Philip Henry Gosse FRS (6 April 1810 – 23 August 1888) was an English naturalist and writer whose interest in romantic zoology, the 19th Century precursor to cryptozoology, has seen him labelled a "grandfather of cryptozoology".[1] His work The Romance of Natural History (1860), considered by Bernard Heuvelmans to be the high point of the "British Period" of sea serpent research, covered a number of cryptids including the sea serpent, African unicorn, salvaje, crowing crested cobra, and schelch. Gosse was a supporter of the then-popular plesiosaur theory of sea serpent classification, though he also suggested a serpentine cetacean identity, apparently unaware of the former existence of zeuglodons.[2]
Notes and references[]
↑Coleman, Loren & Gosse, Philip Henry (1861) The Romance of Natural History, Cosimo Classics Edition, ISBN 978-1605203348
↑Heuvelmans, Bernard (1968) In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, Hart-Davis, ISBN 9780246643124