Markus Hemmler: The Chinese Globster

Summertime… In April a '55 Feet Long Unknown Fish Species’ washed ashore near Guangdong, China, according to what was published for the first time in May 2011, for example, from Cryptomundo. Nearly two months have gone by but now some newspapers around the world are publishing the story (again) and so the carcass is the object of various discussions on what it could be.

For those confident with whales and whale carcasses, it’s obviously another decomposed whale (and therefore a mammal not a fish as said in many articles btw). The picture shown widely within English sources is low quality but there are two better ones available on Chinese websites (see below). On the left side of both pictures lies the tail and rest of the tail fluke so on the right side of both pictures we have the head or rostrum. This indicates that the bone sticking out of the sand near the rostrum is nothing more than one of the curved lower jaws of a rorqual whale. From the tip of the decomposed rostrum to the estimated middle of the body we can identify ventral grooves what is absolutely typical for rorquals.

So all characteristics and also opinions of scientists (like, for example, Scott Baker of Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute) agree to the same identity: a rorqual. The only question remaining is what species of rorqual. If we accept the length of 55 feet it has to be one of the greater whales like Fin-, Sei- or Blue whale. But according to most chinese sources the length of the carcass was only 13 meters (42 feet) - what is also the opinion of Mr Baker and myself - so it could also be a Bryde’s whale (with a maximum length around 15.5 meters for this species). Identifying the exact species is difficult from these pictures as they show no distinct feature for identification, unlike the carcass of Ataka, Egypt, of 1950 (three ridges on the dorsal side of the rostrum identifiying it clearly as Bryde’s whale; for a detailed identification see http://www.kryptozoologie-online.de/Dracontologie/Salzwasserkryptide/ataka-kadaver.html).

The whale was buried but as whale strandings in China are rare the Chinese officials will examine the carcass later.

Sources:

http://www.cryptomundo.com/bigfoot-report/new-chinese-globster/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2007131/Mysterious-55ft-sea-monster-washes-China.html?ITO=1490
http://www.oeeee.com/a/20110428/987132.html (including Picture 1)
http://strandingnetchina.org/view.php?aid=303 (including Picture 2)

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MARKUS HEMMLER: The Masbate Monster

On December 24 1996 a carcass washed up on beach villa Rico near the town of Claveria, located in the Philippine province of Masbate. According to press reports the animal's body resembled an 26-foot-long eel-like creature with the head of a turtle. A photo of the skull, vertebrae and limbs appeared in the newspaper Philippine Star, but this photo is not available. The photograph was presented together with dried meat to unnamed "experts" and no one could identify it. Zoologist Dr Perry Ong of the Philippines University confirmed that it was "a eel-like fish...It must be an ancestral or primitive fish. It had fins. But if it is a fish, where are the ribs? It is not a mammal." The skull had obviously a blowhole-like opening, resembling that of a dolphin, but it lacked the corresponding long, narrow snout. Cryptozoologist Karl Shuker speculated it could probably be an already heavily decayed killer whale (Orcinus orca).

The description of a blowhole-like opening in the skull, however, reminded me at once to the epiphysal foramen, a round hole in the top of basking shark skulls (Cetorhinus maximus) through which a brain projection, the epiphysis or pineal body, extends. Because of this speculation, it was first necessary to determine whether the range of the basking shark includes the Philippines. And precisely during this search was quickly and completely unexpectedly the Masbate monster met again! Fishbase reports about the basking shark: "First record from Philippines: skeletal remains washed up on shore in Iceland Burias, Masbate." Unfortunately there was no date of this report, but the source was specified: Compagno, LJV, Last, PR, Stevens, JD & Alava, MNR (2005) Checklist of Philippine Chondrichthyes. CSIRO Marine Laboratories Report. This report is, fortunately, available online, and there you can read: "First record from the Philippines.. Burias Iceland, Masbate, December 1996, skeletal remains including vertebrae and Clasper washed up on beach. Identification The Philippines Star, March 9th: 1997 Victor G. Springer, pers comm."


Another sea monster carcass whose identification unfortunately remained open
until now can thus be put to file.

Sources:

Shuker, KP N (2003). Shuker, KP N (2003). The Beasts That Hide from Man:
Seeking the World's Last Undiscovered Animals. New York: Paraview Press.
- (2010) Alien Zoo: From the pages of Fortean Times. - (2010) CFZ
Publications.
Compagno, LJV, Last, PR, Stevens, JD & Alava, MNR (2005) Checklist of
Philippine Chondrichthyes. CSIRO Marine Laboratories Report.

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&langpair=de%7Cen&u=http://www.kryptozoologie-online.de/Nachrichten/Dracontologie-News/masbate-monster-kadaver-ein-riesenhai.html

MARKUS HEMMLER DOES IT AGAIN!

Marcus H has a wild talent: like a hound after truffles, he unearths long lost images of globsters. He recently unearthed trunko. Now he does it again. He writes:

The Tasmanian Globster was a large unidentified mass that washed ashore in Tasmania in August 1960. In 1962 a team of scientists visited the area and got tissue out of it for an analysis. The carcass was later identified as a whale by L.E. Wall what was confirmed through a following electron microscopy analysis of the collagen fibres.

Nice piece of history for those not old enough to see it 1962 on TV (like
myself): http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=83024

TASMANIAN SEA MONSTER

THE BOY SHUKER HAS DONE IT AGAIN

This is really beyond belief. Markus Hemmler has found two more pictures of the Natal sea creature with the unfortunate name of `Trunko`. What next?

http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2010/09/trunko-two-more-photographs.html