A grey male mouse, five white female mice, and their multicolored offspring By: Hansel Mieth From: Life Nature Library: The Earth 1962

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My modest collection of vintage mushrooms and mushroom people is growing.

This painting is absolutely hilarious and here’s why.

It’s not the quality of the painting that’s the problem here. It’s by Gino d’Achille, a respected fantasy/sci-fi artist. It was published in Farson and Hall’s Mysterious Monsters (1978).

No, it’s how misleadingly, over-the-top sensationalized it is.

This is supposedly representing the Spicer account of 1933, one of the earliest Nessie sightings (the Surgeon’s photo was 1934). Mr. and Mrs. Spicer were driving on the road along Loch Ness when they saw an amorphous, grey, blobby thing with a wiggly thing in front crossing the road. It was some 2 or 2.5 meters long and had something in the middle. The Spicers suggested it might have been a lamb or foal.

This is what they said they saw.

What exactly did they see? If not Nessie, obviously. The main culprits are an otter, a bunch of otters, or a bunch of deer. The last one would have been a shapeless blob in the darkness, there would have been a distinct foal among them, and there are certainly plenty of deer in the area. And one interesting (if unverifiable) hypothesis is that the Spicers subconsciously had King Kong’s Brontosaurus on their minds (much like the chupacabras was Sil from Species).

What we do know is that the story got more and more sensational over time. From 2 meters the monster ballooned to 6 meters, and from a shapeless blob with a vaguely lamb-shaped thing near its shoulder it became, well…

This breathless account is, of course, the one that accompanied the art in Mysterious Monsters. Do note that the Spicers decided that the thing on its shoulder was the creature’s tail - the authors didn’t get the memo or didn’t care, it seems.

So yeah. Seeing art like that had a profound impression on impressionable children (like me). But going back to the sources paints a very different picture.

And you know what? The shapeless blob thing, unknown, unidentifiable in the darkness, is far more interesting and cooler than yet another prehistoric survivor.

References

Farson, D., & Hall, A. (1980). Mysterious Monsters. Book Club Associates.

Naish, D. (2016). Hunting Monsters. Arcturus Publishing.

Warthog By: Unknown photographer From: The Grolier Illustrated Encyclopedia of Animals 1994

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Monsters of every stripe are collected here.

Hell yeah

Ocean announcement:

it's all gone

i love this website

Better yet, it’s not even a legend that goes centuries back. It’s from when a pacu (presumably an aquarium release) was caught in the Øresund in 2013, and a scientist at the Copenhagen Museum of Natural History made a joke about it because it eats tree nuts (tree nuts, human nuts, DEEZ nuts, etc), and news media took it dead seriously.

That said, they have teeth and they can bite. So maybe don’t stick your… appendages in them.

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My modest collection of vintage seahorses is swimming along.

...so is Tumblr not doing an April fools this year or has it just not hit my dash yet?

The lack of April Fools is, paradoxically, an April Fools itself.

I'll finish this later

HAPPY DRACONES MONDAY! The Wanizame

Happy Dracones Monday everyone! Today's dragon is the wanizame or wani from Japanese folklore. Due to the etymology of wanizame I tried my best to make this look like a crocodile-shark, while also having a nod to a certain kaiju in the design (hence the dorsal spikes and head shape). The spiky scales, while looking badass, also protect it from larger sea serpents found in the Pacific ocean!

Follow @draconesmundi for more dragons from my Dracones Mundi project :D

Why is it April wtf

At least 40 more days of this u_u

Well, all good things come to an end. I have decided to officially abandon all creature-related projects. From now on I will devote my time solely to my fully annotated translation of the works of Rabelais, to be released approximately 17 years from now. Thank you for your support!

I'm already working on the format. It will be presented in the form of a digital multimedia interactive immersive online visual experience. I'm thinking of calling it Doki Doki 16th Century French Literature Club.