I think the Loch Ness Monster is likely to have been real at some point, although I bet it was just a large eel or something.
That Henry Hudson mermaid business got me thinking. Specifically, about Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. The linked article tells us that scientists generally consider it pseudoscience, but for the sake of argument, letâs suppose that it was true. In that scenario, we have a situation much like that of extant marine mammal evolution.
All vertebrates other than fishes evolved on land; all known marine reptiles, seabirds, and marine mammals are descended from terrestrial ancestors. Their aquatic lifestyle represents a return to the sea. Many are still partially bound to the land â sea turtles, pinnipeds, and all known seabirds must return to land to reproduce.
What if the hypothetical lineage of (semi-)aquatic hominids continued down that evolutionary path? What if they continued down it as far as the hoofed mammals who became cetaceans? Looks like merfolk to me.
Well it might be cool, but I wouldnât know because I would be hiding in a closet.
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Chupacabras do exist. In my corner of the US, any unidentified animal from a coyote with mange to even a dead skate found at a landfill (where did that come from?) have been called chupacabras. It is any animal that canât be readily identified, so thereâs bound to be quite a few on iNat.
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Itâs an interesting idea but i feel like externally prominent breasts would be one of the first things to evolve away in an aquatic setting, i donât think any marine mammal has them. And yet they are in all the mermaid stories just because of what some Homo sapiens wanted to see in the stories. I think a real aquatic ape would look more like that Shape of Water sea monster except smooth like a porpoise or seal instead of scaly
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Like Gerald!
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Note that all of these have been proven to exist since photography has improved â whereas despite most people now carrying cameras on them at all times, we have yet to see any convincing evidence of bigfoot, a large mammal found in some of the most populous regions of the world.
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I think this only rules out cryptids in areas where they would be seen and photographed, water breathing lake monsters that do not have to surface for air could remain mostly undetected by smartphone cameras, as could UFOs at altitudes where a smartphone camera has difficulty focusing clearly
Hereâs one thatâs never been knowingly seen which might be a distinct species :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/52-hertz_whale
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/13/loneliest-whale-in-the-world-search
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I see nothing here suggesting that this is a distinct species?
" The sonic signature is that of a whale, albeit at a unique frequency. The call patterns resemble neither blue nor fin whales, being much higher in frequency, shorter, and more frequent.[5] Blue whales usually vocalize at 10â39 Hz,[2] fin whales at 20 Hz.[1] The calls of this whale are highly variable in their pattern of repetition, duration, and sequence, although they are easily identifiable due to their frequency and characteristic clustering.[6]âŚ
The migration track of the 52-hertz whale is unrelated to the presence or movement of other whale species.[7] Its movements have been somewhat similar to that of blue whales, but its timing has been more like that of fin whales.[6]"
I mean it could just be a hybrid blue/finâŚbut there are many hybrid blue-fin whales already which arenât vocalising at this frequency ⌠so this must be different in some wayâŚ
Need to watch this documentary about itâŚ, Iâve not seen it :
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2401814/
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If it was a member of a different species there would have to be multiple of them, so I think this an unusual individual rather than a species
ooh maybe itâs a neurodivergent whale
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This is also evidence against another marine cryptid, âbloop.â That, plus they had to speed up the audio in order to make it sound like âbloop.â
Having served as a sonarman in the US Navy, I am aware that besides the passive sonar on Naval ships, there are also SURTASS ships whose only job is to tow passive sonar arrays, and SOSUS arrays mounted on the seafloor. The whole ocean is thoroughly listened to, and it is unlikely that any sound-producing species would go undetected.
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I thought bloop was determined to be moving ice
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I think generally those who go back the furthest. Who were being told stories about the earliest. A lot of early stories and myths are usually built on some level of truthâŚthereâs no way to know without asking those who first told these stories. Also ones that are small, and hide. Forest dwellers and marine lifeforms are the most believable to me because there is so much in those spaces that can be easily missed or overlooked.
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not necessarily - it could be the last surviving example
( bearing in mind some whales live hundreds of years itâs not completely unfeasible )
I mean equally weird is for it to be the sole anomaly remotely like that in the known whale population
but in the synopsis of the documentary I get the sense they find another at that frequency actuallyâŚ
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It does sound like there might be 2, which is still too small for a population of a species. They could be the last examples of a nearly extinct species, but this woudl almost certainly be a species that has been seen, I donât think an air breathing animal this size could hide, and old time whalers must have hunted them, but they could be so similar to a known species that they werenât identified
Basically I think if this is a separate species it is a case where a known species needs a taxonomic split, not a truly never before seen whale
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@forum_moderators maybe this should be moved into a separate 52 hertz whale topic?