1997 and what are the anecdotes at the end of the 20th century?

1977, the Japanese ocean trawler "Xiao Rui Maru" was fishing in the sea area more than 50 kilometers east of Crateschurch, New Zealand, but accidentally picked up a monster body that had never been seen before.

On April 25th, 1977, a marine trawler named "Xiao Rui Maru" from Japan Marine Fisheries Company fished in the sea area more than 50 kilometers east of Crateschurch, New Zealand. When the crew pulled up the net that sank 300 meters at the bottom of the sea, an unexpected monster was pulled up with the net. In the net is the body of a monster I have never seen before.

Although it has begun to rot, it is well preserved. You can clearly see that it has a long neck, a small head, a big belly (the abdomen is empty and there are no five internal organs) and four big fins. The results measured with a tape measure show that the monster is about 10 meter long, with a neck length of 1.5 meter, a tail length of 2 meters and a weight of about 2 tons. It is estimated that he has been dead for a month (after research and analysis, he has been dead for six months to 1 year).

It is neither a fish nor a turtle, and no one among the crew who have been fishing at sea for many years knows it. Everyone made an amazing comment: "Isn't this the same as the plesiosaur in Loch Ness?" "Is it the monster of Loch Ness?" .

The captain who learned the news flew into a rage when he saw that everyone was enjoying a rotten monster. He was worried that the fish in his cabin would be lost and ordered the crew to throw it into the sea at once! Fortunately, Mr Yano Daoyan found this unusual discovery. Before the monster was thrown into the sea, he took some photos and made relevant records.

When the news reached Japan, it immediately caused a sensation throughout the country, especially among zoologists and paleontologists. They looked at these photos and analyzed them. They thought, "This is not like a fish. It must be a very precious animal." "It's amazing! This is no less than a century-old discovery of pike fish. " The greatest discovery of this century-the living plesiosaur.

The news spread all over the world immediately, and newspapers and periodicals in various countries quickly reprinted photos and sent news. This incident has aroused great interest and concern of famous biologists all over the world, and they have expressed their feelings and talked about it.

Throwing the monster's body back into the sea caused deep regret and strong condemnation. Some biologists in Japan, in particular, were very angry. They accused the captain of ignorance and stupidity. Professor Shikama Tokio, a Japanese authority on biology, said, "Under no circumstances should you throw it away. It seems that the education in Japan is so poor that this will happen. It is an international joke to lose a national treasure for a commodity of 200 million yen. "

Although the marine fishing company immediately ordered all fishing boats in New Zealand waters to go to the scene to catch the monster's body again, even ships from some countries, including the former Soviet Union and the United States, rushed to the scene to fish. However, because the date of news release (July 20) and the date of abandoning the monster were three months apart, despite their best efforts to find it, no one could salvage it ashore in the vast sea. It's a pity that mankind missed the best opportunity to know a new animal.

Skeleton sketch: The top left of the sketch reads: "10: 40 hoisted, and Nishi (the monster in Loch Ness) took a photo." This is Mr Yano's record at that time. He drew this sketch based on field observation and general measurement. The monster's skeleton is10m long, and its head and neck are about 2m long, of which the head is 45cm, the neck is 20cm thick, the tail is 2m long, the root is12cm thick, the tail is 3cm thick, and the body part is about 6.05m long. According to him, bones belong to cartilage.

(Legend: plesiosaur belongs to the suborder Jumping Hole of Reptiles, which is a group adapted to the life in shallow water. It began to appear in the late Triassic, the Jurassic spread all over the world, and died out at the end of Cretaceous.

Plesiosaur looks like a snake passing through a turtle shell: its head is small, its neck is long, its trunk is like a turtle, and its tail is short. Although the head is small, but the mouth is very big, there are many slender conical teeth in the mouth, fishing for a living. Many kinds of bodies are very huge, reaching 1 1 ~ 15 meters, and some kinds reach 18 meters. The limbs are specialized into fleshy flippers suitable for paddling, so that plesiosaurs can not only move freely in the water, but also climb ashore to rest or lay eggs and breed offspring. Plesiosaurs can be divided into long-necked plesiosaurs and short-necked plesiosaurs according to the length of their necks. )

What is it? Scientists are still arguing about this, and there are different opinions. After the news was reported from 1977, the debate generally went through such a process: plesiosaur said a shark said a reptile said an unknown animal said.

We briefly describe the arguments of various hypotheses:

At first, some people thought it was a whale or a shark, others said it was a seal or a turtle. However, these guesses are all denied according to the three evidences left: the whale's neck bone is shorter than the monster's; The shark's fat is hidden in the liver, while the monster is on the surface; The largest seal is 5 to 6 meters long, and the largest tortoise is 2 meters long, which is much smaller than the monster with a length of 10 meter, and its bones are different. The focus now is that people suspect that it is a descendant of plesiosaur that died out 70 million years ago. One of the main reasons is that it has such a long neck

Around its long neck, people argue endlessly, and many scholars happily declare that it is a "living plesiosaur". Professor Shikama Tokio of Yokohama National University said: "From the photos, it is limited to reptiles, but we can consider the plesiosaur, which once lived in Taikoo. It can be said to be a veritable living fossil." Kojima Yu, from the Third Laboratory of Paleontology of the National Museum of Science, also said, "From the photos, he seems to be a descendant of plesiosaur. There are two kinds of plesiosaurs, one with a small head and a long neck, and the other with a slightly larger head and a short neck; This seems to be a short neck ... "Ms. Bao Xue, deputy curator of French natural history, and some New Zealand biologists agree with this statement.

Indeed, monsters are very similar to plesiosaurs. People compare the monster skeleton map with the fossil skeleton of plesiosaur, and it is very similar in both the overall skeleton structure and the local fin, tail and neck. In particular, Yano's monster skeleton map was drawn according to his visual observation and speculation, which is not completely accurate, but its structure is so similar to that of short-necked plesiosaur that it cannot be said that this plesiosaur is based on some facts. Plesiosaur is a kind of marine reptile that lived from late Florian to White Righi, and its thin neck was very long. Terrestrial sauropods with similar appearance also had slender necks at first, but in the late Florian period, this kind of dinosaurs with slender necks gradually became extinct and were replaced by vegetarian dragons (such as Pachycephalosaurus and black dragon) in the early Cretaceous period, with shorter necks.

Plesiosaurs also developed in the direction of short neck. If so, this monster found in Japan can be said to have evolved a little more. So the newspaper announced: "This is the biggest discovery of this century!" But not long after, the only physical evidence-the monster's beard-was analyzed by protein in Tokyo Fisheries University, and it was found that its composition was similar to shark's fin, so newspapers and news turned to sharks. For a time, the expressions of "giant shark" and "invisible shark" flooded the newspapers again. At this time, biologists in some countries in Britain and America also hold this view.

Owen Wheeler of the Natural History Museum in London, UK, said: "This prey is probably a shark. Many other monsters have been found near the coast of the world before, but they are all dead sharks after clarification. A shark is a cartilaginous fish. They have no hard skeletons. When a shark dies and its body gradually decays, its head and gills first hang down from its body, thus forming a slender' neck' with a small head at the end. Many Japanese fishermen, even more knowledgeable people, were fooled by the shape similar to that of plesiosaur ... "This statement seemed reasonable, and many people who held the plesiosaur statement gave up the original idea at that time. A monster equals a shark, as if it were a foregone conclusion.

However, after testing the tentacles again, it is not certain that it is a shark. In addition, some scholars insist on the reptile theory, and the shark theory begins to waver again. Indeed, according to the field investigation by scientists and Japanese journalists, various reasons for denying that it is a shark are put forward:

First, the meat of shark is white, the meat of basking shark is pink, and the monster is latosolic red.

Secondly, when the crew of "Xiao Rui Maru" fished it out, no one at the scene suspected that it was a shark. Why? The reporter investigated the problem. It turns out that sharks don't have urinals, and the urine accumulated in their bodies is discharged from the whole body by using the soaking pressure of seawater. Therefore, shark meat smells like urine, and experienced fishermen will smell it. The fishermen of Ruitan 9 therefore denied that it was a shark.

Third, if it is really a shark, then a shark with a soft skeleton will never be hung by a crane six months after its death. Because the body begins to rot and the cartilage begins to rot, the soft skeleton of the body can never bear the weight of about two tons. In this regard, many ichthyology authorities believe that this is an important argument to deny the shark theory.

Fourth, monsters have a thick layer of fat, wrapped in the muscles of the whole body, while sharks only have fat in their livers.

So, from sharks to reptiles. There is also an important argument that monsters may be reptiles, that is, the monster's head is triangular, which is a unique feature of reptiles. Shotaro Ishinomori, a famous Japanese science cartoonist, drew a monster restoration picture based on the skeleton sketch. If we look at this photo, it really looks like a reptile. 1977, 1, 19 September 10, two academic seminars were held in Tokyo, Japan, attended by 19 scholars, involving fish, fossils, cetaceans, paleontology, comparative anatomy, biochemistry and serum. They studied the photos, sketches and tissue sections of fin whiskers, had a serious discussion and wrote 9 papers. Based on the discussion opinions of the two symposiums, Sasaki, the moderator and president of Tokyo Fisheries University, published the research conclusions of Japanese academic circles to the press on the afternoon of June 5438+February 65438+May 5 of the same year:

(1) From the chemical composition of the beard at the fin end of the monster, it can't be concluded that it is a shark.

(2) From its two pairs of ventral fins, long body, long tail and fat on the body surface, the monster is a completely different animal from the known fish.

(3) Taxonomically, it probably represents a brand-new animal (marine reptile? )。

Now, people are looking forward to the place where the monster's body was salvaged at 43 degrees 53 minutes south latitude and 0/73 degrees 48 minutes east longitude, and the monster will reappear one day. Maybe it's the expected prehistoric reptile.

The legendary Loch Ness monster

According to the Times reported on the 6th, British paleontologist Dr Neil Clark claimed that after several years of research and investigation, he had solved the mystery of the Loch Ness monster. He said there were no monsters in the lake, only elephants were resting in it! When this statement came out, the whole of Britain was shocked.