Aquatic creatures. United States

In 1896 two boys walking down the beach in Florida, came across a huge monster. Now he is known as "the Monster of St. Augustine," "the Monster from Florida" or "the Giant octopus is a monster of St. Augustine". It was one of the first discovered by people of globsters (beached organic matter of unknown origin).

They reported their discovery to local physician, Dr. DeWitt Webb. Webb, who was the founder of the historical society and Institute of science of St. Augustine, came to the beach on December 1, to inspect the remains. He would be the only person of an academic origin, who saw the specimen in place.

His first impression was that it was the remains of an animal, very much mutilated and decomposed condition. The frame was very pale pink, almost white, with silvery reflection in the sunlight. It consisted of a rubber substance very firm texture, so it can be cut only with great difficulty. Part of a skeleton that was visible was about the size of 18 feet (approx. 6 meters) in length and 7 feet (approx. 2.5 meters) in width. Webb estimated its weight at nearly 5 tons, if not more. He believed that it was the remains of a giant octopus, as it seemed, was "kick four hands" and the other "arm" was thrown around.

A few days later, on December 7, Webb invited two lovers, Edgar van horn and Ernest Howatt to photograph the carcass for posterity. Was made at least two photographs, one of which is a side view and another front view. The latter also included a man, probably the DeWitt Webb, for scale. Because the images were overexposed, they were never published. These pictures for a long time was considered lost and was known only drawings based on them, made Alfaolom Hayatta Verrillon and published in the journal American naturalist is in April 1897.

The teenagers took his discovery for the remains of a whale.

Part of the mysterious mass was still preserved for history in one of American museums. In 1971, she was subjected to re-examination and, to everyone's shock, the researchers concluded that the tissue really belong to a giant octopus.

The remains were issledovanii in 1986, 1995 and 2004. It turned out, however, that it was a decomposed whale.

In particular the signing of 1995 contains the following information:

It was found that the samples represent the "masses of virtually pure collagen" and not have the "biochemical characteristics of invertebrate collagen and arrangement of collagen fibers in the mantle of the octopus". The results show that the samples are "the remains of the leather huge warm-blooded vertebrate". The authors come to the conclusion that "there is no evidence to support the existence of Octopus giganteus" and agree with Verrill (1897) and Lucas (1897) that the body was "the remains of a whale, likely the entire skin and fat layer".

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»