Conrad Gessner, a Swiss naturalist is shopping when he stumbles across what looks like a dead mermaid hanging in a curiosity shop window. Interest aroused, he enters the shop to investigate. Gessner would go on to write about Jenny Haniver in his Historia Animalium. If you would like to leaf through a digital copy of the book, click here. Although people had talked of mermaid-like creatures for centuries, this would be the first ever mention of a Jenny Haniver that we know of.

Jenny Haniver – A Sailors Dream

During the 16th century, the globe was starting to shrink as trading routes expanded. We start to see a more connected world where stories of myth and legend are freely exchanged by word of mouth. Sailors, naturally, sort to seek a way to make money from these stories.

You may have noticed before that I said “a Jenny Haniver” and thought I had terrible grammar. I do, but not in this particular case. You see, a Jenny Haniver is the name given to the type of mermaid remains written about by Conrad Gessner. Unfortunately for the shop who bought her, Gessner was not fooled.

He saw that what was being passed off as a mermaid was nothing more than a dried out ray. With their features (eyes and mouth) on the underneath of their body, drying them out gave them a strange look. Couple this with a few strategic cuts and you have a passable (at the time) fake. Gessner himself remarked that ordinary people were very impressed by the creature.

This is why I call it a sailors dream. Easy money to be made from impressionable people. As you can see from the picture above, it does look alien. Not quite the sirens luring ships into the rocks, but definitely bizarre. Some believed them to be minature dragons or other sea monsters. Conrad Gessner, in his book Historia Animalium specifically included a warning to others, stating what they were. He even helpfully included a sketch.

But where did they come from originally and why Jenny Haniver? Gessner may be the first to write about these creatures but it is thought they were first made in Antwerp, Belgium. There they were called jeune d’Anvers (young people of Antwerp) and sold as devils or monsters. British sailors took them and corrupted the original name into the similar sounding Jenny Hanivers.

The Feejee Marmaid

Undoubtedly, the Jenny Haniver fakes inspired the Feejee Mermaid. This grotesque being consisted of the head of a young monkey attached to the body of a fish.

It was alleged to have been caught off the coast of Fiji in the South Pacific. The story goes that Captain Samuel Edes, an American, bought the creature for $6000 in 1822. $6000! Ths equates to around $150,000 in todays money. Edes had to sell his ship to fund the purchase.

Edes first exhibited it in Cape Town. In September 1822 he arrived in London with the creature. So far, everywhere he had been, the creature had been met with curiosity and intrigue. Setting it up under a glass display, patrons paid a shilling each to see the creature. It was a roaring success.

Buoyed by his success and a seemingly unshakable belief that the Feejee mermaid was real, Edes invited a couple of high profile naturalists to examine it.

Almost immediately they pronounced it to be a fake. Undeterred, Edes sought out other naturalists who would verify it for him. Which they duly did. But Edes got greedy. He claimed that Sir Everard Home, a very prominent British surgeon had verified the mermaid as real. Sir Everard was livid. He promptly had several publications print a denouncement of Samuel Edes and his mermaid. It was the end for Edes. He toured the country with the mermaid, but crowds were low. The reputation of his fake preceded him.

Defeated and penniless, when Captain Samuel Edes died he left his son only one possession in his will. The Feejee mermaid.

PT Barnum and the Feejee Mermaid

20 years pass since the death of Samuel Edes. Moses Kimball, politician, showman and the owner of the Boston Museum, hears about the almost forgotten creature and tracks down Edes son. He purchases the mermaid and brings it to New York to show his close friend and fellow showman, PT Barnum.

Upon seeing the creature Barnum enters into an agreement to profit from the “curiosity supposed to be a mermaid“. Kimball agreed to lease the Feejee mermaid to Barnum for the sum of $12.50 a week. This is when Barnum names the creature the Feejee mermaid and begins to give it its backstory.

For a number of years Barnum exhibits the Feejee mermaid across the United States and then in London during 1859. On his return, the mermaid is given back to Kimball, who displays it at the Boston Museum.

In 1865 the Museum burns down. It is unclear but very probable that the Feejee mermaid was lost to the flames.

The Harvard Peabody Museum has a version donated to them by Kimball’s heirs in 1897 (video below). There has been much speculation on whether or not it is the original but there is no documentation with it. The Peabody mermaid is also in remarkable condition for being well over 100 years old, which probably means it is a reproduction of the original.

Legacy of Jenny Hanivers

It is amazing to think that a bored, creative sailor could spark a myth and industry spanning hundreds of years just by drying and cutting a ray. But that is where we are. Barnum may have been there to stoke the fires at the height of the craze but there is still a trade in Jenny Hanivers to this very day.

It is however, difficult to date them because of how they have been varnished. Newer versions have become very very rare, due in nature to the species of ray being under threat due to overfishing. Couple this with their very slow growth rate and you can see why new Jenny Hanivers aren’t (and shouldn’t) be coming on to the market.

But as Gessner remarked all the way back in the 1550’s, people continue to be impressed by these “mermaids” and still from time to time, one does the rounds and manages to fool people. If only for a little while. I’d certainly love to own a vintage one, just for the talking points around it.

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Chickcharney

The Chickcharney is a creature that was said to have lived on the Andros Island in the Bahamas. Rumoured to have lived in the forests, the Chickcharney is believed to have been about 3 feet tall and furry. It had an ugly appearance, looking similar to an owl. The Chickcharney was said to have 3 toes and be able to turn its head all the way around.

While walking in the Pine forests, look up, if you saw 2 pine trees joined together at the top, it was a sure sign of a Chickcharney nest.

Meeting a Chickcharney could go one of two ways. For you see, these tree dwellers were neither evil or good. They were mischief makers at heart.

People were advised in these old stories, passed down at camp fires to always be respectful of the Chickcharney. Carry a bright piece of cloth while venturing into the woods and always be polite if you do run into a Chickcharney.

Do this and good fortune will be yours. Be disrespectful however and misery is sure to follow.

Unless you are a small child that is. Because the legends also tell of the Chickcharney coming out of the forest to snatch small children from their sleep, carrying them away to a fate unknown.

A Persisting Legend

Before we get into what the Chickcharney is, I wanted to share a story. As stated, the story of the Chickcharney is an old one (more on that later) but it also persists into the modern day.

One of the most famous stories involves Neville Chamberlain. If you don’t know who he is, let me catch you up. Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister of Great Britain at the beginning of the Second World War.

Before his political career began, he was sent to the Andros Island to establish a plantation for his father. It failed and he returned home with debts of £50,000. A large sum of money in the late 1800’s.

Why did he fail? Legend says that he openly scoffed at the idea of the Chickcharney and laughed at the very notion. Apparently, the Chickcharney took offence to this and sabotaged his crop of Sisal. Officially it was because Sisal just doesn’t grow in the conditions they had on the Island, but I know which story I prefer.

What is the Chickcharney?

Tyto Pollens was a giant barn owl, now thought to be extinct. Remains of it have been found in the Bahamas. And from its size and description, it matches the Chickcharney exactly. But what makes me believe that this story is so old? Because Tyto Pollens is thought to have gone extinct sometime during the last ice age. Which finished around 10,000 years ago.

The sites where Tyto Pollens has been found all date to around 18,000 years ago, before humans are thought to have settled the Bahamas. So not only are these warnings from history old, we don’t know for sure who passed them down to us.

The sea level at the time these giant birds lived would have been 120 meters (around 400 ft) lower. This means the Bahamas at the time would have been a much larger land mass, consisting of around 5 islands with a land mass over 10 times what it is now.

Looking like a common barn owl (but much bigger), Tyto Pollens would easily have been able to fly away with a small child. It would also be 3 toed and have the ability to swivel its head all the way around.

Carrying a colourful piece of cloth would have helped you stand out and being polite to a giant predator just makes sense, don’t you think?

There are some out there that believe the Chickcharney still exists. Living out on the Western half of the Island. Who knows, maybe like the legend of the Mokele-Mbebe, the Chickcharney is still there. A remnant of a world long since changed.

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The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowman. All achieved world renown. Everyone is aware of them. But not so with Mokele-Mbembe. This legendary creature could literally be the last surviving herd of dinosaur. Or a close relation. Or, more likely, just a legend.

Mokele Mbembe – Stories from the past

Likoulala is an area of Northern Congo first inhabited by the Pygmy tribe. Still inhabited by the Pygmy tribe. Hunter gatherers who live off the land. There is only one main road in the whole of this vast area of land totalling over 25,000 square miles (66,000 km squared). That’s an area equivalent to the size of Ireland (or slightly larger than West Virginia, for those on the other side of the ocean).

A huge area to get lost in. Or to hide in, if you’re part of a herd of sauropods.

The tribes in this area have passed down stories about the Mokele-Mbebe for generations. Any suggestion made to them that this is not a real creature is met with indignant disbelief. To them, the creature is a surety. As real as a hippo, elephant or any other animal.

Expeditions

The Western world has been making expeditions to this part of Africa for hundreds of years. A French Missionary, Abbe Boneventure made the first recorded sighting of Mokele-Mbebe in 1776. Sighting is not quite the correct word though. Abbe reportedly found its tracks. Which he said measured a circumference of 3 feet for each of its feet.

Since then, dozens of sightings from Westerners have been recorded. I’ll give a few examples here or you’d prefer, you can read the full pdf on the topic here.

1932: Ivan T. Sanderson and Gerald Russell are just north of Likouala in Cameroon at Mamfe Pool when they hear a large roar. Looking up they see a huge animal swim out from a submerged cave.

1956: A Belgian pilot flying over the Congo with his telegraphist reports seeing a herd of three colossal monsters.

1960: Lake Tele, Congo. Pastor Eugene Thomas, a missionary, relays a story told to him by the Bangombe tribe. Two Mokele-Mbebe are terrorising their fishing activities in the Lake. The tribesmen build a barrier to ward off the creatures, but the barrier is quickly broken by the territorial monsters. Eventually they manage to kill one and the other leaves the area.

Unfortunately, when it comes to photographic evidence, it’s fuzzy. Literally.

The above is one of the best images we have. It’s not great. We have numerous books about the subject, such as Carl Hagenbeck’s 1909 Beasts and Men and Roy Mackal’s 1987 A Living Dinosaur? In Search of Mokele-Mbebe, not to mention plenty of eye witness stories. Just none of that pesky photographic evidence. Seems to always be the way, doesn’t it?

Is Mokele-Mbebe therefor just another myth. A legend that might have some basis in truth but nothing else? Maybe. Or maybe not.

Mokele-Mbebe: Truth or Fiction?

It would be easy at this point to give up all hope. File it next to that other famous sauropod, the Loch Ness Monster. Incidentally, I’ve sailed and slept on Loch Ness, it’s beautiful and vast, but empty, I’d have to conclude.

When talking about Mokele-Mbebe though, there is more to consider. Loch Ness is next door to the thriving, bustling city of Inverness. Around 60 odd thousand people live around here. To get there is trivial. In the summer the area is inundated with tourists.

This is not the same as being in the heart of Africa. To get to the areas where Mokele-Mbebe lives takes days long plane rides, followed by days long car journeys which themselves are followed by days or even weeks long treks through extremely rough terrain. After my trips down Loch Ness and the Caledonian Canal, I got back in my car and went to the cinema or a restaurant.

So even if you could make it to the areas where these creatures are supposed to roam, your gear would be minimal. Carrying camera’s and the assorted stuff you need to hunt for these dinosaurs is not a easy matter. Even David Attenborough and his crew would find it hard going.

Next we have to think about how few of these animals could exist and the area they cover. Not just the Congo but sightings have been made in neighbouring Cameroon and even in Zimbabwe, thousands of miles away.

This is a vast wilderness. You could fit The United States, China, India and Europe into the area covering Africa, and still have space left. Literally like finding a needle in a haystack.

The White Rhino, the second largest animal after the elephant, was long thought to be extinct until an expedition in 1895 found a 100 of them in South Africa.

Similar thing with the Okapi (Zebra Giraffe). This strange creature was depicted in tribal cultures since the 5th century BCE. The Europeans had no idea of its existence until 1901 when Sir Harry Johnston brought back parts of its striped skin and a skull. Before this it had been speculated about when Henry Morton Stanley had mentioned a “kind of donkey” in press reports from 1887.

Or how about the mountain gorilla? This subspecies of gorilla is the largest in the world. And utterly unknown about until 1902.

I could go on but you get the idea.

Let’s face it. In our ever connected world, the likely-hood of a surviving species of sauropod we don’t know about is tiny, but tiny is still a chance. I’ll leave you with the words of William F. Laurance, Professor at James Cook University in Australia, speaking to the BBC about Mokele-Mbebe:

My gut sense is that the likelihood of the creature actually existing today is small. However, one thing you learn early on in science is never say never. We are still discovering new species all the time.

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HMS Trident spent most of her life in and around the North Sea. Between 1941 and 1943 Trident managed to sink 6 German supply ships, a German tanker and submarine chaser UJ 1213.

She was also involved in many other skirmishes with enemy ships and submarines. While returning to their base, Trident was fired upon by German submarine U-566, but the torpedo missed it’s target.

Pollyanna – HMS Trident

Whilst fighting and in some cases sinking enemy vessels, a doe (a young female reindeer) was onboard the submarine. Named Pollyanna after their home base, she was apparently very happy onboard the submarine. How did she get there, you ask? Pollyanna was gifted by the Russians in 1941 to honour the relationship between Russia and Britain.

Because that’s a great gift for a cramped, dark, submarine operating in a theatre of war, right? I can only assume that being British, the crew were too polite to turn the gift down!

By the time HMS Trident had to return to its base in the UK, Pollyanna had grown too big for the sub. The help of a local slaughterhouse was sought to help remove her from the submarine.

Don’t worry though, there is a happy ending. Pollyanna wasn’t killed, she was given to a local zoo. The first and only reindeer crewmember of a submarine, retired to live out her days in peace.

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v-CJD Initial Symptoms

At first you start to feel depressed and withdraw from your family and friends. Feelings of despair, anxiety and irritability set in. You have trouble sleeping. Then the physical effects begin to show. Difficulty walking, dizziness, vision problems and slurred speech.

Scary right? It doesn’t end there.

v-CJD Advanced Symptoms

You become aggressive, lose your appetite, feel confused, paranoid and your memory is severely impacted. Couple this with the advanced physical symptoms. Loss of speech and voluntary movement. Blindness, loss of bladder and bowel control and trouble swallowing.

Finally, you will be totally bed ridden and you will die. Nothing can be done to prevent death. We cannot stop it.

Outbreak in the UK

In the late 80’s and 90’s, there was an epidemic after infected beef entered the food chain in the UK. Almost 200 people died as a result.

Why should I care about that, I hear you ask. Well, if the title didn’t fill you in, how about this. According to Public Health England, as many as 1 in 2000 people could be carriers. And it can take 30 to 50 years for the disease to incubate.

As a middle aged person from England, that is terrifying. Knowing as I sit here typing this, I could be a ticking time bomb. I’m not about to live each day as if it’s my last, anything could kill you at any time, but still, it’s unsettling.

Especially when you realise that all through the outbreak in cattle in the 80’s, all the way up to 1995, the British government told people it was fine to eat infected meat, as it could not harm humans.

How it all started

In the 80’s, wealth was growing. Which meant a growing appetite for meat. Farmers, under pressure to produce beef quickly and cheaply, started using the waste parts of cows, sheep, pigs and even chickens in the feed they gave back to their livestock. Yep, you read that right. Cannibalism. Forced onto the animals to make a cheap buck.

This practice was outlawed in 1988. Much too late. One million infected cows had already entered the food chain. One cow for every 50 people in the UK at the time. Oh, and the government, like I mentioned above, insisted it was fine to eat.

Next, food producers started to use the brain and spinal cord (the worst infected part) of animals in a sludge called mechanical meat. Not to feed to their livestock. Nope, it went into pies and sausages. A lot of which found its way into the school dinners system. A school dinners system I was very much in. I left school in the mid 90’s, so was consuming this meat daily for years, unbeknownst to me. What you don’t know can’t kill you they say. Wanna bet?

Stephen Churchill

In 1994, Stephen Churchill was an 18 year old boy like any other. Until he started having depressive episodes. By December he could not even sign his own name. On February the 13th, he was finally diagnosed with v-CJD (Mad Cow Disease). He died in a care home on May the 21st, 1995.

He was the first person to be diagnosed with the new variant.

But why do some die soon after and others decades later?

It’s all down to your genes. All victims before 2009 had the MM gene code. The rest have VV or MV, with the MV thought to be the ones who incubate the disease for between 30 and 50 years.

Problem is, half the population share the MV gene code. Grant Goodwin (30) died from v-CJD in 2009. In 2014 a second man with the same genetic code died.

Hope springs eternal

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Since 2017 onwards, no-one in the UK has died from a confirmed case of v-CJD. So maybe we are over the worst of a epidemic whose root cause stretches all the way back to the 80’s.

I for one, certainly hope so.

Sources

Agonising decline that led to first diagnosis of new illness (independent.co.uk)

Cases of vCJD still to emerge after mad cow disease scandal (bbc.co.uk)

Mad Cow Disease: Experts warn a second outbreak could be on the way (chroniclelive.co.uk)

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (nhs.uk)

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease Symptoms (nhs.uk)

Image Header (pixabay.com)

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Only trouble is, it went extinct at least 100,000 years ago. I know, I’m disappointed too. But let’s discuss a few things about this amazing animal, maybe it’ll you’ll perk up.

First identified in 1935, these apes lived around Southeast Asia from two million years ago up to 100,000 years ago. Living on a diet of fruits, leaves and forest plants, which were plentiful at the time. It died out because of a failure to adapt to a changing climate during the Pleistocene era. As forested area’s turned into grasslands, the huge amount of food Gigantopithecus blacki needed was simply not available. Couple this with the tendency for larger animals to only have one or two offspring and the writing was on the wall.

Relatives did survive.

Namely the orangutans. These gentle apes are known to be its closest living relative. We know this because scientists obtained molecular evidence from a two million year old molar fossil found in a Chinese cave.

Apart from this, our knowledge of the world’s largest ape is extremely limited.

Here’s why.

We think it must have buried its dead. We believe this because so far only jaw bones and teeth have been found. If this is true it shows a remarkable level of cognitive thinking. A giant ape living two million years ago who mourns the dead and actively buries them must have understood the finality of death.

Bigfoot Links

There is nothing scientific in the next part. All of it is pure speculation on the parts of others. But I found it interesting enough to add in here. A large number of Bigfoot enthusiasts believe that Gigantopithecus Blacki is Bigfoot.

Why?

Due to what you have already read above. The world’s largest ape, lives in forests, eats only what it can forage and buries its dead leaving no trace. A pretty good match, at first glance.

But how did it get from Southeast Asia to the United States? Across the Bering land bridge according to Grover Krantz and Geoffrey H. Bourne. These proponents of Bigfoot genuinely believe that Sasquatch is a relict population of Gigantopithecus.

Could this be the legendary Bigfoot? Probably not, Gigantopithecus Blacki was more than likely a quadrupedal, walking on all fours, not upright like Bigfoot or the Yeti. It is a fun thought exercise however and handily explains why there has never been a Bigfoot body found.

Sources:

Secrets of the largest ape that ever lived (bbc.co.uk)

The Largest Ape That Ever Was (nationalgeographic.com)

Header Image (pixabay.com)

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But there is obviously a little more to the story than that. Let me explain.

Galapagos Giant Tortoise’s were a boon for sailors. According to dozens of accounts from the 16th century onwards, sailors would wax lyrical about how amazing they tasted. They were often compared to chicken, beef and mutton, but only to illustrate just how much better the tortoise tasted!

If that wasn’t enough, they were also easy to catch and transport. They could be kept alive without food or water for up to 6 months. Extremely useful for seafarers.

Add in that they also have a huge bladder that stores gallons of fresh water and you have a walking food and water storage solution.

Lastly, the oil made from the fat of a Giant Tortoise is medically useful. Great at fighting off colds and infections.

Great news for the sailors, not so good for the tortoise.

William Dampier, a 17th century pirate wrote about the Giant Tortoise:

They are so extraordinarily large and fat, and so sweet, that no pullet eats more pleasantly.

US Navy Captain David Porter (1780 – 1843) was even more effusive in his praise, stating:

after once tasting the Galapagos tortoises, every other animal food fell off greatly in our estimation … The meat of this animal is the easiest of digestion, and a quantity of it, exceeding that of any other food, can be eaten without experiencing the slightest of inconvenience.

They were so prized that over 200,000 of them were taken before the beginning of the 20th century. Decimating their populations and leaving them on the brink of extinction.

They were even brought to America for the California Gold Rush in 1849 to feed the mining population.

But I hear you cry, why did nobody name them?

Because they never ever made it back to port. So no scientist ever managed to study and classify them.

QI: Why it took 300 years to name the Giant Tortoise

Sources:

Historical Exploitation of the Giant Tortoise (Wikipedia)

Giant Tortoise did not receive a scientific name for over 300 years (Debate.org)

Tasty tale of the Tortoise (Theguardian.com)

Header Image (Pixabay.com)

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