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:: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 ::
Following the lunch time pub conversation about strange fish (what else) GussetBlog proudly presents fish you would never believe existed
THE SPOTTED HANDFISH
"Handfish are small, unusual, slow-moving fish that prefer to 'walk' on their pectoral and pelvic fins rather than swim. The pectoral or side fins are leg-like with their extremities resembling a human hand (hence their common name)."
THE GLOBSTER
In a book called Living Wonders two English authors, John Michell and Robert Rickard, suggest that Australia may be the home of the monster to out-monster all monsters - and it lives in the sea. They call it the "globster."
They claim that the globsters were first discovered on the west coast of Tasmania in 1960 when the body of one was washed on a beach by a storm. A cattleman named Bill Fenton came across it.
The carcase measured 18 feet to 20 feet across. It was almost circular in shape and was covered by soft fur. It had a large mound in the centre and what appeared to be a set of gills.
Bruce Mollinson of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, who examined it, said he had no idea what it was but hazarded a guess that it was a monstrous ray-like animal that lived deep in subterranean caverns off Tasmania.
The authors claim that other globster corpses have since been washed up on the Australian coast, some of them as big as houses.
A diver in the South Pacific is believed to be the only person to have seen a live globster. He described it as a great black mass, about an acre in extent, which rose up out of a chasm. The globster devoured a shark by "absorbing" it into its body.
However, others define Globsters as mysterious pieces of meat that wash up onto shore or are sometimes caught in an unfortunate person's net. Their common feature is that they are normally very badly decomposed and are normally described as boneless. According to the Guiness Book of Animal Facts and Feats, the unlikely basking shark is probably the cause of about 90% of all of the globster cases. The shark has peculiar gill arches which almost go completely around. When it decomposes, the arches fall off and the area between the head and the rest of the body looks like a plesiosaurian neck. This state of the shark's decomposition is normally adressed as the "pseudoplesiosaur" state. Since all of the bones in the shark's body are made out of cartilage, this gives rise to the impression that there are no bones in the body. Normally the skull retains it's shape since it is the hardest or densest cartilage in the body. Apparently no two globsters look exactly alike, some are more blob like than others. With the recent beaching of another globster off Chile, it is now known that Sperm Whales can form blob shaped, boneless, masses as well. There are people who describe all of these globsters are a sort of cryptid species, but this is rather improbably since none of them look exactly the same at all. The fact that they are all in a state of advanced decomposition also hints that they are naturally modified. No "fresh" globster has ever been found, and it is likely that they never will be. However, some may still turn out to be the carcasses of a sort of Giant Octopus.
Have a look at Strangemag's Globster Gallery
Finally, here’s a picture of an Angler Fish just for the sake of it.
And some Angler Fish recipes.
:: Dan 1.10.03 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post]::
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