Sea monster lore could also be defined by whale behaviour

Scientists are puzzling over an odd feeding method that they suppose whales lately started utilizing: The creatures swim to the floor of the ocean, open their mouths right into a gaping yawn with their higher jaw sitting slightly below the water’s floor, and await hoards of fish to swim in.

The strategy, nonetheless, might not be new in any respect. In truth, it could have been noticed and recorded by our distant ancestors — information that was buried in historical texts and folklore, in line with a peer-reviewed examine printed Tuesday within the journal Marine Mammal Science.

Fashionable researchers have lengthy recognized that whales feed by swimming swiftly with their mouth ajar towards a college of fish or krill.

However the “lure feeding” or “tread-water feeding” technique, because it’s referred to as, was first noticed in 2011, scientists speculated that it may need been a brand new technique that whales tailored due to altering ecological situations. Or, maybe it was solely being noticed for the primary time as a result of new applied sciences, reminiscent of drones, are permitting whale habits to be noticed in unprecedented element.

The examine printed Tuesday, nonetheless, means that people recorded cases of whales lure feeding within the thirteenth century in Previous Norse manuscripts, the place the whales could have been described as a seemingly mystical being referred to as the “hafgufa.”

“Whereas postmedieval students have typically confused the hafgufa with fantastical creatures such because the kraken and even mermaids, an in depth examination of earlier sources demonstrates that they consult with it explicitly as a ‘sort’ of whale,” in line with the examine. “This raises the fascinating and important risk that, somewhat than showing for the primary time in two species on reverse sides of the globe throughout the final 20 years, these feeding methods could have existed within the distant previous.”

THE ‘HAFGUFA’ THROUGH TIME

One of the vital compelling examples from historical texts was present in a doc referred to as Konungs skuggsjá, or “The King’s Mirror,” which was composed for a Norwegian king within the 1200s and was doubtless an try to compile one thing resembling our modern-day encyclopedias, mentioned examine coauthor Dr. John McCarthy, a maritime archaeologist within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders College in Australia.

The outline in Konungs skuggsjá included some outlandish parts, noting “in these cases the place it has appeared to males, it has seemed extra like an island than a fish.” Nevertheless it additionally included this statement of searching habits that’s remarkably just like fashionable observations of lure or tread-water feeding.

“It’s mentioned of the character of this fish that, when it goes to feed, it offers a terrific belch out of its throat, together with which comes an excessive amount of meals. All kinds of close by fish collect, each small and huge, searching for there to accumulate meals and good sustenance. However the huge fish retains its mouth open for a time, no kind of extensive than a big sound or fjord, and unknowing and unheeding, the fish rush in of their numbers. And when its stomach and mouth are full, (the hafgufa) closes its mouth, thus catching and hiding inside it all of the prey that had come searching for meals.”

The “belch” described in that textual content, researchers urged within the examine, could consult with how rorqual whales filter their meals, dispelling some meals to assist lure extra prey into their mouths. In addition they famous that there generally is a “rotten cabbage” odor related to whale feeding.

Diagram of humpback engaged in lure feeding; with a jaw both flush with the waterline, or raised to an analogous top to the podium. (J. McCarthy)

WHALE FACTS VERSUS FOLKLORE

There are even earlier examples of comparable descriptions that use totally different names to explain the “hafgufa” creature, presumably courting way back to a Greek textual content composed someday between 150 and 200 AD. Examples may also be present in Medieval Bestiaries, which have been giant catalogs of each actual and imaginary creatures that included colorfully drawn depictions.

On the time they have been complied, McCarthy famous, these texts have been meant to be a critical reference work, regardless of the inclusion of what seems to the fashionable eye to be descriptions of fictitious animals.

“They might very simply have inaccurate info and alongside correct info,” he mentioned. “Now we have no extra means to discriminate between these than they did on the time, besides that we now know from fashionable science what species really (exist) and what’s credible or not credible.”

Over time, the descriptions of “hafgufa” and comparable creatures could have been relegated to the world of fantasy and folklore as a result of these early descriptions weren’t wholly correct. McCarthy factors to 1 drawing from 1658 that reveals an enormous sea monster with two orifices on its head spewing water. Whereas seemingly the stuff of fiction, the drawing may merely be “somebody’s misinterpretation of a blowhole,” McCarthy mentioned.

Which may be how we arrive at at the moment’s notion of the “hafgufa” as a imprecise, fictional sea monster. The online game God of Conflict Ragnarok, for instance, features a “hafgufa” that is depicted as an enormous jellyfish.

“I believe the primary take-home level right here is simply to respect individuals prior to now as being simply as clever as we’re,” McCarthy added. “They checked out issues of their finest out there framework. And so we should not dismiss the proof … we must always attempt to think about it from the attitude of the individuals on the time and put ourselves into their sneakers.”

A digital reconstruction of a humpback whale lure feeding. (J. McCarthy)