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The longneck is a type of sea serpent and lake monster appearing in most sea serpent classification systems. The longneck is the most commonly-reported sea serpent, and, alongside the humped sea serpent, one of the best-known, although it is not known to have been explicitly reported prior to the 19th Century.[1]
A. C. Oudemans, classifying the longneck (Megophias megophias) as a giant long-necked pinniped, regarded it as the only significant type of sea serpent.[2] However, later systems have rejected Oudemans' attempts to shoehorn other reports into the longneck file. The long-necked sea serpent (Megalotaria longicollis; French: long cou) was by far the most common type of sea serpent in the Heuvelmans system, the first attempt at comprehensively classifying sea serpents.[3] Although Heuvelmans believed them to be distinct for several reasons, his merhorse has frequently been lumped together with the longneck, and the Coleman-Huyghe system subsumes both into the waterhorse, as subcategories.[4] The Champagne system also includes two longnecks, one cosmopolitan, the other endemic to the North Sea.[5]
Historically, the most widely-supported explanation for longnecks was a surviving plesiosaur or plesiosaur relative,[3] a theory which is still the best-known.[6] However, since the late 19th Century, several cryptozoologists have preferred a speculative, giant long-necked pinniped.[2][3][4] Since the 1890s, several cryptozoologists have argued that the oceanic longneck is identical, or very closely related, to the freshwater long-necked lake monsters reported from temperate latitudes, such as Nessie, Champ, the bunyip, grootslang, and Patagonian plesiosaur.[1][7][4] Although beached specimens of longnecks are sometimes reported, these pseudoplesiosaurian globsters are generally identified as decayed basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus).[6]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Heuvelmans, Bernard "Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals With Which Cryptozoology Is Concerned", Cryptozoology, No. 5 (1986)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Oudemans, A. C. (1892) The Great Sea-Serpent: An Historical and Critical Treatise
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Heuvelmans, Bernard (1968) In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, Hart-Davis, ISBN 9780246643124
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Coleman, Loren & Huyghe, Patrick (2003) The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep, TarcherPerigree, ISBN 978-1585422524
- ↑ Champagne, Bruce A. "A Classification System for Large, Unidentified Marine Animals Based on the Examination of Reported Observations," Elementum Bestia: Being an Examination of Unknown Animals of the Air, Earth, Fire and Water (2007), Lulu Press, ASIN B001DSIB2W
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Shuker, Karl P. N. (2016) Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors: The Creatures That Time Forgot?, Coachwhip Publications, ISBN 978-1616463908
- ↑ Costello, Peter (1974) In Search of Lake Monsters, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 9780698106130