had a long, elongated body with small limbs in the form of flippers and a small head. The length of the neck of such lizards was similar to the body of the monster.
This structure of the monster explains why many eyewitnesses called it a snake. After all, the body and head of a monster usually appear on the surface, truly resembling a huge snake.
Loch Ness Monster
If you are interested in the most famous monsters, then you have probably heard about the Scottish lake Loch Ness. The monster that lives in its waters is known throughout the world. The lake itself is quite picturesque; it is more than two hundred meters deep and is the largest in the UK.
The Loch Ness monster was discovered at the beginning of the last century. Then it alarmed the company resting on the shore by leaning out of the water. From that moment on, crowds of adventurers flocked to the lake, dreaming of capturing the mysterious monster.
Four years later, Wilson managed to photograph the monster, and these photographs alarmed the public. They were published in all newspapers and magazines, and the scientific community tried to explain the presence of a strange creature in the waters of the lake. Almost thirty years later, the Loch Ness monster was caught on camera, where it was clear how fast it moved under water.
A little later, another video of the monster hit all the major television channels in Britain, and people again rushed to Scotland in search of a sensation. Over the past hundred years, more than four thousand people have claimed to have seen the Nessie monster (as the Scots affectionately called him) with their own eyes.
Scientists believe that the monster is completely harmless and lives in a pond with its large family. According to the official version, it fell into the lake as a result of the movement of tectonic plates and was unable to escape from the trap. During their existence, many generations of monsters have adapted to the changed habitat and food.
Lake Champlain - Nessie's brother
In Canada there is the famous Lake Champlain, which has joined the list of places where famous monsters of the world live. At the end of the nineteenth century, information appeared that the sheriff saw a fifty-meter snake with humps on its back in the waters of the lake. This evidence only confirmed the numerous words of eyewitnesses, which had accumulated in large quantities since the beginning of the seventeenth century.
The monster was named Champ; it appeared annually on the surface of the reservoir, allowing people to record new details about themselves. Thanks to this, it turned out that the monster has dark skin, a very large body and an elongated head with bumps and growths.
Scientists could not ignore such a large amount of information about the monster, and in the seventies of the last century an initiative group was formed to study Champa. Seven years later, one of the local residents managed to photograph the monster, and the authenticity of the photo was proven in the laboratories of the Smithson Institute. Thanks to the availability of special technologies, scientists suggested the size of the animal, which seemed simply incredible - from five to seventeen meters.
Twelve years ago, a fisherman managed to film the monster, and FBI analysts proved the authenticity of the recording. Now scientists from all over the world are trying to figure out which class of the animal world Champa can be classified as.
Ogopogo - Canada's most famous "resident"
Scientists believe that if anywhere underwater monsters can live, it is in Canada. Numerous lakes in this country were once formed as a result of the movement of tectonic plates, and it is possible that some ancient monsters could remain in these reservoirs. The most famous Canadian pangolin is the Ogopogo from Okanagan Lake.
This monster, according to eyewitnesses, resembles Nessie and Champa - the same long body with fins and a small head. The Indians said that one day a monster capsized the boat of their leader and destroyed him. From this time on, the tribes tried to negotiate with Ogopogo, sacrificing animals to him and refusing to fish in some parts of the lake.
It is worth noting that this monster was seen quite often. There are especially numerous eyewitness accounts who crossed the lake by ferry at the beginning of the twentieth century. During this period, the monster constantly rose to the surface, and more than two hundred people spoke about it. At the end of the last century, video footage appeared in which a monster is clearly visible swimming underwater. Until now, information periodically comes from the shores of the lake about the next appearance of the monster, but science cannot provide a rationale for its existence.
Lake monsters: how many are there?
Today the scientific world knows about seven lakes located in different parts of the planet, where various monsters live. Three lakes belong to Ireland, where locals quite often see underwater monsters. For example, in Lough Ree a large animal of an unknown species was seen even by three priests in the middle of the last century. Scientists took their evidence seriously and at the beginning of the 2000s they assembled a real expedition to the shores of the ancient reservoir. But, unfortunately, they were never able to capture the monster.
In our country, Lake Labynkyr in Yakutia became the monster’s home. There have always been legends among local residents about an extraordinary creature that lives in the depths of the lake and on the rarest occasions looks out to the surface. In the nineteenth century, eyewitnesses called it the Labynkyr Devil, but no one has yet managed to photograph the creature.
The long-horned sabertooth is the most terrifying monster of the deep sea
In addition to monsters unknown to science, there are also those that have long been studied. For example, in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean there lives a saber-tooth fish, the appearance of which can cause horror in any inhabitant of the planet.
Usually this monster does not grow more than forty centimeters in length, but has a dark color and a very menacing appearance. The fact is that huge fangs grow in the fish’s mouth, which do not even allow an adult to completely close its jaws. Scientists have found that the brain of this fish has two pockets that accommodate the tips of its fangs. This predator lives at a depth of more than five hundred meters; it has also been encountered at greater depths - it feels quite comfortable having descended to five thousand meters.
It is worth noting that this predator is very vulnerable to large fish. They eat it with pleasure, so the saber tooth prefers to hide in the water column and hunt only small fish.
Bigfoot - fact or fiction?
The Yeti (as Bigfoot is also called) is a humanoid creature covered with fur that lives in the mountainous regions of the planet. The yeti is especially common in North America. The local Indian tribes know a lot of legends about creatures of unprecedented power who lived high in the mountains and sought to avoid human eyes.
Eyewitnesses claim that they even saw entire families of Bigfoot people, which allows us to draw conclusions about the abundance of this species. But, unfortunately, science has not yet received documentary evidence of the existence of these monsters.
In the middle of the last century, a short film was shot in which an unusual creature moving through the forest was caught on camera. Experts carefully studied the film and remained in deep doubt about its authenticity. To date, no one has been able to photograph the Yeti or find its remains.
Vampire monster living in South America
Puerto Ricans scare naughty children with stories about the Chupacabra. It is believed that this monster lives near human settlements and destroys livestock. The chupacabra usually steals goats and drinks all their blood, which forms the basis of its daily diet. Sometimes the monster completely tears its victim apart, but does not eat it. Local residents claim that the chupacabra feeds on the blood of rabbits, chickens, and can even steal a child.
It has not yet been possible to photograph the Chupacabra on a camera or video camera, but eyewitnesses describe it as a large creature with large claws and fangs. Absolutely everyone notes the monster’s huge and glowing eyes, with which he sees perfectly in the dark.
Residents of South America believe that this monster was the result of secret experiments by the American military. But the United States is in no hurry to confirm or deny this fact.
Monster sculptures
The world's most famous monsters can also be objects of art. Many European cities have various sculptural groups depicting devils and monsters. Some of them are historical monuments.
All the inhabitants of the planet know the monsters on the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. These terrifying chimeras sit on the façade of the building and are winged creatures with bared snouts and fangs. Parisians consider these monsters one of the most striking symbols of the city. According to some polls, they are more popular than the Eiffel Tower.
In Norway, in the city of Torheim, a cathedral was built, which with its sculptures resembles its Parisian “brother”. Its facade is covered with images of various evil spirits, which (according to legend) were supposed to scare away real evil spirits. Tourists say that many of the figures on the cathedral look extremely ominous.
In Brest, on Gogol Street, there is a sculpture of the devil. This unclean spirit is made extremely realistically and is a symbol of the city, attracting crowds of tourists here.
Humanity has always lived side by side with various monsters. Some of them are dangerous to people, while others have not done anything bad to them, but still strike terror into the hearts with their very appearance. Scientists are trying to catch monsters in order to finally obtain proof of their existence and study them as a new species of representatives of the animal world. However, the monsters are in no hurry to become a world sensation; they continue to lead their solitary lifestyle, established over millennia.
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