What monsters live at the bottom of the ocean. Monsters of the deep sea. Myths and truth
Throughout history, people have invented countless tales of mythical creatures, legendary monsters, and supernatural monsters. Despite their obscure origins, these mythical creatures are described in folklore. different peoples and in many cases are part of the culture. It's amazing that there are people around the world who are still convinced that these monsters exist, despite the lack of any meaningful evidence. So, today we are going to look at a list of 25 legendary and mythical creatures that never existed.
Budak is present in many Czech fairy tales and legends. This monster is described, as a rule, as a creepy creature resembling a scarecrow. It can cry like an innocent child, thus luring its victims. On the night of the full moon, Budak allegedly weaves a fabric from the souls of those people whom he ruined. Budak is sometimes described as an evil version of Santa Claus who travels around Christmas in a cart pulled by black cats.
24. Ghoul
The ghoul is one of the most famous creatures in Arabian folklore and appears in the Thousand and One Nights. The ghoul is described as an undead creature that can also take the form of an intangible spirit. He often visits cemeteries to eat the flesh of recently deceased people. This is perhaps the main reason why the word ghoul in Arab countries often used when referring to gravediggers or representatives of any profession directly related to death.
23. Yorogumo.
Loosely translated from Japanese, Yorogumo means "spider temptress", and in our humble opinion, the name perfectly describes this monster. According to Japanese folklore, Yorogumo was a bloodthirsty monster. But in most tales, he is described as a huge spider that takes the form of a very attractive and sexy woman, which seduces its male victims, captures them in a net, and then devours them with pleasure.
22. Cerberus.
In Greek mythology, Cerberus is the guardian of Hades and is usually described as a bizarre looking monster that looks like a dog with three heads and a tail ending in a dragon's head. Cerberus was born from the union of two monsters, the giant Typhon and Echidna, and is himself the brother of the Lernaean Hydra. Cerberus is often described in myth as one of the most dedicated guards in history and is often mentioned in the Homeric epic.
21. Kraken
The legend of the Kraken came from North seas and its presence was initially limited to the coasts of Norway and Iceland. Over time, however, his fame grew, thanks to the wild imagination of storytellers, which led subsequent generations to believe that he also lives in all the seas of the world.
Norwegian fishermen originally described the sea monster as a gigantic animal that was as big as an island and posed a danger to passing ships not from direct attack, but from giant waves and tsunamis caused by its body movements. However later people Stories began to circulate of the monster's violent attacks on ships. Modern historians believe that the Kraken was nothing more than a giant squid and the rest of the stories are nothing but the wild imagination of sailors.
20. Minotaur
The Minotaur is one of the first epic creatures that we meet in the history of mankind, and takes us back to the heyday of the Minoan civilization. The Minotaur had the head of a bull on the body of a very large, muscular man and settled in the center of the Cretan labyrinth, which was built by Daedalus and his son Icarus at the request of King Minos. Everyone who fell into the labyrinth became a victim of the Minotaur. The exception was the Athenian king Theseus, who killed the beast and left the labyrinth alive with the help of the thread of Ariadne, the daughter of Minos.
If Theseus were hunting the Minotaur these days, then a rifle with a collimator sight would be very useful to him, a huge and high-quality selection of which is on the portal http://www.meteomaster.com.ua/meteoitems_R473/.
19. Wendigo
Those familiar with psychology have probably heard the term "Wendigo psychopathy" which describes a psychosis that causes a person to eat human flesh. The medical term takes its name from the mythical creature called the Wendigo, which, according to the myths of the Algonquian Indians. The Wendigo was an evil creature that looked like a cross between a human and a monster, somewhat like a zombie. According to legend, only people who ate human flesh were able to become Wendigo themselves.
Of course, this creature never existed and was invented by Algonquin elders who were trying to stop people from engaging in cannibalism.
In ancient Japanese folklore Kappa is a water demon that lives in rivers and lakes and devours naughty children. Kappa means "river child" in Japanese and has the body of a turtle, the limbs of a frog, and a head with a beak. In addition, on the top of the head there is a cavity with water. According to legend, Kappa's head should always be moistened, otherwise it will lose its power. Oddly enough, many Japanese consider the existence of Kappa to be a reality. Some lakes in Japan have posters and signs warning visitors that there is a serious danger of being attacked by this creature.
Greek mythology gave the world the most epic heroes, gods, and creatures, and Talos is one of them. The huge bronze giant allegedly lived in Crete, where he protected a woman named Europa (from whom the European continent takes its name) from pirates and invaders. For this reason, Talos patrolled the island's shores three times a day.
16. Menehune.
According to legend, the Menehune were an ancient race of gnomes who lived in the forests of Hawaii before the arrival of the Polynesians. Many scientists explain the existence of ancient statues in the Hawaiian Islands by the presence of Menehune here. Others argue that the legends of Menehune appeared with the arrival of Europeans in these areas and were created by the human imagination. The myth goes back to the roots of Polynesian history. When the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaii, they found dams, roads, and even temples that were built by the Menehune.
However, no one has found the skeletons. Therefore, it still remains big mystery what race built all these amazing ancient structures in Hawaii before the arrival of the Polynesians.
15. Griffin.
The griffin was a legendary creature with the head and wings of an eagle and the body and tail of a lion. The griffin is the king of the animal kingdom, which was a symbol of power and dominance. Griffins can be found in many depictions of Minoan Crete and more recently in the art and mythology of Ancient Greece. However, some believe that the creature symbolizes the fight against evil and witchcraft.
14. Medusa
According to one version, Medusa was a beautiful maiden destined for the goddess Athena, who was raped by Poseidon. Athena, furious that she couldn't stand up to Poseidon directly, turned Medusa into an unsightly, evil monster with a head full of snakes for hair. The ugliness of Medusa was so disgusting that the one who looked at her face turned to stone. Eventually Perseus killed Medusa with the help of Athena.
Pihiu is another legendary monster hybrid native to China. Even though no part of its body resembled human organs, the mythological creature is often described as having the body of a lion with wings, long legs, and the head of a Chinese dragon. Pihiu is considered the guardian and protector of those who practice feng shui. Another version of pihiu, Tian Lu is also sometimes considered a sacred being that attracts and protects wealth. This is the reason why small statues of Tian Lu are often seen in Chinese homes or offices, as it is believed that this creature can contribute to the accumulation of wealth.
12. Sukuyant
Sukuyant, according to Caribbean legends (especially in the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Guadeloupe), is an exotic black version of the European vampire. From mouth to mouth, from generation to generation, Sukuyant has become part of the local folklore. He is described as a hideous-looking old woman by day, turning into a gorgeous-looking young black woman resembling a goddess at night. She seduces her victims to suck their blood or make them her eternal slaves. It was also believed that she practiced black magic and voodoo, and could turn into fireball or enter the homes of her victims through any opening in the home, including through cracks and keyholes.
11. Lamassu.
According to the mythology and legends of Mesopotamia, Lamassu was a protective deity, depicted with the body and wings of a bull, or with the body of a lion, wings of an eagle and the head of a man. Some have described him as a menacing male, while others have described him as a female deity with good intentions.
10. Tarasca
The tale of Tarascus is reported in the story of Martha, which is included in the biography of the Christian saints Jacob. Tarasca was a dragon with a very intimidating appearance and bad intentions. According to legend, he had the head of a lion, six short legs like a bear, the body of a bull, was covered with a turtle shell and a scaly tail that ended with a sting of a scorpion. Tarasca terrorized the region of Nerluk in France.
It all ended when a young devoted Christian named Martha arrived in the city to spread the gospel of Jesus and discovered that people had been afraid of the ferocious dragon for years. Then he found a dragon in the forest and sprinkled it with holy water. This action tamed wildlife dragon. After that, Marfa brought the dragon back to the city of Nerluk, where the enraged locals stoned Tarasque to death.
On November 25, 2005, UNESCO included Tarasque in the list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
9. Draugr.
Draugr, according to Scandinavian folklore and mythology, is a zombie that spreads a surprisingly powerful putrid smell of the dead. It was believed that Draugr eats people, drinks blood, and has power over the minds of people, driving them crazy at will. The typical Draugr was somewhat similar to Freddy Krueger, which, apparently, was created under the influence of fairy tales about the Scandinavian monster.
8. Lernaean Hydra.
The Lernaean Hydra was a mythical water monster with many heads that resembled big snakes. The ferocious monster lived in Lerna, a small village near Argos. According to legend, Hercules decided to kill the Hydra and when he cut off one head, two appeared. For this reason, Heracles' nephew Iolaus burned every head as soon as his uncle cut it off, only then did they stop breeding.
7. Brox.
According to Jewish legend, Broxa is an aggressive monster that looks like a giant bird that attacked goats or, in rare cases, drank human blood at night. The legend of Brox spread in the Middle Ages in Europe, where it was believed that witches took on the appearance of Brox.
6. Baba Yaga
Baba Yaga is perhaps one of the most popular paranormal creatures in the folklore of the Eastern Slavs and, according to legend, had the appearance of a ferocious and scary old woman. Nevertheless, Baba Yaga is a multifaceted figure that can inspire researchers, can turn into a cloud, a snake, a bird, a black cat and symbolize the Moon, death, winter, or the Earth Mother Goddess, the totem progenitor of matriarchy.
Antaeus was a giant with great strength, which he inherited from his father, Poseidon (god of the sea), and mother Gaia (Earth). He was a hooligan who lived in the Libyan desert and challenged any traveler in his lands to battle. Having defeated the stranger in a deadly wrestling match, he killed him. He collected the skulls of the people he defeated in order to one day build a temple dedicated to Poseidon from these "trophies".
But one day, one of the passers-by was Hercules, who made his way to the garden of the Hesperides to complete his eleventh feat. Antaeus made a fatal mistake by challenging Hercules. The hero raised Antaeus above the ground and crushed him in a bear hug.
4. Dullahan.
The fierce and powerful Dullahan is a headless horseman in Irish folklore and mythology. For centuries, the Irish have described him as a harbinger of doom who traveled on a black, terrifying-looking horse.
According to Japanese legend, Kodama is a peaceful spirit that lives inside certain types trees. The kodama is described as a small white and peaceful ghost that is perfectly in sync with nature. However, according to legend, when someone tries to cut down the tree that Kodama lives in, bad things and a string of misfortunes begin to happen to him.
2. Corrigan
Strange creatures named Corrigan hail from Brittany, a cultural region in northwestern France with a very rich literary tradition and folklore. Some say that Corrigan was a beautiful, kind fairy, while other sources describe him as evil spirit who looked like a dwarf and danced around the fountains. He seduced people with his charms to kill them or steal their children.
1. Fish-man Lyrgans.
The fish-man Lyrgans existed in the mythology of Cantabria, an autonomous community located in northern Spain.
According to legend, this is an amphibious creature that looks like a sullen person who was lost at sea. Many people believe that the fish-man was one of the four sons of Francisco de la Vega and Maria del Casar, a couple who lived in the area. It was believed that they drowned in the waters of the sea while swimming with their friends at the mouth of Bilbao.
Since time immemorial, the sea has seemed to a person full of gloomy secrets, inhabited by various sea monsters that are ready at any moment to drag the ship into the abyss. It is not for nothing that almost all coastal peoples have myths about mysterious inhabitants. sea depths. From time to time, some of the ancient legends suddenly receive new confirmation. Even today, sailors sometimes see huge sea monsters, snakes and dragons in the open ocean. Sensational reports of such encounters go around all the newspapers in the world, sometimes they even manage to take a picture of the monster.
Encounters with the sea serpent
1848, August 6 - The frigate of the British Royal Navy "Dedalus" was heading back to Plymouth after a campaign in the East Indies. The ship kept its way to the northeast, in the direction between the cape Good Hope and Saint Helena.
At five o'clock in the evening, the ship's midshipman, noticing an object overboard, reported this to the watch officer. The officer of the watch was on the bridge along with the navigator and the captain. The boatswain's mate and the helmsman were at the helm. The rest of the crew had dinner.
Coming closer, they saw that it was a sea serpent; his head rose above the water surface to a height of 4 feet (1.2 m). The sailors estimated that the length of the monster was approximately at least 60 feet (18.3 m). There were no visible organs for translational movements. The animal was motionless: in appearance, it did not make any movements, despite the fact that it was moving at a decent speed - up to 12-15 miles per hour (19-24 km / h). approached the frigate so close that the officers standing on the deck could even see some details.
The neck region, starting just behind the head, was approximately 15 inches (38 cm) long and resembled a snake's neck - dark brown in color, with a yellow-white tint in the throat region. On the back was a noticeable seaweed-colored mane.
On a 50-foot (15.2 m) yacht around the world, English explorer and yachtsman John Ridgway was at sea for about five months. Once, while in the Pacific Ocean, he approached Cape Horn. After a long period of calm water and dense fog, black clouds and high waves appeared ahead of the yacht. Everyone understood: a storm is coming. And at this time some creature swam up from the stern. Team members saw albatrosses and whales and squid glowing at night, but this was something else.
“The ship was traveling at a speed of 9 or 10 knots (16.5-18.4 km / h), and for an animal this is quite a speed, if you also consider that it did not lag behind the yacht for a long time.
Its color was yellowish-brown, and it floated with a noticeable "sinusoidality". The body was very strong, muscular and, being far in the open sea, moved for a long time to high speed through huge waves, appearing here and there. It swam with its head still raised, and I believe that if you mentally continue the neck and torso, you get an ordinary sea serpent.
1942 - Mr. Welsh was on board a military transport ship. He was on lookout watch.
“At a considerable distance from the ship, I saw a large black object. My heart sank into my heels: I mistook it for an enemy submarine, and immediately sounded the alarm - the ringing of the bell was desperately ringing throughout the ship. We had a great time. It was close to panic. The watch officer, after looking through the binoculars, said: “Uh, guys, this is not a submarine at all! I can't figure out what it is at all. Maybe something is just floating on the surface.”
When the ship came closer, we saw what it was - I think the word "monster" to this subject fit better everything: he looked like a snake, a very fat creature - probably as thick as a tree trunk, and up to 20–30 feet (6.1–9.1 m) long, with an arched, in several places, curved back. I didn’t get a good look at the head: it was always obscured by the waves. We continued on our way, and the snake, apparently not paying any attention to us, swam its way and after some time disappeared from sight.
giant squid
2002, July - a giant dead squid weighing 250 kg was found on the beach of Tasmania. After studying his tissues, scientists concluded that he lived in a bay 200 meters deep. Previously, it was believed that the giant squid was a deep-sea animal, because the incident caused a discussion about the reality of legends about huge mollusks sinking ships.
The first evidence of the existence of a giant squid was found in 1856, when the Danish scientist Japetus Steenstrup studied the beak of an individual of this species washed ashore. Since that time, the remains of huge marine animals have been constantly found on the coast or in the stomachs of sperm whales, whose body kept the imprints of huge suckers.
The length of the tentacles found on the coast of the city of Hobart (Australia) squid was more than 15 meters. Zoologists found out that this is a female that swam out in shallow water to lay eggs, and was stranded. It differed from previously discovered giant squids by having long, thin sacs of muscle attached to the base of each of its eight tentacles. This find was the third in Tasmania.
Scientists from Japan managed to shoot a live giant squid on camera just over a decade ago. For this, a special highly sensitive camera and infrared light, invisible to the human eye, were used. 2006 - researchers for the first time managed to catch a living representative of huge mollusks.
Goonch fish
This sea monster lives in the Kali River (between Nepal and India), loves the taste of human meat. Its weight reaches 140 kg. People can be attacked not only in a secluded place, but also with a mass gathering of people. The goonch began to experience this craving for human meat because of ... the customs of the people themselves. Since ancient times, the locals have been using the Kali River for "burials" of the dead. Partially burned bodies are thrown into the river after Hindu rituals.
Legendary Kraken
It is believed that it was the giant squid that served as the prototype of the legendary kraken - a monster living in the ocean that can drag an entire ship to the bottom. As the legends say, he lives off the coast of Norway and Iceland. There are different opinions about what his appearance is. Some describe it as a giant squid, others as an octopus. The first handwritten mention of the kraken can be found in the Danish bishop Eric Pontoppidan, who in 1752 wrote down various oral legends about him. At first, the word “kgake” was used to refer to any deformed animal that was very different from its own kind. Later, it passed into many languages and began to mean exactly "the legendary sea monster."
It was truly colossal in size, it was compared to a small island. At the same time, its danger lay precisely in its size and the speed with which the monster sank to the bottom. From this, a strong whirlpool arose, which could destroy the ship. Most of the time, the kraken hibernated on the sea floor, and then many fish swam around it. Some of the fishermen allegedly even took risks and threw their nets right over the sleeping kraken. It is believed that the kraken is responsible for many disasters at sea.
In the XVIII-XIX centuries, some of the zoologists suggested that the kraken could be a giant octopus.
Angler
In the seas and oceans, one of the rarest deep-sea monsters lives, with an ugly appearance - monkfish. The second name is his angler. For the first time, the "monster" was discovered in 1891. The fish does not have scales, ugly growths and bumps grow in its place. The mouth of this monster is surrounded by waving rags of skin resembling algae. Dark coloring adds to the angler inconspicuousness. A huge head and a giant mouth opening make this deep-sea monster the ugliest on our planet.
A fleshy and long process sticking out of the anglerfish's head acts as a bait (fishing rod). This is a very serious danger to fish. Monkfish attract their victims with the light of a "fishing rod", which is equipped with a special gland. He lures her to his mouth, forcing her to swim inside on his own initiative. Anglers are unusually gluttonous. They can attack prey that is many times their size. During an unsuccessful hunt, both die: the victim - from mortal wounds, the aggressor - from suffocation.
Creature El Cuero
According to legend, the waters of Chile and Argentina are inhabited by creatures called El Cuero, which means "skin" in Spanish. El Cuero is something that looks like a skin huge bull, along the edges of which there are processes that resemble clawed paws or spikes. To determine where the monster's head is, perhaps by the two tentacles sticking out of it, at the ends of which there are red eyes. In the center of the underside of the skin, El Cuero has a mouth that looks like a huge sucker, with which the monster sucks all the juices out of the victim. Most "skins" prefer rivers, ponds and lakes South America, but some of them also live in salty sea water. So, living off the coast of the Chiloe El Cuero archipelago, they usually attack animals, but it also happens that people and boats become their victims.
According to the descriptions, the prototype of this monster was a giant sea devil - the largest stingray in the order of stingrays. The name of this species - manta - echoes one variant of its names El Cuero, manta del Diablo, the literal translation is "devil's blanket". The span of the fins of the sea devil reaches about 7 meters. In fact, the manta ray does not pose a danger to humans, since its interest extends to small fish and plankton. Despite their rather impressive dimensions and weight, which reaches 2 tons, giant stingrays are able to jump out of the water to a height of 1.5 meters.
unknown animal
1977, April - a sensational message spread around the world about the discovery of fishermen from Japan. When fishing for mackerel on the trawler "Tsuyo Maru" near New Zealand, the net brought half-decomposed remains unknown creature. A stench spread from a 13-meter carcass weighing up to 2 tons. The fishermen were able to distinguish a shapeless torso with four limbs, a long tail and a small head on a thin neck. The find was measured, photographed, and then thrown overboard. Previously, a part of the best-preserved limb was separated from the body and placed in a freezer.
Controversy erupted around the captured creature. Based on several bad photographs and descriptions of fishermen, Professor Yoshinuri Imaitsumi, head of the zoological department at the Japan National Science Museum, recognized the creature caught in the net as a plesiosaur, a member of a long-extinct group of marine reptiles. Plesiosaurs are well known from fossils. mesozoic era. 100-200 million years ago, they, like modern seals, inhabited coastal marine areas and could crawl out onto sandbars, where they rested after hunting. Plesiosaurs, like most other reptiles, had a powerful, well-developed skeleton. Judging by the descriptions of the fishermen from the Tsuyo Maru and the photographs, the mysterious animal had no bones.
Paleontologist from Paris L. Ginzburg believes that Japanese fishermen got the remains of a giant seal from the sea, which died out 20 million years ago.
sea monk
In the Middle Ages, the inhabitants of Northern Europe often saw humanoid creatures with a fish tail and flippers off the coast. They were called sea monks. The German theologian Konrad von Megenberg noted that the sea monks danced to attract a person to the shore, and he, losing caution, came up to look at the miracle, they grabbed him and devoured him, dragging him to the bottom.
In the middle of the 16th century, one of the sea monks was found on east coast Danish island of Zealand. Strange creature approximately 1.5 meters in length was immediately sent to Copenhagen, where it was sketched by one of the founders of biology, Konrad Gesner. In the 18th century, these drawings were carefully studied by the Danish zoologist Japetus Steenstrup. The zoologist came to the conclusion that the sea monks are nothing more than a ten-tentacled black cuttlefish. In our time, cryptozoologists have suggested that the prototype of the sea monk is a walrus or flat-bodied shark. But the cuttlefish does not have such strength to pull a person under water, the walrus does not eat people, and the flat-bodied shark eats invertebrates and small fish, and is not interested in human meat.
Sea Bishops
There were sea bishops in the Baltic waters. The first mention of this creature dates back to 1433, when the first specimen caught was offered to the Polish king. The clergy persuaded the king that the animal should be returned to his natural environment habitat. The bishop fish had a wide fin on its back, which it used instead of a cloak, as well as a crest resembling a bishop's miter on its head. Most likely, the source of this fantasy was the same sea devil.
Speckled stargazer
The representative of Astroscopus guttatus is a real sea monster. The second name of these creatures is the speckled stargazer. At first glance, this nickname fits some small fish with large eyes, but this creature does not fit such a description. Having not the most attractive appearance, the speckled stargazer usually lives on the seabed, buried in silt, and watching from below everything that moves nearby. He has special organs above his eyes, from which electrical discharges emanate.
giant centipede
1883 - A resident of Annam discovered the decomposed remains of a sea monster that looked like a giant centipede on the shores of Along Bay.
Iloglot
This creature belongs to the sac-shaped, detachment of ray-finned fish. It lives at great depths. Compared to the huge mouth, the body of the itologlot looks disproportionately small. This fish lacks scales, ribs, swim bladder, pyloric appendages, ventral and caudal fin. Most of the bones of the skull are reduced or disappeared altogether. The preserved skeleton is quite difficult to compare with other fish to establish kinship. The slight similarity between the juveniles of pouch-shaped eels and leptocephalic eels suggests some "family relationships" between the mentioned species.
Just as in every joke there is some truth, so in every myth there is a piece of truth. Unicorns, dragons and cyclops were not invented from scratch. They had quite real prototypes, which, not without the help of human imagination, were transformed into those fabulous creatures that we know today.
Unicorn - Elasmotherium.
Unicorn - famous mythical creature, representing a horse with one horn coming out of the forehead. It usually symbolizes spiritual purity and chastity. Interestingly, unicorns are found in the legends and myths of many world cultures. The very first images of them were found in India and, according to research, they are more than four thousand years old. Later, unicorns began to appear in the myths of Western Asia, from there they “migrated” to Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome where they were considered absolutely real animals. In the West, unicorns began to be mentioned in the 5th century BC.
The main "candidate" for the role of a real unicorn, or rather the prototype of these mythical creatures, are elasmotherium - the rhinoceros of the steppes of Eurasia, who lived in the Ice Age south of the range of the woolly rhinoceros; images of elasmotherium are found in cave paintings of that time. Elasmotherium was somewhat like a horse with an extremely long horn in its forehead. It became extinct around the same time as the rest of the Ice Age Eurasian megafauna. However, according to the Swedish encyclopedia "Nordisk familjebok" and the arguments of the popularizer of science Willy Ley, some representatives of this species could well have existed for a long time to get into the legends of the Evenki as a huge black bull with one horn in the forehead.
Dragons - Magalania.
Dragons in folk art, there are a huge variety of types and types. Starting from the classic European mountain-dwellers and fire-breathers, to the Chinese, which are more like snakes. The mythological dragon symbolizes the test that must be passed in order to receive the treasure. It is associated with immortality, which can be obtained by invading the body of a monster. The battle with the dragon is an initiatory mystery with the symbolism of temporary death and rebirth.
In reality, dragon myths most likely originated from crocodiles or dinosaur fossils that people might find and mistake for dragons. But, no doubt, there were real animals that could well be called dragons. For example, megalania is the largest land lizard known to science. This species lived in Australia during the Pleistocene epoch, starting from 1.6 million years ago and ending approximately 40,000 years ago. Megalania preferred to settle in grassy savannahs and sparse forests, where she hunted mammals, including very large ones. As in the case of elasmotherium, some representatives of the species may well have survived to meet a person. According to various estimates, the length of megalania varied from 4.5 to 9 m, and the weight from 331 to 2200 kg.
Kraken - A huge squid.
Kraken - legendary mythical sea monster giant size, a cephalopod known from the descriptions of Icelandic sailors, from whose language its name comes. The first detailed summary of marine folklore about the Kraken was compiled by the Danish naturalist Eric Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen (1698-1774). He wrote that the kraken is an animal "the size of a floating island." According to Pontoppidan, the kraken is able to grab with its tentacles and drag even the largest warship to the bottom. Even more dangerous for ships is the whirlpool that occurs when the kraken quickly sinks to the seabed.
Giant squids, which in essence is the kraken, can still exist today. Moreover, this has been repeatedly confirmed by the findings of fishermen and scientists. The only question is the size. Not so long ago, a really huge mollusk about 14 meters long was found in the southern seas. In addition, unlike ordinary squids, in addition to suckers, this one also had jagged claws-teeth on tentacles. Such an animal may well scare even modern man. And if medieval fishermen saw him, they would definitely consider him a mythical monster.
Basilisk - Poisonous snakes.
Basilisk is a creature mentioned in various sources and most often as a monstrous poisonous snake. AT " natural history» Pliny the Elder described the basilisk as a small snake up to 30 centimeters long, with a white spot on its head. It was in the 1st century AD. Gaius Julius Solin wrote about the same about the basilisk in the 3rd century, but with slight differences: the length of the snake is up to 15 cm. Much later, only in the Middle Ages, the image of the basilisk began to be supplemented with new details. Thanks to the imagination of numerous authors, the “small snake” turned into “a rooster with dragon wings, tiger claws, a lizard’s tail, an eagle’s beak and green eyes, on whose head there is a red crown, and black bristles all over the body” This is how they talked about the basilisk in Europe in the thirteenth century.
There is a completely logical version from the point of view of science that the image of the basilisk is based on some types of snakes. For example, a cobra falls under its description. Her swollen hood can easily be mistaken for the body of a toad, and her ability to spit venom can be interpreted as a kill at a distance. According to another version, the basilisk is horned viper. Her image with horns was an Egyptian hieroglyph denoting the sound “f”, and could be mistaken by Pliny the Elder for a snake with a crown, which gave rise to the Greek name for the snake “basilisk” - “king”.
Centaurs - Horse riders.
Centaurs in ancient Greek mythology are wild mortal creatures with the head and torso of a man on the body of a horse. They lived mainly in the mountains and forest thickets and were distinguished by an extremely violent temper and intemperance. It is also noteworthy that in heroic myths, some centaurs are educators and mentors of heroes, while others are hostile to them.
The image of centaurs, presumably, arose as a figment of the imagination of representatives of civilized peoples who did not yet know horseback riding, who first encountered horse riders of some northern nomadic tribes: Scythians, Kassites or Taurians. This explains both the ferocious disposition of the centaurs and their connection with the bulls - the basis of the economy of the nomads was cattle breeding. According to the eugemeric interpretation of ancient times, these were the youths from the village of Tucha, who invented horseback riding and killed wild bulls; or people from the city of Pelephronium, where a way was found to tame horses.
Griffin - Protoceratops.
Griffins are mythological winged creatures with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle. They have sharp claws and snow-white (and sometimes even golden) wings. Griffins are extremely contradictory creatures, simultaneously uniting Heaven and Earth, Good and Evil. Their role - both in various myths and in literature - is ambiguous: they can also act as protectors, patrons; and like vicious, unrestrained beasts.
But true story"Gryphons" is no less interesting than the legends about them. The historian Adriena Mayor, in her book The First Fossil Hunters, suggested that the image of the griffin was inspired by the ancient Greek historians from the stories of the Scythian gold miners of Altai, who could observe the fossilized bones of protoceratops dinosaurs in the sands of the Gobi Desert, freed from the dunes by the winds. The description of the griffin is quite applicable to these fossil skeletons: the size of the animal, the presence of a beak, the proximity to gold placers, the horny occipital collar of the protoceratops is capable of splitting from time to time, and its skeleton on the shoulders could create the illusion of ears and wings.
Bigfoot - Gigantopithecus.
Bigfoot (Sasquatch or Bigfoot) is a legendary humanoid creature allegedly found in various high-altitude or forest regions of the Earth. Its existence is claimed by many enthusiasts, but has not yet been confirmed. In testimonies about meetings with " Bigfoot» most often there are creatures that differ from modern humans in a denser and more muscular physique, a pointed skull, longer arms, a short neck and a massive lower jaw, relatively short hips, with thick hair covering all over the body - black, red, white or grey.
There are many theories about who Bigfoot might actually be (if he really exists). Starting from the quite plausible that this is some kind of relic hominid, that is, a mammal belonging to the order of primates and the human genus, preserved to this day from prehistoric times, and ending with the absolutely fantastic that these are aliens who flew to us from other galaxies. modern science at least one genus is known great apes that fit the description very well. Bigfoot are Gigantopithecus. They existed in the late Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene in the territory of modern India, China, Thailand and Vietnam. According to experts, Gigantopithecus had a height of up to three and even up to four meters and weighed from 300 to 550 kg, that is, they were the largest monkeys of all time.
Sea serpent - Herring king.
The sea serpent is a fantastic creature that is mentioned in the myths of different peoples of the world and in eyewitness accounts. Sea serpents have been found in the Mediterranean, Asia, India, and even off the coast of North America. Naturally, they are described in completely different ways, but almost always this is a huge snake-like creature with a head that looks like either a horse or a dragon.
The prototype of a monstrous sea serpent may not be some ancient animal, but quite a modern oar king or an ordinary belt-fish. This is a marine deep sea fish from the belt family. It is found in warm, temperate and temperate waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The body of the fish is ribbon-shaped: with a length of 3.5 m, the height of the body can be 25 cm, and its thickness is only 5 cm. But there are specimens that are much larger. So, for example, an individual 5.5 meters long can weigh about 250 kg. And the largest of the officially registered had a length of more than 11 meters. This could easily be mistaken for a sea serpent.
Korean dragon - Titanoboa.
The Korean dragon is one of the varieties of the mythological serpent, which has a number of Korean-specific features that distinguish it from the dragons of other cultures. For example, unlike many dragons of other cultures, he does not have wings, but has a long beard. Even greater differences may lie in the nature of this mythical beast. While most dragons in Western mythology are usually associated with fire and destruction, Korean dragons in mythology are usually seen as positive beings, patrons of ponds and rice fields. They are believed to bring rain to the earth.
And if everything is not so clear and unambiguous with the origin of the myths about European dragons, then with the Korean dragon you can be almost sure. Not so long ago, fossils were discovered in Colombia huge snake, which was named Titanoboa. Having done comparative analysis skeleton, scientists came to the conclusion that the snake could reach 13 meters in length and weigh more than a ton. Titanoboa lived 61.7-58.7 million years ago in the rainforests of present-day Colombia. But it is quite possible that she lived on other continents.
Cyclops - Dwarf elephant.
In ancient Greek mythology, the cyclops are groups of characters, in different versions, divine beings (children of Gaia and Uranus) or a separate people. According to one version, reflected by Homer in the Odyssey, the Cyclopes made up a whole nation. Among them, the most famous is the ferocious son of Poseidon, Polyphemus, whom Odysseus deprived of his only eye. The Scythian people of the Arimaspians were also considered one-eyed. There is an image of a Semitic one-eyed demon from Arslan-Tash.
As for the scientific substantiation of these myths, in 1914 the paleontologist Otenio Abel suggested that the finds in antiquity of the skulls of dwarf elephants caused the birth of the myth of the Cyclopes, since the central nasal opening in the skull of an elephant could be mistaken for a giant eye socket. It is curious that these elephants were found precisely on the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus, Malta (Gkhar Dalam), Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, the Cyclades and the Dodecanese
Did you know that terrible creatures live at the bottom of the ocean? The truth is that we know more about our universe than we do about the oceans on our own planet. In fact, even to this day, we are discovering new creatures lurking in the depths where no sunlight even penetrates. To be honest, some of these deep sea inhabitants pretty creepy. Here are the 25 scariest sea monsters that you didn't know about!
25. Tongue Eating Crustacea
We'll start small. This terrible creature penetrates the fish through the gills, eats its tongue, and then sticks to the place where it used to be.
24. Chimera
Photo: wikimedia commons
The Rat Fish or Ghost Fish, the Chimera is known as one of the most ancient fish in existence today. They live very deep, in the dark, so the appearance of this monster is sure to be reflected in your nightmares. Just look at that face!
23. Corrugated Shark
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
With a triple row of sharp teeth, this deep sea shark can wreak havoc on anything it catches. Plus, she just looks creepy.
22. Terrible Claw Lobster
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
This lobster, discovered in 2007 off the coast of the Philippines, was named very accurately. Look at those claws! This guy could cut you into pieces like a cheese.
21. Water Bear
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
While most of the creatures on our list are quite large, these are quite tiny. Even... microscopic! What is strange about them is their durability. They can survive in almost any temperature and can also live without water for more than ten years!
20. Mola Mola
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Also known as Sunfish or Moonfish, sounds good, doesn't it? But, think again, because she weighs over 900 kg! And while the fish won't attack you (it feeds on jellyfish), it can be quite intimidating when you see the fish with the heaviest bones coming towards you!
19. Giant squid
Photo: pixabay
These monsters can grow up to 18 meters in length. And their eyes are as big as beach balls! And yes, their food habits are as bad as you can imagine. They grab their prey with their tentacles and then stuff it into their beak. The squid then crushes it with its tooth-covered tongue before the food enters the esophagus. It is very similar to a meat grinder.
18. Pelagic bigmouth shark
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Discovered in 1976, this huge shark attracts plankton with the light it emits from its mouth. Don't swim into the light!
17. Galper eel
Photo: fishbase.org
Considering that these Marine life live at a depth of thousands of meters, little is known about them. But, we know for sure that the huge jaws of the fish allow it to swallow prey as large as itself.
16 Goblin Shark
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Just one look at this shark will make most of us shudder. What's more, the mouths of the truly terrifying creatures seem to detach during the hunt in order to grab their prey more quickly.
15. Grenadier
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Although the Grenadier looks a little strange, the disgusting factor is not always commensurate with appearance. This deep-sea fish emits a terrible odor due to high level the trimethylamine oxide it contains.
14. Pike blenny
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Although this fish is practically harmless to humans, when the dog is in danger, it opens its huge mouth to scare off predators. Whether you're human or not, one look at this would make you get the hell out of there as soon as possible.
13 Giant Isopod
Photo: en.wikipedia.org
Found at depths of nearly 2,000 meters, these scavengers can grow up to 3 meters or more in length. Moreover, they existed even before the dinosaurs. How? They know how to survive. For four years, these creatures can go without food. Even if they won't eat you, just imagine that you stumble upon such a creature in the depths of the sea. In fact, this is just a sea cockroach, which is larger than a person in size. And we are afraid of cockroaches when they are only a few centimeters in length ....
12. Fanged fish
Photo: wikimedia commons
These bad guys live at a depth of 5000 meters. Here, the water pressure can crush a person. If you don't get squashed, get ready to be mashed to a pulp by your horrible teeth. In fact, this aptly named underwater monster boasts the largest teeth relative to its body size of any fish.
11. Crooked Tooth Fish
Photo: wikimedia commons
This creepy fish has hooked teeth that help it catch its prey. In addition, she lives at incredible depths where sunlight does not penetrate. So if you ever happen to see this terrifying creature, its glowing skin and nightmarish teeth are likely to leave you with terrible memories!
10. Black Dragonfish
Photo: wikimedia commons
With razor-sharp teeth, this alien-like fish lives deep in the ocean and generates its own light.
9 Giant Spider Crab
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Sometimes we are just afraid of size. Descending to a depth of 300 meters, you will find yourself big crab on the ground. It can reach 4 meters!
8 Pacific Snakefish
Photo: wikimedia commons
Living miles below the surface of the ocean, these creatures boast teeth so big they can't even close their mouths.
7. Squid is a vampire
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Its name, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, literally translates to "vampire squid from hell". Why? This underwater squid lives underwater where no sunlight can penetrate, and if you attack it, the squid will turn inside out, exposing dozens of thorny spines. What could be worse? Imagine if a person did this...
6. Drop fish
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
While this creature won't hurt you, it can make you want to go deep sea diving. The blobfish has even been called "the ugliest creature" and looking at this photo, it becomes clear why. She is so disgusting that it becomes scary!
5. Johnson Melanocete (Humpback Monkfish)
Photo: en.wikipedia.org
This deep-sea monster lures its prey with a glowing stick that protrudes from its head.
4. Grimpoteuthys (Octopus Dumbo)
Photo: wikimedia commons
While they may look quite cute, these guys are known for wrapping their prey in frill-like "hands" before they eat it.
3. Eye-like-a-barrel fish (Ghost fish)
Photo: wikimedia commons
This completely crazy-looking deep-sea creature has a transparent head, allowing the fish to look up with its barrel-like eyes. Imagine that while you are swimming in ocean depth, a transparent head with two disgusting eyes inside approaches you. Although this fish will not eat you, its disgusting appearance is enough to regret this meeting.
2. Stargazer fish
Photo: en.wikipedia.org
They burrow into the ocean floor, exposing their bulging eyes-balls. When an unfortunate fish swims up, they ... eat it.
1. Black Liver
Photo: wikimedia commons
Perhaps the most scary creature on our list, this fish can swallow prey more than twice its size and 10 times its weight.
Depths of the modern World Ocean - scary place, teeming with barracudas, sharks, giant squids and the monster Cthulhu. But whatever creatures we find in the sea waters today, none compare to the gigantic, fearsome monsters that flooded Earth's oceans in the distant past: the gigantic sea lizards, huge sharks and even super predatory whales. For most of these monsters, humans would be nothing more than a snack.
So, before you - the ten most terrible prehistoric underwater monsters that have ever lived in the ocean.
10. Megalodon (Carcharodon megalodon)
This is perhaps the most famous underwater prehistoric creature from those on this list. It's hard to imagine a shark the size of a 10-16 meter truck, but that's exactly what these 40-ton monsters were. Also, entertainment/educational resources like the Discovery Channel love to talk about creatures that look like monsters from horror movies.
Despite the popular belief that megalodons existed at the same time as dinosaurs, they actually lived 25-1.5 million years ago, which means that, at best, they diverged in time from the last dinosaur by 40 million years. On the other hand, this means that they could have existed even when the first people had already appeared on Earth. Ouch! 
Megalodons lived in warm oceans that were all over the globe until the last ice age at the beginning of the Pleistocene, as a result of which, probably, these creatures lost their food and stopped reproducing. Sometimes it seems that nature is covering us.
9. Liopleurodon (Liopleurodon)
If in the movie "Park Jurassic"If there was an underwater scene in which they would show as many animals as possible that lived on our planet at that time, then Liopleurodons would most likely be present in it.
Although the actual length of these animals is still disputed by scientists (some of them claim that this monster was over 15 meters), most agree that they were almost 6 meters long, and about 1.2 meters of them - the head with sharp teeth.
If the mouth of the "smaller" supposed monster is already large enough to eat a whole person, one can imagine the huge mouth of the larger one. 
Scientists studied the structure of the flippers of these creatures using small floating robots and found that, although they were not very fast, they were incredibly flexible. In addition, they could also make short, quick and sudden attacks like crocodiles, which does not make them any less intimidating.
8. Basilosaurus (Basilosaurus)
Despite its name and appearance, this is actually not a reptile, but a whale (and not the scariest one on this list). Basilosaurs are the predatory ancestors of modern whales, the length of which reached from 15 to 26 meters!
They are described as the whales most closely related to snakes due to their length and ability to squirm. Imagine swimming in the ocean with an alligator whale that is over 24 meters long! Now, having imagined this, you are unlikely to want to swim in the sea again.
Physical evidence suggests that basilosaurs had neither the cognitive abilities of modern whales nor the ability to echolocate: they could only move in two directions (without swimming in and without jumping out of the water). So these huge whales were dumber than a bag of prehistoric axes, and they would never have been able to chase a man either in water or on land.
7. Jaekelopterus rhenaniae 
Agree, there can be nothing comforting in the phrase "sea scorpion", so this creature quite rightly seems creepy and terrible to you. It was one of the two largest arthropods to ever live on Earth, reaching over 2 meters in length as an armored pincer terror.
Most people are already beginning to get scared at the thought of centimeter ants and meter spiders, so it's easy to imagine the scream that would come from a person who accidentally stumbled upon such a creature, if they still lived. 
The good news is that sea scorpions(shell scorpions) became extinct even before the dinosaurs, having been destroyed during the mass Permian extinction (as a result of which 90% of aquatic and terrestrial species animals living on the planet).
In part, only horseshoe crabs, which pose a much smaller threat than ordinary crabs, managed to survive. There is no evidence that sea scorpions were venomous, but their tail structure is similar to that of modern scorpions, suggesting that they may well have been venomous.
6. Mauisaurus, a giant genus of the elasmosaur family of the plesiosaur order (Mauisaurus)
The Mauisaurs were named after Maui, the Maori demigod who is said to have pulled the New Zealand Islands from the bottom of the sea with a fishhook, so you guessed these creatures were incredibly huge.
The neck of the Mauisaurus reached 15 meters in length: this is the most Long neck in proportion to the body of all animals that have ever lived on the planet, with the exception of some types of sauropods (sauropods).
The total body length of this monster was almost 20 meters, and this absurdly long neck had many vertebrae, which suggests that it was flexible. Imagine a snake with the body of a turtle without a shell, and you will have a rough idea of what this giant looked like. 
Mauisaurs lived during the Cretaceous period, which means that creatures that jumped into the water to avoid meeting with velociraptors and tyrannosaurs had to confront them; The competition for the title of the best has long ended.
As far as science knows, Mauisaurs were endemic to New Zealand, which suggests that the area that once became Australia and its neighbors has always been a land of horror.
5. Dunkleosteus
Dunkleostei were 9-meter carnivorous "tanks". Instead of teeth, they had bone plates, like turtles. It is estimated that their jaw pressure was 55 MPa, placing them on par with crocodiles and tyrannosaurs in terms of having the most powerful jaws in history.
They are also believed to have powerful jaw musculature that could open their mouths in 1/50th of a second, meaning that the stream of water literally sucked their prey inward. 
The "teeth" plates changed as the fish's hard, tough jaw evolved into segments that were easier for it to hold on to its prey and were more effective at crushing the shells of other armored fish. In the "arms race" that was the prehistoric ocean, the Dunkleosteus was a predatory supertank.
4. Kronosaurus (Kronosaurus)
Kronosaurus is a short-necked pliosaurus whose length, like Liopleurodon, is a subject of debate in the scientific world. The length of their torso was "only" 9 meters, and the longest tooth in their powerful mouth was 28 centimeters long. That is why these creatures were named after Kronos, the king of the ancient Greek titans. 
Guess where kronosaurs lived? If you said that in Australia, then you are attentive (and right). The head of this monster was up to 3 meters in length. They could eat modern man whole and still have room for half of another.
In addition, it is assumed that, since their swimming membranes are very similar in structure to those of modern sea turtles, they could crawl out onto land to lay their eggs. You can be sure that no one dared to dig up the nests of these animals to feast on their eggs.
3. Helicoprion (Helicoprion)
These sharks could grow up to 5 meters in length, and their lower jaw was shaped like a spiral. It's like a cross between a buzz saw and a shark, and when a super predator pairs up with a powerful power tool, the world shakes in fear. 
The teeth of the Helicoprion were serrated (sorry for the tautology), which suggests that they were definitely predators. However, there is controversy as to whether their teeth were in front of the mouth, as shown in the picture, or slightly further back, which would suggest a softer diet, such as eating jellyfish.
However it was set up, it clearly worked. Helicoprions survived the Permian mass extinction, which means that these creatures may have been smart enough to create "bomb shelters" for themselves. Or perhaps they simply lived at great depths.
2. Leviathan Melville (Livyatan melvillei)
Remember we mentioned super predatory whales? This is what he is. Imagine a cross between a killer whale and a sperm whale. Melvilla's Leviathan is a whale that ate other whales!
Its teeth were larger than any other animal that has ever used them for eating (and although elephants have larger tusks, they really only look impressive, and with their help, elephants only break things, but do not eat), reaching an incredible 36 centimeters.
They lived in the same oceans and ate the same food as megalodons, so these whales really had to compete with the largest predatory sharks in history. 
Not to mention their head, which was 3 meters long and had the same echolocation "equipment" as modern toothed whales, making them more effective in murky waters.
In case it's not obvious, this animal was named after Leviathan, the giant Biblical sea monster, and Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, or the White Whale. And if big White whale in the novel was one of Melville's leviathans, he would have eaten the Pequod whaling ship with everyone on board in one crunch.
1. Himantura polylepis stingray
What grows up to 5 meters in diameter, has a 25 cm venomous spike on its tail, and is so strong that it can capsize a boat full of people? In this case, it is a prehistoric superfish that still lurks in fresh and salty waters from the Mekong River to northern australia. giant stingrays appeared there a few million years after the dinosaurs died out, and proved the success of their structure, like the sharks from which they descended. 
Giant stingrays use their time-tested build and somehow managed to survive several ice ages and even the cataclysmic Toba eruption some 75,000 years ago during the last ice age.
These creatures are notorious for being able to pierce a limb (bone) with their neurotoxin-coated spike. The good news is that, for all that, these prehistoric marine