Australia's Loch Ness monster?

Does Nessie’s cousin live down under ?

Dharuk tribal Aborigines of New South Wales, Australia,have oral traditions( stories) of enormous reptilian ‘water monsters’ living in the waterways.. They told early European settlers about these creatures in the Hawkesbury River. Ancient cave art along the river depicts these creatures, which they called ‘Mirreeulla’ (means giant water serpent). It was described as having a snake-like head, long neck, large body, two sets of flippers and an eel-like tail. In 1797 the platypus was first identified and scientifically described on the banks of the Hawkesbury River , so a place for strange beasties being found.

According to Australian naturalist Rex Gilroy, the best not only exists but that the beasties using the central coast as a breeding ground.And he says he has hundreds of reports to prove it , detailed sightings of the creature collected by himself and his wife Heather over the last 30 years, the most recent in November 2000.

"In recent years there have been sightings of creatures surfacing as far up as Windsor," Rex said. "The latest was in the St Albans where there was a report of a 25-30 foot creature spotted swimming in the river. Some people who had been out fishing saw it swimming past the jetty where they were standing, with a snake-like head about a metre or so above water."

"Information collected so far suggests to me that the creatures are breeding somewhere offshore and laying their eggs inland. This would not be out of character, as there were both freshwater and saltwater breeds during the Cretaceous period," he said.

"They are still being seen in the Hawkesbury River of course, which is not surprising because it is such a deep river. Actually it's a sunken valley."

Sightings put the greyish black creature between 7 and 24 metres in length. Like Nessie, the Hawkesbury River monster is described as having a large body, two sets of flippers and a long snakelike neck and head.

Rex said new species, as well as those previously thought to be extinct, were being constantly discovered and scientists should be more broadminded in their research.

The length of the river is up to 120 kilometres and is very deep in places so enough room for large creatures to hide. There is an abundance of wildlife and fish in the river. It is known for large fish being caught there.

One sighting took place shortly after World War II , at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River, when a Mr Doug Bradbury and another man were fishing in a small rowboat. Suddenly a giant snake-like head on the end of a long neck, rose 6 metres above the water. The men dropped their fishing equipment and rowed quickly for the nearby shore. From the shore they were able to get a good look at the creature. It displayed, apart from the long neck and serpent-like head, a large body, with two sets of long flippers which were partly obscured by the water, and a long thick eel-like tail.

Some more recent reports:

Hawkesbury River Bridge - August 1979

“I was not seeing things. It was right there in the water, out there in the middle of the river with its snakelike head moving from side to side, four feet above the water.” That was how Miss Rosemary Turner, a young bushwalker, described the horrible reptilian creature that surfaced nearby as she stood on the bank of the Hawkesbury River, a few kilometres west of the Hawkesbury River Bridge, one August day in 1979. Rosemary had been resting during a hike in the surrounding bush and on the Sydney side of the river. The water was calm on a sunny afternoon around 3 pm, she later recalled-when, suddenly, a dark shape began to appear in the water ahead of her. "All of a sudden this large, shiny, scaly, black pair of humps rose two feet out of the water to a length of about 20 feet. I could clearly see two long flippers, at least a few feet in length, moving below the surface. At this moment a head appeared 15 feet ahead of the humps. The animal appeared to be facing an east-west position. Four feet of head and neck rose above the water and I could partly make out the tail just below the surface some feet east of the body. The head of this monster reminded me of a snake-ugly, and about two feet in length (by now she was observing the creature with her binoculars hastily snatched from their case)-but it quickly sank beneath the waves, the tail rising out of the water in a quick flip as the monster plunged into the depths, leaving a great wake in the water." All this time, Rosemary stood petrified watching the creature, still not sure what it was. All she could tell was that the animal was at least 45 to 50 feet in length.

May 1979

Report by another woman, Judy Morgan, of Sydney, who saw a huge animal in the same region at about 4 pm one Sunday in May 1979. “I had been watching water-skiers from the top of a 50-foot bank (Sydney side of the river) with my binoculars. Soon after the skiers had passed up the river in the direction of the Hawkesbury River Bridge about four miles to the east, I observed from about 300 feet out in the centre of the river a large pair of humps rise out of the water up to three feet."From where I stood I could clearly see two sets of long paddle-like flippers just below the surface, and these may have extended out at least several feet from the body. I also spotted a tail partly visible below the surface, and this rose to the surface after about a minute before submerging again. So far the creature's head had not appeared; but this suddenly also rose out of the water, snakelike, and on the end of a long, thick neck several feet above the surface. I estimate the animal could have been a good 40 feet in length, at least!"

So a sea serpent still living in modern day Australia or mistaken identity. Well very large fish have been reported in the river but what type of fish this would be is anyone’s guess.

Lake Serpent and sea serpent sightings in Texas

I came across a web page dedicated to a lake serpent in Lake Granbury in Texas.

http://www.geocities.com/legendary_spider_man/GRANBURY.HTM

Lake Granbury was created in 1969 and is only one of three lakes damming the Brazos River. It is a long, narrow lake, encompassed by 103 miles (221 km) of shoreline. The web page author states : "Sadly there is a strange side to this pleasant community. Slowly more people have come to realize this fact as local newspapers and Japanese television started to feature reports about a prehistoric water serpent living in Lake Granbury." The report continues: "Early Spanish traders use to whisper stories about a giant serpent which roamed the depths of Lake Granbury." ( However as the lake is only a recent creation because of a dam they perhaps mean the river) and then : "At 180 kilometers in length and with depths of almost 1,200 feet, it is not unreasonable to believe that something large and very unusual may live in these waters."
Well there are stories from other man made lakes of giant fish. This creature goes by the name of “Old One Eye”. I have been unable to discover anymore about it but this one site.It is described alternately as a dinosaur or as a huge serpent and supposedly Old One-Eye has terrorised fishermen for decades. Strange then that I could find so little about it.

Texas has other sightings and stories of sea and lake monsters. One of the earliest recorded sightings comes from the Caddo Indians of east Texas. According to Caddo mythology, a boy sighted a water monster in the river and ran upriver for two miles before he got to its head. Also from Caddo mythology is the story of a monster in what is now Caddo Lake that would attack anyone making loud noises on the water.

Then in 1872 the captain and crew of the Norwegian ship St. Olaf witnessed something strange off the Galveston coast. Below is the actual sworn statement from the captain:

"Report of Captain A. Hassel, of barque St. Olaf, from Newport to Galveston, Texas.Two days before arrival at Galveston, and about 4:30 P.M. on May 13, weather calm, smooth sea, lat.26 52", long. 91 20", I saw a shoal of sharks passing the ship. Five or six came under the vessel's stern, but before we could get out a line they went off with the rest. About two minutes after, one of the men sang out that he saw something on the weather bow, like a cask on its end. Presently another one called out that he saw something rising out of the water like a tall man. On a nearer approach we saw it was an immense serpent, with its head out of the water, about 200 ft. from the vessel. He lay still on the surface of the water, lifting his head up, and moving the body in a serpentine manner. Could not see all of it; but what we could see, from the after part of the head, was about 70 ft. long and of the same thickness all the way, excepting about the head and neck, which were smaller, and the former flat, like the head of a serpent. It had four fins on its back, and the body of a yellow greenish colour, with brown spots all over the upper part and underneath white. The whole crew were looking at it for fully ten minutes before it moved away. It was about six feet in diameter. One of the mates has drawn a slight sketch of the serpent, which will give some notion of its appearance. -- A. Hassel, master of Norwegian barque St. Olaf. --Witness to signature, J. Fredk. Walthew."

The Great Sea Serpent: An Historical and Critical Treatise. A.C. Oudemans, JZN, 1892. (pp.64-65).

.A PS have started a discussion about this over at CFZ thanks to Jon and the guys:

http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2009/06/lindsay-selby-texas-lake-monster.html

Giant man eating fish

KUALA BERANG: A giant fish that supposedly caused the deaths of two men on Tuesday could have been the highly predatory and aggressive arapaima gigas. Fish biologist Dr Mohd Fadzil Suhaimi Ramli said the natural habitat of the fish which could reach 4.9m was the Amazon and Orinoco rivers of South America. He said the fish that the locals dubbed as ikan naga due to its features that were similar to the mystical dragon could have been released into the lake by someone when it became too large Due to its size, this fish preys on local species which are smaller in size,” he told The Star.Mohd Fahmi said the arapaima would become aggressive when hungry. Arapaima gigas have an elongated body covered with large, thick scales and a small tail. Its wide mouth faces upward and the colour ranges from dark brown to black with blue highlights and red edges, particularly on the tail. It could leap several metres into the air and its powerful head could capsize small boats on impact. Meanwhile, villagers at Kampung Baung – that borders Tasik Kenyir – claimed that they have witnessed the monstrous arapaima leaping high into the air on several occasions. A villager who did not want to be named claimed that he had once sighted a giant fish the size of a baby elephant. Another villager Mohd Fahmi Mustafa, 25, said his grandfather told him that an old Chinese man appeared one day at the village in the late 70s and released two fish that resembled a dragon into the then Kenyir river.“My grandpa said the old man had claimed that the fish were from overseas and that he had to release them as they had become too big,” he said.On Tuesday, bird park supervisor Helmi Sukhri Hisham, 28, drowned after he mysteriously fell off his boat.State Fire and Rescue Department driver Aladi Hasan, 41, who had gone to the lake to search for him, also drowned. see full story here :

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/6/19/nation/4151201&sec=nation

And some more info:

Within the Amazon basin, A. gigas is found in several different types of habitat, such as the floodplain lakes of this region, the large tributaries of the Amazon river including the Rio Madera and the Rio Machado, and the varzea or forest. The pirarucu inhabits both white water and clear water. Much of the water that comprises the pirarucu's habitat is also oxygen deficient, as it is located in swampy areas of the rainforest. A. gigas is a predator that mainly eats other fish. If a bird or some other animal happens to be present, this large predator will also eat that animal. The pirarucu usually finds food near the top of the water because it is an obligate air breather that needs to surface every 10-20 min. However, the pirarucu is also capable of diving.

(Lowe-McConnell, 1987; Goulding, 1980)

Fossils of arapaima or a very similar species have been found in the Miocene Villavieja Formation of Colombia. So they have been around along time. Certainly a dangerous fish to come across. Even when caught they are apparently quite difficult to handle but have been overfished in their native habitat as they are apparently good to eat. Seems to me this one is getting his own back .

Goulding, M. 1980. Fishes and the Forest, Explorations in Amazonian Natural History. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lowe-McConnell, R. 1987. Ecological Studies in Tropical Fish Communities. London: Cambridge University Press.