Cryptozoologists argue that the decomposed carcass, accidentally entangled in the nets of a Japanese trawler near New Zealand in 1977, is nothing more than a plesiosaur, a prehistoric sea monster. (Plesiosaurs are long-necked aquatic carnivorous reptiles with four fin-limbs. Considered to be long extinct along with dinosaurs about 65 million years ago.)
However, the results of analyzes of tissue samples cut from the dead monster before it was thrown into the sea clearly indicate that it was a shark, and most likely a giant shark. This is not surprising at all, for it is known that the giant shark resembles a plesiosaur when decomposing, and its carcass has often been mistaken in the past for the carcass of a "sea monster."
Unfortunately, the results of scientific research on the reported remains did not receive as much publicity as other sensational cases, and this gave rise to a lot of rumors. But let's talk about everything in order …
On April 25, 1977, the Taio fishing boat Zuyo Maru was fishing for mackerel about 30 miles from Christchurch, New Zealand, when the carcass of a huge animal became entangled in nets at a depth of about 300 meters. As soon as the remains of a massive animal weighing about 16 tons were pulled up to the ship and lifted onto the deck, assistant production manager Michihiko Yano told Captain Akira Tanaka: "It's a rotten whale!"
However, after Yano got a better look at the animal, he began to doubt it. Approximately 17 other crew members saw the carcass. Some thought it might be a giant tortoise with no shell. In short, no one on board could say for sure what it was.
Despite the possible scientific importance of the find, the captain and crew decided to throw the foul-smelling carcass overboard so as not to spoil the fish catch. However, when the slippery carcass was dragged to be thrown into the ocean, it slipped out of the ropes and fell onto the deck. This provided an opportunity for 39-year-old Yano, a graduate of the Yamaguchi High School of Oceanology, to examine the animal more thoroughly. Although he never could identify the creature, Yano had the impression that it was unusual, and this prompted him to take some measurements and photographs.
The length of the carcass was 10 meters. Yano cut 42 pieces of "corpus callosum" from the anterior fin, hoping to aid further identification efforts. The animal was then thrown overboard and sank in its sea grave. All this took no more than an hour. About two months later, Jano made a sketch of the mascara, which unfortunately does not match some of his own measurements, photographs and statements.
In the figure, measurements of the most significant parts of the body are barely visible. The whole length is 10,000mm, the head is 450mm, the neck is 1500mm.
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Yano returned to Japan on a different ship on June 10, 1977 and immediately developed the photographs. Representatives of the company were amazed at the photos, which showed an extraordinary animal with a long neck and small head. They were asked to look at local scientists, who limited themselves to the remark that they had never seen anything like it. Some even thought that it could, in principle, be a prehistoric animal such as a plesiosaur.
On July 20, 1977, as widespread interest and controversy over the find began to creep across the country, fish company officials held a press conference to publicly announce their mysterious discovery. Although the scientific analysis of tissue samples and other data has not yet been completed, company representatives have begun to emphasize that it is a sea monster.
On the same day, several Japanese newspapers published sensational news about the find on the front pages, followed by a huge number of radio and television reports throughout Japan. While some Japanese scientists were quite cautious, others insisted that it was a plesiosaur.
The Asahi Shimbun newspaper quoted Professor Yoshinori Imaizumi, head of the animal research department at the Tokyo State Science Museum, as saying:
“This is not a fish, not a whale or any other mammal … It is a reptile, and in the picture it looks like a plesiosaur. This is a valuable and important find for the entire human race. This seems to indicate that these animals are not completely extinct. Tokyo Shikama of Yokohama University also supported his colleague: “This must be a plesiosaur. Probably, such creatures still swim in the seas near New Zealand, feeding on fish.
Meanwhile, American and European scientists, in interviews about the remains, have generally refuted the sea monster theory. Paleontologist Bob Schaeffer of the American Museum of Natural History noted that about every ten years, the next remains are attributed to a "dinosaur", but then it always turns out that it is a giant shark or an adult whale. Alwyn Wheeler of the British Museum agreed that it was probably a shark …
Explaining that shark carcasses are decomposing in an unusual way, Wheeler also adds: "Even more experienced people than Japanese fishermen were deceived by the similarity of the shark remains to the plesiosaur."
Other Western scientists have offered their own versions of the zoologist Alan Fraser-Brunner, curator of the aquarium at the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland, put forward the idea that these were the remains of a sea lion, despite the enormous size of the animal. Carl Hubbs of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, California, thought it was probably "a little whale rotted to the point where most of the meat peeled off." George Zag, reptile and amphibian caretaker at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, put forward the idea that these are the rotted remains of a leatherback turtle.
The divergence of opinions among different scientists can be explained by the fact that many biologists are used to working with whole, fresh representatives of the species, and not with decomposed carcasses or, even worse, with photographs of it, where both external and internal organs can have a completely different appearance. than in live animals.
On July 25, 1977, the Taio Fish Company published a preliminary report on biochemical tests (using ion exchange chromatography) of tissue samples. The report noted that the tissue sections taken from the carcass of the caught monster closely resemble the fibers of the fins of living sea creatures.
These creatures meant sharks. However, this was not directly stated, which led to further confusion in the Japanese media and the subsequent spread of dinosaur addiction. It was reported that dozens of fishing vessels from Japan, Russia and Korea were rushing to New Zealand in hopes of intercepting the hurriedly discarded body. The Japanese government even issued a new postage stamp featuring a plesiosaur. Since the days of Godzilla, no monster has conquered Japan so firmly and for a long time!
The debate over the remains continued to appear in the American press, but with less sensationalism.
On July 26, 1977, in the New York Times, there was a note that Professor Fujio Yasuda, who originally supported the plesiosaur idea, admitted that chromatological tests showed amino acid species very similar to the blue shark control test.
The article, which appeared in Newsweek on August 1, 1977, briefly walked the "Southern Ocean Monster" without accepting the views of either side. A few months later, a more detailed article by John Coster appeared in the Oceans magazine. It became the basis for many subsequent reports, some of which embellished or oversimplified various aspects of the story. Koster himself suggested that the small size of the animal's head, a well-formed spine, and the absence of a dorsal fin were not in favor of the shark theory.
Soon, conflicting news about the carcass came to the attention of some successive cryptozoologists. They seemed to be asking: how can we trust geologists if an animal that was considered extinct millions of years ago can end up in fishing nets?
Shark or plesiosaur?
However, if the plesiosaur theory was confirmed, the concept of evolution would remain the same. Indeed, many other modern animals existed during the Mesozoic era, for example: crocodiles, lizards, snakes and various fish. Among the fossil finds are their prehistoric ancestors. But some animals, such as coelacanth and tuatara, were considered extinct many tens of millions of years ago, but then it turned out that they, having slightly evolved, survived to this day.
Nevertheless, the appearance of a modern plesiosaur would be a startling scientific sensation. Then the theory was confirmed that the long-necked "sea snakes" are not long-extinct animals, but real "living fossils".
It has already been mentioned that some scientists were convinced from the very beginning that these were the remains of a giant shark. Their arguments seemed irrefutable.
The giant shark, Cetorhinus maximus, the second largest fish (the whale shark comes first), reaches over 10 meters in length, although representatives of the species have been found 16 meters in length. However, this giant is absolutely harmless to humans. It feeds only on plankton (mostly small crustaceans) passing through its large gill “sieves” as it slowly swims underwater, opening its huge mouth.
Shark Cetorhinus maximus
When the carcass of a giant shark decays, the jaws and loosely fixed gills in the form of arcs fall off first, giving the remains the appearance of a long neck and a small head.
According to reports compiled by the famous cryptozoologist Bernard Evelmans, over a dozen carcasses of "sea kites" in the past have definitely turned out to be the remains of giant sharks.
But what is surprising is the tendency of giant sharks, when they come together, to mimic the movement of a sea serpent.
Feeding in groups at shallow depths, they line up in two or more rows, and when their dorsal and caudal fins protrude above the water surface, it looks like numerous “humps” of a huge sea monster.
After the publication of an article in the Oceans magazine, which nevertheless questioned the belonging of the caught monster to the shark family, scientists in Japan formed a research team to study more closely the evidence from the Zuiyo-Maru. Copies of the images of the carcass were sent to the Tokyo Fisheries Institute, and its director, Dr. Tadayoshi Sasaki, suggested arranging a meeting of scientists to jointly study the collected material.
This meeting was attended by over a dozen scientists, including specialists in biochemistry, ichthyology, paleontology, comparative anatomy, etc. Most of them argued that it was the remains of a badly decomposed shark.
This is what the ancient sea lizard Plesiosaurus supposedly looked like.
Tissue data
And they provided irrefutable evidence of their version. For example, data from all types of histological studies suggest that this animal was a giant shark or its close relative.
Pictures and eyewitnesses confirm the presence of fins, which are present in most fish, including sharks. In contrast, plesiosaurs had bony phalanges that made up their fins, which was not found in the carcass.
One of the pictures shows a dorsal fin. Most fish have a dorsal fin, including sharks, which is uncommon for plesiosaurs.
If the remains belonged to a plesiosaur, the body would hardly be bent in the way shown in the photographs, since the bones of the animal would be large and flat.
The proportions of the body are also very similar to that of a great giant shark, especially a shark that has lost its tail. If you add the missing tail, the shark would have been 12.5 meters during life, which is rare, but still fits within the size of giant sharks - after all, this poor giant may have died at a very old age.
So, the reports containing information that a shark, and not a prehistoric plesiosaur, got into the trawler's net, unfortunately, as already mentioned, did not become the property of a wide readership. In contrast to the first sensational reports about the "sea monster".
The New Zealand monster story has leaked onto the Internet, and more often than not in distorted forms.
However, it is possible that the ocean in its depths still hides never before seen animals. As proof of this, five months before the events on the trawler "Zuyo Maru", a naval research vessel accidentally swooped down near Hawaii on a strange shark 4-5 meters in length, which caught on an anchor.
The strange fish had an unusually large head and wide, saucer-shaped jaws, which is why it was soon nicknamed "megapast". Its jaws were filled with hundreds of small teeth and opened at the top, not the bottom, like most sharks. Even stranger, the inside of her mouth gleamed with a silvery light.
Obviously, the "megapast" uses its luminous mouth to attract small crustaceans when feeding at great depths, where sunlight hardly penetrates. Then the strange fish was christened with the scientific name Megachasma pelagios (Pelagic largemouth shark) and was identified as a representative of a new species, genus and family of sharks. By a funny coincidence, the "megapast", individuals of which were later caught more than once, is now considered a close relative of the giant shark …