Sea Monsters revealed!
Ok, so this isn’t actually a squid-related item, but its something I felt squidblog could not ignore, given our general sea-monster theme.
From the Museum of Hoaxes blog:
It’s long been argued that when people report seeing sea serpents, they might actually be seeing floating logs, strange waves, or shadows on the water, and mistaking these things for sea serpents. Now Dr. Charles Paxton has come up with an interesting extension of this theory. He argues that people might also be misidentifying whale penises as sea serpents. He presents this theory in the current issue of the Archives of Natural History. As an example he uses the case of an eighteenth-century missionary named Hans Egede who reported a sighting of a sea serpent, and drew a picture of the creature. Paxton demonstrates that Egede’s picture closely resembles what a whale’s aroused penis rising from the water might look like.
To back this theory up there is a VERY revealing photo at Deep Sea News. And if you think that photo is impressive, check out this one.
[Credits: Pharangula, both for the original post, and the many informative comments. ]