The Stronsay Beast was a large globster (unidentified organism) that washed ashore on the island of Stronsay (at the time spelled Stronsa), in the

Orkney Islands Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, after a storm on 25 September 1808. The carcass was measured as 55 ft (16.8 m) in length, without part of its tail. The Natural History Society (Wernerian Society) of Edinburgh could not identify the carcass and decided it was a new species, probably a

sea serpent A sea serpent is a type of sea monster described in various mythologies, most notably in Mesopotamian cosmology (Tiamat), Ugaritic cosmology ( Yam, Tannin), biblical cosmology (Leviathan, Rahab), Greek cosmology (Cetus, Echidna, Hydra, Scy ...

. The Scottish naturalist Patrick Neill gave it the

scientific name In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

''Halsydrus pontoppidani'' (Pontoppidan's sea-snake) in honour of Erik Pontoppidan, who described sea serpents in a work published half a century previously. The

anatomist Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

Sir Everard Home in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

later dismissed the measurement, declaring it must have been about 30 ft (9 m), and deemed it to be a decayed

basking shark The basking shark (''Cetorhinus maximus'') is the second-largest living shark and fish, after the whale shark. It is one of three Planktivore, plankton-eating shark species, along with the whale shark and megamouth shark. Typically, basking sh ...

. In 1849, Scottish professor John Goodsir in Edinburgh made the same conclusion. The zoologist

Karl Shuker Karl Shuker (born 9 December 1959) is a British zoologist, cryptozoologist and author. He lives in the Midlands, England, where he works as a zoological consultant and writer. A columnist in '' Fortean Times'' and contributor to various magazi ...

defends the purported length of the carcass, as it was measured on multiple occasions to be 55 feet long, and suggests the animal was a hitherto undescribed larger relative of the basking shark.Karl Shuker's ''The Beasts That Hide From Man'', pgs 142-143 The Beast of Stronsay was measured by a

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenter ...

and two

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer ...

s. It was 4 ft (1.2 m) wide and had a

circumference In geometry, the circumference () is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse. The circumference is the arc length of the circle, as if it were opened up and straightened out to a line segment. More generally, the perimeter is the curve length arou ...

of about 10 ft (3.1 m). It had three pairs of appendages described as 'paws' or 'wings'. Its skin was smooth when stroked head to tail and rough when stroked tail to head. Its fins were edged with

bristle A bristle is a stiff hair or feather (natural or artificial), either on an animal, such as a pig, a plant, or on a tool such as a brush or broom. Synthetic types Synthetic materials such as nylon are also used to make bristles in items such as b ...

s and it had a row of bristles down its back, which glowed in the dark when wet. Its stomach contents were red.

References

External links

DNA could help identify 200 year old Stronsay Beast
{{Globsters Globsters 1808 in Scotland 19th century in Orkney Stronsay Sea serpents Individual vertebrates Individual sharks

See also

References

External links