Mythical creatures

[CandleLite]

well it would have to be at night. some ocean dwelling predators rise at night to feed.

[abracax]

There are many explanations for sea serpents and such. For instance the giant squid, the ribbon fish, the Oarfish and giant sea worms like this wash up or glimpsed from a ship, they might be confused for part of a larger species or a baby.



With the ocean as large as is it, there may be creatures large enough to take down ships without a problem. In the Bermudas there is an Island with massive underground/water caves called blue holes, the cave system is all under the island and goes out to the reef. In this cave system it is believed that a giant octopus big enough to attack sailboats lives. There has been many sightings and only 1% of the caves has been explored.

So sea monsters can be many things, misunderstanding of species and misinterpretation of carcasses that have washed up or been caught at sea. Or they could very well be real, after all when something dies in the ocean after a short time there is no proof it even existed.

[Darkbrady]

2) Why are you assuming its a tiny cave? Why would you limit yourself in that sense? There are thousands of caverns that are accessible that are the size of a football field. Why would a creature crawl into a tiny cave that it was too small for? I'm completely throwing out this notion of a "tiny cave", it has no foundation in this discussion and it doesn't show very well judgement.

Consider that if the animals are escapin' a catasrophe they won't exactly have the time nor leisure to look for the best available. It's very possible that (for some, at least) will be stuck in more cramped, considtions.
Fair enough; I shouldnae consider it will be the case for most/all. A large portion would manage to find the large caves and escape this issue.

3) "It cannot go outside for a quick fly about. It's trapped w/ it's wings in complete disuse" It would not be trapped. Why do you assume it would not be able to leave the cavern for a brief foray? You speak in definites, as if there is no possibility. Many dinosaur age reptiles survived by seeking shelter until hospitable conditions returned. Obviously they wouldn't be very unhospitable one day then completely hospitable the next. It would be a gradual shift to normalcy. During that time, it wouldn't kill a creature that burrowed into the ground to come out for awhile before going back in. Same case for a dragon.

I'll run w/ that, but it really jus' depends on how long it took for hospitable conditions to return. These type of events can take years, potentially; thas enough to cause atrophy. On the other hand they could take much less and give the dragon the escape time to rebuild any atrophied muscle before any effect became permanant.
I s'pose that depends more on how long the conditions lasted, but I won't argue w/ that point.

a theory as to why a sea monster might attack an ocean going vessel: these ships were not military or exploratory, but fishing. if you looked up and saw a tasty meal all lumped together in a net not being able to escape, wouldnt you dash up and chop it down? would in not be possible then to get a bit of ship in with that free meal?
just a thought

Will run w/ that for fishin' boats, but what about the boats that were designed solely for fast travel? They keep enough stock on board for long trips so that they don't need to stop to fish every day and can continue movin'.

or because sea monsters are so large they mistook the boat for their prey? All the fishies getting caught thrashing around and bleeding attracts the attention.

Even one so large I don't see why it would go to the surface lookin' for massive prey; they typically go deeper when they want larger meals and higher up for smaller fish...but to go all the way to the surface seems strange. I may be wrong on this, mind you....anyone got somethin' more definite?


Abra...what the hell is that big slimy worm thing? o_O

[abracax]

Even one so large I don't see why it would go to the surface lookin' for massive prey; they typically go deeper when they want larger meals and higher up for smaller fish...but to go all the way to the surface seems strange. I may be wrong on this, mind you....anyone got somethin' more definite?


Abra...what the hell is that big slimy worm thing? o_O

The giant squids natural prey is the sperm whale, what if it was both ways. What if there was a species of giant squid that also hunted the sperm whale or maybe all the giant squid observed so far are still quite young? That would explaing attacks on ships as squids don't always hunt at one depth, they will change the depth of their hunt to the temperature of the waters.

It's a sea worm, they eat coral reefs. That one is about 5ft long.

[Darkbrady]

It's a sea worm, they eat coral reefs. That one is about 5ft long.

Oh, so it's jus' really close up?

I thought that was like a twenty foot long snake thing o_O

[CandleLite]

i also heard that pods of dolphins could be mistaken for sea serpents. but after the whale watching trip i went on last summer i find that explanation harder to believe. epically if the ppl who saw them made their living from the ocean, if you live somewhere you tend to know more about it then a casual visitor

[abracax]

i also heard that pods of dolphins could be mistaken for sea serpents. but after the whale watching trip i went on last summer i find that explanation harder to believe. epically if the ppl who saw them made their living from the ocean, if you live somewhere you tend to know more about it then a casual visitor

I don't know who thought of the pods of dolphins bit, dolphins used to run with ships many times during ancient times. As a matter of fact I have read that dolphins could have been one of the reasons for mermaid myths.

[CandleLite]

thats intresting! i watched a movie where a seal shed its skin and became a woman, cant remember what she was called tho. good movie. anyone remember??

[Rodri]

I just want to say one last thing about the dinosaur/dragon debate, if I can and then let the conversation move on to sea creatures.
It seems that we have different views on how long the after affects of a cataclysmic event would last. That's only natural because even the experts tend to have different opinions on this. Escalantes model is of a short time period of devestation, with fairly rapid recovery. This supports his hypothesis of a survivor from the age of dinosaurs and is vallid, as there is no scientific conclusion it is wrong.

My own view is of a cataclysmic event that throws the natural world so far out of balance that it would take many thousands of years for recovery to a high level. This is also vallid and is the view of many scientists.

Unfortunately, we will have to agree to disagree, but I accept the hypothesis as reasonable.

Has anyone ever heard the story of an aquarium that kept losing their display of crayfish? The staff would come to work in the morning to find only empty shells in their tank.
This was a bit of a mystery because everything else was as it should be.
Eventually it was decided to set up a video surveillence to see if that could shed some light on the matter. What they found out was that an octopus, that was in a tank across the room, had found a way to escape from it's tank. It would make it's way across the room and enter the lobster tank, have a little midnight feast and then (this is the astounding bit) leave the lobster tank and make it's way back to it's own tank before morning.
It's said that the octopus should be fairly low level intelligence. Their brain is small and not very complex and they have a very short life-span. Yet this shows a creature that can not only work out and execute a plan, but seems to be aware of consequences and makes the effort to cover up it's actions.

I know this has nothing to do with mythical creatures of the sea, but I offer it to make the point that there are many things that we don't yet understand, including the ways that other creatures 'think'.

[Zen Master]

dragon is the most famous of creatures mythological but not the fiercest if asked there are different genre of dragons depending on where in the world you are studying

i think the idea came frome dinosaurs but the fiercest of all creatures in my eyes
is chuck norris jk

most people would think acient mythology but urban myth also depics many fierce made up creatures like the creature from clover field or alien

my favorite is predator you know thing with dreads and heat vision invisible and deadly sexy