Are there any water monsters in the world?

?It is not true that there are water monsters in the deep sea. Most of the water monsters in Chinese myths and legends as well as those in Europe are personifications of animals. Because we know too little about deep-sea creatures, we cannot rule out that there are longer and larger animals in the deep sea.

The map of Europe 500 years ago looks better than it does now: not only the sea, land, mountains and rivers are marked on the map, but there are also many pictures. On the land are people and beasts, and in the sea are boats and fish - this is amazing. Not an ordinary fish, but a water monster. This type of water monster was "fashionable" at the time and often appeared on classical sculptures in European tourist attractions. ?

In the mid-16th century, various water monsters appeared on a famous map of Northern Europe

The water monsters in Chinese myths and legends are different from those in Europe. From the Dragon King to the shrimp soldiers and crab generals, most of them are rivers and lakes. Personification of freshwater animals. Most of the water monsters in Europe come from the rumors of sailors. The most exciting ones are the deep sea monsters: some have lion-like heads and glowing eyes, and some look like overseas versions of Chinese "dragons". If we were to compare which legend has the most, it would probably be the super giant octopus and the so-called "sea snake".

Since the 13th century, it has been said that there is a huge water monster called "Kraken" in the deep water of the Norwegian Sea. It only occasionally rises to the surface of the water. When it is not moving, it looks like an island. When it moves, the huge waves will overturn the boat, and sometimes it will catch the entire boat. "Kraken" refers to the giant octopus, which appears in various legends and science fiction works, including Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". There are indeed huge cephalopods in the deep sea, including octopus and squid, but so far, the largest squid found is 14 meters long, and the largest octopus is only 7 meters long, which is still far from the legend of "Kraken". Of course, most of the myths and legends are far-fetched and far-fetched. For example, the rapids and bubbles suddenly caused by volcanic activity under the sea in Iceland are also said to be the appearance of "sea monsters"; some "seen" giant sea monsters are actually the carcasses of whales. Or floating mounds of seaweed.

There is also a type of "sea monster" which refers to the giant "sea snake". In the 18th century, it was said that a "sea snake" taller than a mast and longer than a ship's hull appeared in the Greenland Sea. In ancient Nordic legends, the "sea snake" was so big that it was mistaken for a string of islands. In fact, what is often mistaken for a "sea snake" is the oarfish, a deep-water bony fish that lives at a depth of thousands of meters in warm sea areas, with a record length of 17 meters. However, we cannot say that the legendary "sea snakes" are all oarfish, because we know too little about deep-sea creatures to rule out that there are longer and larger animals in the deep sea.

The monitoring devices installed by the United States in the Pacific Ocean have discovered powerful and strange sound waves. It is unknown whether they come from marine animals larger than whales or from natural phenomena such as sea ice collapse.

European sea monster legends come from navigation. Due to the mystery of the deep sea, sometimes the boundaries between science and myth are not clear. For example: when Linnaeus established biological nomenclature in the 18th century, he gave the scientific name "Kraken" and classified it as a cephalopod, which was later canceled; at the end of the 19th century, a "sea monster" corpse weighing dozens of tons was found on the coast of Florida. Later analysis proved to be nothing more than a pile of whale blubber.