Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

waelnu; S elkie; Shom pallhue; Silenus; Siren;
Steller’s Sea Ap e; Tchim ose; Tri ton;
Unágemes; Vodyany
Merhorse
A category of Sea Monster identified by
Bernard Heuvelmans.
Scientific name: Halshippus olaimagni, given
by Heuvelmans in 1965.
Variant names: Hippokampos, Maner.
Physical description: Elongated, with smooth,
shiny skin. Length, 15–100 feet, though rarely
exceeding 60 feet. Dark-brown or steel-gray to
black in northern regions; mahogany in warmer
regions. Skin is smooth and shiny, possibly with
short fur. Wide, flat, diamond-shaped head, described
as similar to that of a horse, camel,
snake, or hog. Head, 3 feet long. Wide mouth,
perhaps edged with light-colored lips. Has
whiskery bristles like a mustache. Enormous,
forward-pointing, black eyes. Slender neck, 10
feet long or more. Often, a long, flowing, reddish
mane hangs down its neck. Jagged crest on
the back. Pair of frontal flippers. Possibly a hind
pair of flippers that form a false tail; alternatively,
a fanlike tail.
Behavior: Swims with pronounced vertical
undulations. Rapid speed. Hisses. Feeds on
fishes and possibly giant squid.
Habitat: Semiabyssal depths of 50–100 fathoms
in the daytime, coming to the surface at
night. Frequents coastal areas in temperate regions
and moves further out on the continental
shelf in warmer zones.
Distribution: Nearly cosmopolitan, except for
polar seas and the Indian Ocean. At various
times, it has been seen regularly off New England
and Nova Scotia, the British Isles, Norway
(especially Møre og Romsdal and Trøndelag
Counties), British Columbia and
southeastern Alaska, Portugal and the Canary
Islands, southern California, La Plata in Argentina,
the coast of South Africa, and in the
Coral Sea.
Significant sightings: A description of this type
of animal was first published in 1554 by the
Scandinavian archbishop Olaus Magnus, who
wrote that it was frequently seen in the fjords
328 MERHORSE
around Bergen, Norway. He mentioned the visible
mane, large eyes, and elevated head and
neck as prominent features.
In the spring of 1835, Captain Shibbles of the
brig Mangehan reported an animal with large
eyes and a long, maned neck 10 miles off
Provincetown, Massachusetts.
In the summer of 1846, James Wilson and
James Boehner were in a schooner near the
western shore of St. Margaret’s Bay, Nova Scotia,
Canada, when they saw a 70-foot animal
with a barrel-sized head and a mane. George
Dauphiney spotted a similar animal near Hackett’s
Cove about the same time.
Officers and passengers of the British mailpacket
Athenian observed a 100-foot, darkbrown
sea serpent between the Canary and
Cape Verde Islands in the North Atlantic on
May 6, 1863. Its head and tail were out of the
water, and it had something like a mane or seaweed
on its head.
A “sea-giraffe” was observed by the crew of
the steamer Corinthian east of Newfoundland,
Canada, on August 30, 1913. It first appeared as
a large head with finlike ears and huge blue eyes,
followed by a 20-foot neck. It appeared attached
to a large, seal-like body with smooth fur colored
light brownish-yellow with darker spots.
Sports fisherman Ralph Bandini saw a maned
animal about a mile west of Mosquito Harbor
on San Clemente Island, California, in September
1920. Its neck was 5–6 feet thick, and the
eyes were 12 inches in diameter.
Around 1938, some 100 yards off the coast of
Skeffling, East Riding of Yorkshire, England,
Joan Borgeest watched a huge, green creature
with a flat head, protruding eyes, and a long
mouth that opened and closed. When she called
out to other people in the area, it dived and did
not reappear.
George W. Saggers watched a head and neck
with huge black eyes off Ucluelet, Vancouver Island,
British Columbia, Canada, in November
1947. Its dark-brown mane looked like a bundle
of warts.
Possible explanation: An elongated Seal (Suborder
Pinnipedia) adapted for a semiabyssal marine
existence.
Sources: Olaus Magnus, A Compendious