Angels, dinosaurs and artists’ impressions

We have long used optical telescopes to view distant objects, both living and non-living, making them easier to identify. More recently, technology has provided us with telescopes that record information transmitted over vast distances, allowing us to see distant stars, and even to look back in time as we view the expanding universe.

Similarly, optical microscopes reveal much more than we can see with the naked eye, and electron microscopes, of both scanning and transmission types, make very minute structures visible, although preparation methods require that care must be taken in interpreting what we see. Advances have also been made in the analysis of living and non-living materials that enable us to look at traces of organic chemicals from small samples and, using these approaches, we can analyse the composition of fragments and relate these to their origins. The commonplace use of an individual’s DNA in a blood stain is just one example.

Even armed with this information, we need expert analysis of what we see to make sense of it and this is aided by visual imagery, either generated by computer technologies, or by the hand of an artist. Artists’ impressions are invaluable in re-creating images of things that are no longer present and which we therefore have no chance of seeing. An example comes in the very numerous portrayals of religious scenes, where we are frequently shown images of Jesus, although we have no record of how He looked. The same goes for God, the disciples and all the other characters, as well as Heaven and Hell.

Other beings in religious paintings are given a physical presence that is unlikely or symbolic. The Holy Spirit is frequently depicted as a white dove, while angels have a characteristic appearance that we all recognise [1], with bird wings on a human body that also has arms (an example by Tiepolo is shown above). Taken as being real, these angels would not be able to fly, as the wings of birds have developed from the fore limbs of their reptile ancestors. With arms already present, the wings of angels, and the muscles to operate them, must be located quite differently on the body (I’m not suggesting here that angels do not exist, but that their physical form in paintings and sculpture means that they cannot fly using their wings). It’s an example of where artists’ impressions are very useful in creating images that subsequently have "reality".

Another world that fascinates us, and of which we have no direct knowledge, is that of dinosaurs. We’ve never seen a dinosaur (although there are some modern-day reptiles, like crocodiles, that give us some clues as to behaviour), so how do we know what they looked like and how they lived? We have evidence from which to work, unlike the images created of angels, where there is no fossil evidence. Bones, skin, muscle attachments, and feathers (where present) allow us to reconstruct dinosaurs and then put them into an imaginary landscape. We accept these images, and models based on them, because we believe what experts tell us (quite rightly?). The images are also informed by speculation. In Benton’s book on dinosaurs, with its catchy sub-title [2], we read that the discovery of pigment cells meant that “for the very first time, we knew the colour patterns of a dinosaur, and could use these insights to speculate about dinosaurian behaviour”. Can we really gain information about dinosaur behaviour from colour patterns? Perhaps we can. Later in the book, Benton describes the swimming of Stenopterygius, an ancient reptile from the Mesozoic: 

Stenopterygius swoops after a belemnite, an extinct relative of modern squid and octopus. The belemnite has a fleshy body and fins and swims backwards, just as modern cephalopods do. We know, too, that it has an ink sac, and so, like its modern relatives, likely squirts ink when alarmed, and zips off by blasting jets of water through its siphons. By the time the predator has recovered and snapped a few times at the ink cloud, the belemnite has long disappeared to safety. 

The Stenopterygius is not too fazed, as this is not an infrequent occurrence, and he lines up to chase another group of belemnites. 

Is the language a little flowery here? Admittedly, the book was written for a general audience, and books about dinosaurs sell well, but how critically do we, as members of the public, consider what is said by popularisers?

Further in Benton’s book [2], the dust cover of which shows Tupandactylus in flight (see above), we read this about head crests in bird-like dinosaurs: 

[It is] suggested that such prominent head crests and beaks sheathed in keratin as are seen in various dinosaurs and pterosaurs might have been photoluminescent.. ..[and] we can imagine the elaborate head crests of Tupandactylus flashing different colours at dusk, males and females perhaps showing different patterns, and putting on a spectacular in the crepuscular gloom. 

Please note the use of the words “suggested”, “imagine” and “perhaps” in this quote.

Moving images take artists’ impressions one step further and we are entertained not only by coloured images of landscapes, but also grunts and hisses from different dinosaurs. There is a good selection in the video linked in [3], (complete with an accompanying musical soundtrack to add tension to each scene). How much of this is supported by evidence? I accept that teeth marks on bones correspond to the dentition of certain dinosaurs, but the rest of it?

As we know, dinosaurs are not only important in palaeontology, but also in entertainment and in retailing. Go into any home with young children and you will find many dinosaur-related toys, pyjamas, t-shirts etc. and there is a popular fascination with mythological dinosaurs like the Loch Ness Monster and Sea Serpents. While there are artists’ impressions based on the sightings of the latter two, that is all we have to go on and the transformations of known dinosaur types that appear on clothing, or as toys, may be very far from the creatures that existed hundreds of millions of years ago. Steve Brusatte, reviewing Bentons’ book (see above) remarks that the images of dinosaurs it contains are real and can be used by media professionals, but is this so? Is there a point where palaeontologists can get a bit carried away with their liaison with the world of entertainment?

One important view of science is that it is based on falsifiable hypotheses and this is an approach that I have tried to follow in my research. However, falsifiable hypotheses are not possible with extinct animals (and plants) and, however ingenious our attempts, we are bound to make suppositions about the effects of time: we can design experiments that last hundreds of millions of years, but it is impossible to get the results. It means that palaeontology, including the study of dinosaur fossils, is a highly-informed guessing game, with some practitioners and artists going further into the world of imagination than others. Thus, the need for caution.

 

[1] Roger S. Wotton (in press) Birds and Christian Imagery. In Winged Worlds (eds. Olga Petri and Michael Guida). London, Routledge.

[2] Michael J. Benton (2021) Dinosaurs: New Visions of a Lost World. London, Thames & Hudson.

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzXGSFVbVvU&t=847s&ab_channel=BBCEarth

Recent unicorns

In popular culture, a unicorn is a white horse with a bony tusk, like that of a narwhal, on the front of its head. However, not all of them have this form. The two supporters of the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (see below) are a lion and a unicorn, but this example, while being mainly horse-like, has a very long tail bearing tufts of fur and it also has cloven hooves. This is confusing to a Biologist interested in these animals, as unicorns thus have the characteristics of both perissodactyls (odd-toed ungulates, e.g. horses and rhinoceroses) and artiodactyls (even-toed ungulates, e.g. sheep, goats, deer, cattle). Although they are mythological creatures, there has always been a fascination with the possibility of finding one.

In The Romance of Natural History, Philip Henry Gosse [1] includes reports of sightings of unicorns from Africa and he describes a drawing made of a cave painting:

In this were represented, with exceedingly characteristic fidelity, several of the common antelopes of the country, such as a group of elands, the hartebeest, and the springbok; while among them appeared, with head and shoulders towering above the rest, an animal having the general character of a rhinoceros, but, in form, lighter than a wild bull, having an arched neck, and a long nasal horn projecting in the form of a sabre.

This unicorn was a giant rhinoceros, of a type now extinct, which co-existed with humans perhaps tens of thousands of years ago. Recently, remains of Elasmotherium sibiricum, named the "Siberian Unicorn", were found in shallow sediments in Kazakhstan. Shpansky, Aliyassova and Ilvina [2] were able to date the remains as being less than 30,000 years old, confirming that these giant rhinoceroses also co-existed with humans.

The horn of E. sibiricum, like that of modern rhinoceroses, is made of keratin and so, like nails, it becomes broken down over time in a way that calcified tissue does not. As a result, we have no direct record of the size and shape of the horn (as far as I know) and must depend on assumptions based on features of the skull. The skull of E sibiricum has a large protuberance that is believed to have supported the horn and the News section of Nature [3] reported in 1878:

..the protuberance of the skull of the elasmotherium presents a rough, uneven surface, traversed by deep furrows once occupied by blood vessels. The whole analogy with the rhinoceros points with the greatest certainty to the previous existence of a horn, which, to judge from the size of the blood-vessels once encircling the base, must have possessed enormous dimensions, and easily exceeded the length of the skull itself.

Measurements taken by Shpansky et al. on the skull they examined gives the diameter of the protuberance, and thus the base of the horn, to be at least 26 cm across and all reconstructions of the Siberian Unicorn suggest a very large horn must have been present (see below).

Our knowledge of the appearance of animals that are reconstructed from fossil material comes from artists' impressions, based on the advice of experts in imagining whole animals from fossil fragments. We love these impressions, with many new finds, perhaps based on just a few pieces of skeleton, reported regularly by the media. We go further with animatronics and video techniques, showing movement and behaviour of extinct animals within their presumed environment. These are hugely popular, but are they always accurate?

  

Interestingly, large and/or dangerous extinct animals hold the greatest interest for us because they induce fear, an emotion that we enjoy at a safe distance. We recognise that there is a difference between myth and reality, yet the margin between the two can become blurred, especially when we let our imaginations have free rein. Having said that, wouldn't it be marvellous to discover a herd of living E. sibiricum, so that we know what they look like and how they behave?

[1] Philip Henry Gosse (1860) The Romance of Natural History. London, J. Nisbet and Co.

[2] Andrei Valerievich Shpansky, Valentina Nurmagambetovna Aliyassova and Svetlana Anatolievna Ilvina (2016) The Quaternary Mammals from Kozhamzhar Locality (Pavlodar Region, Kazakhstan). American Journal of Applied Sciences 13: 189-199.

[3] News (1878) The Elasmotherium Nature 18: 387-389

Sherlock Holmes, fairies and our imagination

Sherlock Holmes is the most famous fictional detective in the World, first appearing in a series of short stories in The Strand Magazine. As a result, his inventor, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is afforded the respect of a near-infallible sleuth. However, there was one case reported by Conan Doyle that showed some flaws: his support for the reality of the Cottingley Fairies, named after the village in Yorkshire where they were supposedly seen.

In 1920, Conan Doyle wrote an article in The Strand Magazine [1] supporting the view that two photographs of fairies, taken by two young girls, were real and not faked. To protect the identity of the girls, he used pseudonyms in his article and thus in the captions to the two photographs (shown below). One is labelled "Alice and the fairies" (taken in July 1917) and the other "Iris and the dancing gnome" (taken in September 1917, when Frances Griffiths (Alice), who was just 10-years-old, was staying with her 16-year-old cousin Elsie Wright (Iris). Elsie used her father's recently-acquired plate camera to take the first photograph and the second was taken using the same camera, presumably by Frances. The images intrigued Conan Doyle when he saw them three years later, prompting his article. He was convinced that the fairies in the photographs were real and three further plates, taken later, gave further evidence for his conviction.

Conan Doyle summarised his views, and those of others, in his book The Coming Of The Fairies [2], that appeared in 1922 and contains the article from the Christmas 1920 edition of The Strand Magazine. Several points from the article (that I have read in the original) are worth elaborating. Much centres on a report by Mr Edward L Gardner, a member of the Executive Committee of the Theosophical Society, who met with the girls, and other members of the family, after he was shown the photographs in 1920. Mr Gardner consulted experts in photography, who confirmed that they were genuine; he visited the spots where they were taken; and he met members of the family. His conclusion was:

Extraordinary and amazing as these photographs may appear, I am now quite convinced of their entire genuineness, as indeed would everyone else be who had the same evidence of transparent honesty and simplicity that I had.

That was good enough for Conan Doyle, who, as a Spiritualist, wanted to accept the evidence at face value. However, the investigative side of his nature, so evident in Sherlock Holmes, provided a note of caution. This was his conclusion after seeing the two photographs:

There is one point of Mr Gardner's investigation that should be mentioned. It had come to our knowledge that Iris [16 year-old Elsie] could draw, and had actually at one time done some designs for a jeweller. This naturally demanded caution, though the girl's own frank nature is, I understand, a sufficient guarantee for those who know her. Mr Gardner, however, tested her powers of drawing, and found that, while she could do landscapes cleverly, the fairy figures which she had attempted, in imitation of those she had seen, were entirely uninspired, and bore no possible resemblance to those in the photograph...

Other well-authenticated cases will come along. These little folk who appear to be our neighbours, with only some small difference of vibration to separate us, will become familiar The thought of them, even when unseen, will add a charm to every brook and valley and give romantic interest to every country walk. The recognition of their existence will jolt the material twentieth-century mind out of its heavy ruts in the mud, and will make it admit that there is a glamour and a mystery to life.

Like many adherents of clairvoyance etc., Conan Doyle suggests that those with supernatural powers are able to see such apparitions when those without such skills cannot [2]. A propensity to see things is thus a prerequisite for witnessing them and this must apply to all apparitions, whether they are ghosts, little people, or even the Virgin Mary. There are still those who believe the Cottingley Fairies existed, and plenty more that have sympathy with the views expressed in the last paragraph above. However, the photographs were the result of a hoax, as revealed in an interview by Joe Cooper with Elsie and Frances a few years ago [3].

It is interesting that Conan Doyle himself was close to solving the mystery. In The Strand Magazine article he writes this about the first photograph:

..the two upheld hands of the elves [in the first photograph] seen under a high power do not appear to be human, nor does the left foot of the figure capering on the right. The hands seem furred at the edges and the fingers to be in a solid mass. This also may be due to movement and position, but it is curious that both hands give the same impression. 

The figures were cut out from a book and it was not possible to cut round each finger, so the whole hand appeared rather solid. Each figure was then fastened to  a hat pin and inserted into the ground in front of Frances. Conan Doyle's deduction did not go this far, as he wanted the fairies to be real and this overcame his doubt.

According to experts, fairies come in many forms [4,5], in addition to those, like the Cottingley Fairies, that are the common type of benevolent creatures made popular in countless illustrations and films. As Katharine Briggs remarks in a section of her book dealing with whimsy [4]:

When they were given butterfly and dragonfly wings they were reduced to almost the status of insects, and in the sheltered days of the early twentieth century every care was taken to render them unalarming.

Briggs remarks that this tradition of fairies being winged had been in existence for over 200 years and probably originated when insects were being observed and human imaginations then left to run riot. An example can be given in a quote from a correspondent in Seeing Fairies by Marjorie T. Johnson [5]:

My sister was standing near the snapdragon plant in our garden when she saw a movement on it, and a tiny fairy flew out and settled on her arm for an instant, perhaps trying to show her gratitude to my sister for putting the stake [that supported the plant] there in the first place. When I asked for a description, my sister said she didn't look more than one and a half inches high and was "silvery, with small silver wings"..

So, in the view of those that believe in fairies, where do they fit into evolution?  Conan Doyle gives us the opinion of Edward Gardner, the Theosophist:

Fairies are not born and do not die as we do, though they have their periods of outer activity and retirement. Allied to the lepidoptera, or butterfly genus, of our familiar acquaintance rather than to the mammalian line, they partake of certain characteristics that are obvious. There is little or no mentality awake—simply a gladsome, irresponsible joyousness of life that is abundantly in evidence in their enchanting abandon. The diminutive human form, so widely assumed, is doubtless due, at least in a great measure, to the powerful influence of human thought, the strongest creative power in our cycle.. ..The wings are a feature that one would hardly expect to find in conjunction with arms. In this respect the insect type, with its several limbs and two or more wings, is a nearer model. But there is no articulation and no venation, and moreover the wings are not used for flying.

In contrast, one of Marjorie Johnson's correspondents reports that "wingless fairies can soar through the air quite effortlessly" but:

..it is possible that they [fairies] have evolved from butterflies, since they attach so much importance to the use of their wings.. .. fairies, which are fully materialized, fly like butterflies by the power of their densified wings.

Conan Doyle [1] wrote that "A.. ..general observation is that the elves are a compound of the human and the butterfly, while the gnome has more of the moth." Confusing isn't it? There seems to be agreement that fairies evolved from butterflies, but what about the fairies with dragonfly wings? What were the steps in evolution that led to these insects/creatures having the appearance of a human body? We know that it is impossible for human-like figures to fly with insect wings, just as it is for angels to fly with bird wings [6], so do those that believe in wood and water spirits, of which fairies are a part, view them as part of evolution on Earth, or as something completely supernatural, like angels? For those that do not believe in a supernatural, there is no problem, except puzzlement at the level of imagination shown by all humans in what we believe.

[1] A. Conan Doyle (1920) Faries Photographed: an epoch-making event. The Strand Magazine 60: 462-468

[2] A. Conan Doyle (1922) The Coming Of The Fairies. London, Hodder & Stoughton.

[3] https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cooper.htm

[4] Katharine Briggs (1967) The Fairies in Tradition and Literature. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul.

[5] Marjorie T. Johnson (2014) Seeing Fairies. San Antonio, Anomalist Books.

[6] http://www.opticon1826.com/articles/abstract/10.5334/opt.070906/

Are we alone?

I recently took a course in cosmology in the hope of trying to fill some voids in my knowledge. We were spared all the mathematics that are needed for a comprehensive understanding, but the excellent tutor certainly put across key points on the age of the universe, its size, its changes through time, and the features of some of its components. My knowledge remains superficial, but it is enough for me to realise that it is impossible to get any real sense of the distances and times involved and humans will never be able to do this as the numbers are so large that we cannot compare them with with anything familiar to us. Another impression that the cosmology course left with me was that some explanations of events and structures are close to being science fiction.

The topic that created most enthusiasm among members of the class was discussion of the origin of life and whether living organisms exist elsewhere. The desire to find organisms has extended to looking for chemicals that may be involved in their make-up and we also make projections about possible habitats; a popular one being to equate finding water on other planets, or in other parts of the Universe, as being tantamount to finding living organisms. We are interested especially in the possibility of intelligent life, with which we can communicate, providing us with a feeling that we are not alone.

It was clear that most of us in the cosmology class had varying views on what we meant by life, with most thinking that it was only possible in a distinct organism, perhaps consisting of one cell, perhaps of several cells. So, is there an agreed definition? As a starting point, I read Schrödinger’s What is Life?, based on a series of lectures he gave at Trinity College Dublin in 1943 [1]. Schrödinger’s discourse detailed the way in which cells, and thus multicellular organisms, were controlled by the physics and chemistry of genes (although the mechanism of control was not known until the structure of DNA was discovered 10 years later). I would like to quote two sections [1]:

What is the characteristic feature of life? When is a piece of matter said to be alive? When it goes on ‘doing something’, moving, exchanging material with its environment, and so forth, and that for a much longer period than we would expect of an inanimate piece of matter to ‘keep going’ under similar circumstances.

The unfolding of events in the life cycle of an organism exhibits an admirable regularity and orderliness, unrivalled by anything we meet in inanimate matter. We find it controlled by a supremely well-ordered group of atoms, which represent only a very small fraction of the sum total in every cell. Moreover, from the view we have formed of the mechanism of mutation we conclude that the dislocation of just a few atoms from within the group of ‘governing atoms’ of the germ cell suffices to bring about a well-defined change in the large-scale hereditary characteristics of the organism.

I am comfortable with Schrödinger’s view that life is a feature of organisms and that the biology of organisms is under the control of what we now know to be DNA. However, we still lack a definition of life and, for this, I turned to Pincock and Frary's The Origins of the Universe for Dummies. Having reviewed complexity, metabolism, development, autonomy and reproduction, the authors write [2]:

Taking all the elements we describe in the previous sections, and all their shortcomings, into account, we can come up with a simple, one-sentence definition of life. (Of course, scientists tell you that this description isn’t perfect, but it serves as a rough definition, at least for now.)

Here’s the working definition, which is sometimes known as the NASA definition of life: Life is a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution [my emboldening].

There is no mention of organisms here and it is a definition that is difficult for all to accept, as Pincock and Frary anticipated.

It has been pointed out that there is unlikely ever to be agreement on a definition of life. Carol Cleland and Christopher Chyba write [3]:

The philosophical question of the definition of ‘life’ has increasing practical importance. As science makes progress towards understanding the origin of life on Earth, as laboratory experiments approach the synthesis of life (as measured by the criteria of some definitions), and as greater attention is focused on astrobiology and the search for life on Mars and Jupiter’s moon Europa, the utility of a general definition grows. In particular, definitions of ‘life’ are explicit or implicit in any remote in situ search for extraterrestrial life.

Is science making progress towards understanding the origin of life on Earth and do laboratory experiments approach the synthesis of life? I question whether this is so, but, as Cleland and Chyba point out, it depends on the definition used. Does anyone consider DNA to be alive? Isn’t there an elusive essence to life that involves more than the interaction of molecules? Isn’t that what Schrödinger implied?

Cleland and Chyba’s Abstract is worth quoting [3]:

There is no broadly accepted definition of ‘life’ Suggested definitions face problems, often in the form of robust counter-examples. Here we use insights from philosophical investigations into language to argue that defining ‘life’ currently poses a dilemma analogous to that faced by those hoping to define ‘water’ before the existence of molecular theory. In the absence of an analogous theory of the nature of living systems, interminable controversy over the definition of life is inescapable.

How true. One reason that I left a University astrobiology research group was because we all talked about life, but there was no consensus on what we meant. I couldn’t sit back and listen to colleagues talking about the origin of life when they really meant the first appearance of RNA and DNA. I had similar problems when listening to them, and others, saying that life probably originated in hydrothermal vents; that extremophile microorganisms are likely to be found in extraterrestrial habitats with similar harsh conditions to those where these extraordinary organisms live on Earth; etc. While it would be wonderful to find living cells, or conclusive evidence of living cells having been present, on moons or planets elsewhere in the solar system (or elsewhere in the Universe), I’m not expecting such discoveries to be made, as I remain convinced that the first living cell formed on Earth in a once and once only event. Isn't that the best working hypothesis until we can prove otherwise?

[1] Erwin Schrödinger (1944) What is Life? https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9bX852JMJ__NDdlZGIxNTctOWUyMS00MjE1LTg4YWYtZWQ5NzY4YzA5NzNh/edit?ddrp=1&pli=1&hl=en

[2] Stephen Pincock and Mark Frary (2007) The Origins of the Universe for Dummies. Chichester, John Wiley & Sons.

[3] Carol E. Cleland and Christopher F. Chyba (2002) Defining ‘Life’. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 32: 387-393.

Mermen and mermaids

Creatures with a human torso and a fish tail have appeared in the folklore and mythology of many cultures. ¹ We know them as mermen and mermaids and examples became a popular feature of travelling shows and museums, Henry Gosse describing his great disappointment, as a boy, to discover the advertised mermaid was “a shrivelled and blackened little thing which might have been moulded in mud for aught I could see”. ¹ It must have looked a little like the specimen shown below.

Frank Buckland, like Gosse an eminent writer and lecturer on Natural History, describes the body of merman he saw exhibited in London: ²

In the back parlour of the White Hart, Vine-court, Spitalfields, high and dry upon a deal board, lay this wonderful object - hideous enough to excite the wonder of the credulous, and curious enough to afford a treat to the naturalist. Such a thing as a merman or mermaid of course never really existed; I was therefore most anxious to examine its composition, which, by the kindness of the landlady (a remarkably civil woman), who removed the glass that covered her treasure, I was enabled to do. The creature (a gentleman, not a lady specimen of the tribe) was from three to four feet long. The upper part of its body was composed of the head, arms and trunk of a monkey, and the lower part of a fish, which appeared to me to be a common hake; and the head was really a wonderful composition: the parchment-like hideous ears stood well forward, the skin of the nose when soft had been moulded into a decided specimen of “the snub,” the forehead was wrinkled into a frown, and the mouth “grinned a ghastly grin;” the curled lips partly concealed a row of teeth, which in the upper jaw were of conical form and sharp-pointed, taken probably from the head of a hake, whose body formed the lower part of our specimen. the lower jaw contained these fish’s teeth, but conspicuously in front was inserted a human incisor or front tooth, and a vacant cavity showed that there once had been a pair of them. These were probably placed there to show the “real human nature” of the monster. The head had once been covered with hair; but visitors, anxious to obtain a lock of a merman’s hair, had so plucked his unfortunate wig that only a few scattered hairs remained: the relic-seekers are now, therefore, ignorantly treasuring in their cabinets [of curiosities] hairs from the pate of an old red monkey.

Buckland also examined a mermaid, about “half the size of her partner”. It, too, was formed from a monkey and a fish, but this time with glass doll’s eyes rather than the leather ones of the merman, that had pupils marked in black ink.

The popularity of such exhibits waned in the mid-Nineteenth Century and Buckland comments “The good folks of England are getting every year more and more educated, and mermaids do not take so well now as formerly..”. ² The legendary P. T. Barnum advertised the mermaid in his museum with a highly imaginative painting to attract in customers. Of course, he knew the exhibit was not a mermaid and “Mr Barnum confessed that he did not pursue his studies in Natural History too far, or he might learn too much.” ² Barnum justified the confidence trick by making no extra charge and there were many other things for visitors to see. He was a showman after all.

Any Natural Historian would see immediately that these exhibited mermen and mermaids were manufactured, yet reports of these creatures in their natural environment have been made by generations of sailors. These may have been sightings of sea mammals, especially manatees (left, below) and dugongs (right, below). One can only conclude that they were distant sightings to merit the belief that they were mermen or mermaids, or perhaps the sailors had been too long at sea and their imaginations had become overdeveloped?

Although no-one can believe in their existence in the real world, mermaids have had a lasting appeal in fiction, film and other media. After all, they come from another world and thus fit into the niche also occupied by angels, fairies and dragons. The best known story is The Little Mermaid by H C Andersen ³ and this formed the basis for the Disney film of the same name. Andersen describes how mermaids lived at the bottom of the ocean and had a class system, with at least one Royal Family that had six Princesses:

The whole day long they used to play in the palace, down in the great halls where live flowers grew on the walls. Whenever the high amber windows were thrown open the fish would swim in, just as swallows dart into our rooms when we open the windows. But these fish, now, would swim right up to the little princesses to eat out of their hands and let themselves be petted.. .. Each little princess had her own small garden plot, where she could dig and plant whatever she liked..

The story continues by describing how the princesses were allowed to swim to the surface of the ocean for the first time on their fifteenth birthday, reporting back on what each had seen. The youngest princess heard all the amazing descriptions, but had to wait and wait for her turn. When the day came and she arrived at the surface, she saw a handsome prince and rescued him from drowning after he became unconscious. The mermaid princess wanted to marry the prince, not only for love, but also to acquire immortality of the soul, as this was a feature of humans that mermaids lacked, but which could be acquired through marriage. The transformation from fish tail into “props” (legs) required a special potion prepared by an underwater witch - who improbably boiled the ingredients in “a caldron over the flames”. ³ The famous statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen celebrates the transition to props from the fish tail and that explains why it appears like a nude of the period, with the outline of the tail barely visible. In the Disney film, which uses only superficial features of the complex story told by Andersen, the youngest princess appears as a mermaid Barbie Doll, with what appears to be a pull-on lower fish section and discretion maintained by having a bikini top.

One’s rational side finds all this a bit much, but the mermaids and mermen in museums, side shows and literature are very obviously fantasy creatures and we can all enjoy that. In a wider context, there must be other imaginary things that we take to be real, but it is not always easy to see that this is so. Hopefully, Natural Historians are better able to differentiate the two, just as Barnum intimated.

¹ Philip Henry Gosse (1861) The Romance of Natural History, Second Series. London, James Nisbet and Co..

² Francis T Buckland (1860) Curiosities of Natural History Second Series. New York, Rudd & Carlton.

³ Hans Christian Andersen (1837) Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/forskning/bib/bfn/vis.html?p=303&show=1