Marine Biology Love

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Ive run across that 50th degree north latitude theory before. Its nonsense. Legends of lake monsters are found throughout the USA, and into the tropics. The Congo River has a dinosaur-like river monster of legend. And Lake Victoria (Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda) have a lake monster. Teddy Roosevelt led a safari there and even shot the Lake Victoria monster (turned out to be a family of otters- he killed one of its humps- which turned out to be an otter pup).

Salmon in reverse. But more mysterious.


https://youtu.be/RFi6ISTjkR4

And these animals, horseshoe crabs are just amazing - they're not crabs, are more related to arachnids, they have blue blood, they predate dinosaurs for about 200 million years and haven't changed much in the last 250 million years. And if anyone's got a safe vaccination, it's thanks to them and their blue blood (even if there are other ways ). Due to overharvesting their blood they're now considered a vulnerable species.

They survived all the massive extinctions so far, the question is can they survive human greed.

Last edited by Bestiola on 19 Jul 2024, 5:43 am, edited 2 times in total.

Lol they're awesome!

But if you want a marine cryptid...here is my favorite marine cryptid:


https://youtu.be/gwZbMMaRLJc

On the other hand...in the Nineteen Eighties a yachtsman and his grown daughter were sailing around the Aleutian Islands, and claimed to have actually seen one of these things!

So...was it just an inside joke? Or....


https://youtu.be/XVSRm80WzZk

Yes this is also one explanation for Nessie, in paleolithic times humans found plesiosaurs and they became part of common folklore but due to their size were easily killed off from boats or when they ventured on shore thus becoming extinct. the "beasties" might also explain stories of dragons.

Native Americans and Sherpa might have also come across remnant neanderthals in north America and in the himalayas. this is actually quite plausible as both the Himalayas and North America were the last places humans settled so chances were relic populations of neanderthals must have been living there up to as recently as 10,000 years ago.

I like the idea of ancestor memories of fighting now extinct "beasts" seems plausible. Apparently Alexander the Great saw giant serpents when entering India with eyes the size of saucers. With population explosions and expansion the remnant pockets of ancient beasts like titanoboa were easy pickins for hungry humans.

There is no evidence that Neanderthals ever crossed Beringia into North America. Denisovians MAYBE. But not Neanderthals. But so far the evidence shows that the Americas were free of any and all humans until the anatomically modern ancestors of the Amerinds migrated in during the last ice age.

The western half of Eurasia belonged to the Neanderthals, the eastern to the Denisovians. Anatomical moderns emerged out of Africa and timidly clung to the shores of the Indian ocean as they spread east, entered what is now Indonesia (today islands but then a big land mass), and then finnally reached New Guinea and Australia.

Later some bold group of anatomical modern stabbed north into central asia and then one subgroup turned left and entered Europe via the Ukraine and confronted the Neanderthals, and the other turned right and entered China and encountered Denisovians.



The Himalayas were likely inhabited, not by Neanderthals, but by Denisovians. And part of the legacy of us humans interacting with them when we invaded is that modern Himalayan people (like Tibetans) have inherited efficient high altitude breathing genes from the local Denisovians.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 20 Jul 2024, 8:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

It doesnt fit. Fully evolved humans encountering giant reptiles. Didnt happen. Thus we have no direct "memories". With one sad exception. Giant tortoises.

Giant tortoises, with their shells, were impervious to non human predators. But are very vulnerable packages of meat for even the most primitive human hunters. Tortoises did fine for a long time but...suddenly ...they vanish from the fossil record in one continent...Africa. The vanishing happened around the time that ...humans first evolved in Africa. Then just as suddenly the giant tortoises vanish from the fossil record in Eurasia and Australia...about the same time humans fanned out from Africa. And THEN they vanish from North and South America...just as the Paleo Indians arrive. But giant tortoises were still common on oceanic islands in recent historic times ...until sailors of the sailing ship era began to harvest them for meat too!

Humans did encounter mammalian "megafauna". Like wooly mammoths, and cave lions. And we likely drove them to extinction. I saw a documentary about the Amerind migration into Amazonia at then end of the ice age that showed actual cave paintings depicting human hunters fighting an extinct giant sloth. Why these giant furry beasts are NOT rememembered in myth, but giant snakes are I do not know.