Salamander or giant salamander? There are some legends you don’t know about the prototype of mermaids

Thanks to literary and artistic works, the image of "mermaid" has become a household name. The prototype of the legendary "mermaid" is most likely a herbivorous mammal of the order Sirenia, such as the dugong (Dugong dugon). The shape of the dugong sticking half of its body out of the water to breathe is indeed somewhat similar to the human body. In the language of some ethnic groups in the Philippines, the dugong is also called "the woman of the sea."

Arnold Böcklin's painting "Game of the Sea Nymphs" | Wikipedia

There are many stories about "mermaids" in ancient Chinese books. "Soushen Ji" describes: "Beyond the South China Sea, there are mermaids who live in water like fish, but they do not stop weaving, and they can cry pearls." Some people believe that this actually describes the indigenous people of the South Pacific who are good at diving for pearls.

But the historical prototype of "mermaid" is not limited to dugongs and humans. There is a type of animal that is often associated with mermaids but is often overlooked by us - amphibians.

The Siren may also be a salamander

Mermaids in Andersen's fairy tales are the embodiment of truth, goodness and beauty, but in some legends, mermaids are sea monsters that can cause shipwrecks and are cruel and ruthless to humans. The Siren in ancient Greek mythology may be one of the most well-known legends about mermaids. They are mysterious spirits living on islands, seducing sailors with beautiful songs and causing ships to capsize in the wind and waves. Homer's epic describes a chilling scene: "They sit in the green grass, surrounded by piles of bones of rotting corpses and dried and shrunken human skin."

The British painter Herbert James Draper's painting "The Odyssey and the Sirens" depicts Odyssey plugging the sailors' ears with wax to prevent the temptation of the Sirens, but he himself wanted to hear the singing, so he had people tie him to the mast | Wikipedia

The early sirens were depicted as human heads and bird bodies, or as women with bird legs, but later evolved into human bodies and fish tails. In medieval European sculptures and paintings, sirens were often depicted as human bodies with two fish tails (probably due to symmetry considerations), which is also the inspiration for the Starbucks logo.

Since the Renaissance, many scholars have been committed to turning mermaid legends into reality. Danish physician Thomas Bartholin (1616-1680) once exhibited "mermaid's hands and ribs" (actually the skeleton of a manatee) in the Copenhagen Anatomical Specimen Museum. Danish theologian and naturalist Erik Pontoppidan (1698-1764) believed that "every creature on land can find its counterpart in the ocean", so there are also humanoid creatures in the ocean. In his book "Norwegian Natural History", he compiled records of "mermaids" seen in Norway and other places.

Illustrations from the report published by Linnaeus. On the left is the "merman" that Linnaeus saw, and on the right is an imaginary picture based on the "merman bones" obtained by Bartholin.

Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), a Swedish biologist and the "father of biological taxonomy", tried to uncover the mystery of the magical animal. In 1766, he described an animal from North America that was "similar to a human fish", with lungs, gills, a fish-like tail, a human-like anus, and the "forelimbs and ribs" discovered by Bartholin. Linnaeus named this animal "Siren lacertina" to reflect its dual characteristics of man and fish.

However, if you see the real body of this mermaid, you will be disappointed. It is a kind of salamander - the giant eel, with a slender body, no hind limbs, and its front limbs have also degenerated. It is more like an eel with small front legs than a mermaid. By the way, the scientific name of Sirenia also comes from Siren.

At nearly three feet long, the giant eel is one of the largest amphibians in North America | Qualiesin / Wikipedia

There are three existing species of the genus Anguilla: the great anguilla, the small anguilla, and the reticulated anguilla, which mainly live in the coastal areas of the southeastern United States. Anguilla has three pairs of external gills and three gill slits on both sides of its head, which is a neoteny phenomenon, but the gills are not fully developed until adulthood. Anguilla has two respiratory functions at the same time. It usually moves in wetlands or shallow waters. In the dry season, it will bury itself in the mud to hibernate, during which time it breathes with its lungs.

The mermaid turned out to be a giant salamander?

Linnaeus was not the first person to associate amphibians with "merman". Among the magical animals that appear in ancient Chinese books, "merman" generally refers to dugongs, while "merman" refers to something else. The Classic of Mountains and Seas states: "In the Longhou Mountain, a large amount of water flows out and flows eastward into the river. There are many mermaids among them. They look like mullets, have four legs, and sound like babies. Eating them will not cause mental illness." This "four-legged mermaid" that "sounds like a baby" is likely to be the largest amphibian in existence, the Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus). The Cryptobranchidae family to which it belongs can be traced back to about 165 million years ago. Recently, based on a study of specimens collected in museums, the South China giant salamander (A. sligoi) was separated from the Chinese giant salamander and became a new species.

The odd-looking giant salamander | J. Patrick Fischer / Wikimedia Commons

The average length of an adult giant salamander is about 1.1 meters, and the largest individual on record is 1.8 meters. Each forelimb has 4 toes and the hind limbs have 5 toes, making its four feet look somewhat similar to human hands. Because it can make sounds similar to a crying baby, and its large head and wide mouth are also slightly similar to the appearance of a baby, it has earned the common name of "baby fish", but the surface of its body is covered with wrinkled skin, not scales.

The "human-like" characteristics of the giant salamander have led people to believe that it has some magical properties. For example, people believe that eating giant salamander meat can improve IQ, which is probably due to the superstitious thinking of "what you eat will improve what you gain". On the other hand, because of its subtle resemblance to humans, there is a saying that "gentlemen do not eat salamanders". "Youyang Zazu" wrote: "People in the gorge eat salamanders. They tie them to trees and whip them until white juice like juice comes out. Only then can they eat it." The "white juice" is actually the mucin and polysaccharide substances discharged from the gland cavity when the granular glands in the skin of the giant salamander contract. It can keep the skin moist. The ancients believed that it was poisonous, so they had to try to expel it.

Painted pottery bottle with salamander pattern in the Gansu Museum | Sanlie/Wikimedia Commons

The distribution range of giant salamanders in my country was once quite extensive. They never leave the water and live in cool streams or underground rivers. There are many records of them in ancient books. In the Yangshao culture site of the Neolithic period 5500-6000 years ago, many painted pottery bottles with giant salamander patterns were unearthed. The exaggerated head and eyes look very much like a human, so they are named "human head and fish body pattern". Some studies believe that the salamander pattern may gradually evolve into the "Lingyu" pattern with "human face, hands and feet, and fish body".

Since the Han Dynasty, the tomb fish pattern has appeared in many tombs. Its half-human, half-fish shape reflects the connection between the land and water worlds. In the minds of the ancients, it may also represent the connection between the world of life and the afterlife. Among the funerary objects unearthed from the Sui and Tang Dynasties to the early Song Dynasty, there is a kind of "ritual fish" evolved from the tomb fish shape, which is usually a pottery or wooden figurine with a human head and a fish body. It is also called "newt fish" in the "Song Huiyao Jigao".

“Witnesses of the Flood”

In fact, the giant salamander is closely related to mermaids in the Western world. The name of the giant salamander, Andrias, comes from the ancient Greek word for "human image", and this naming can be traced back to a blunder nearly 300 years ago.

In 1726, German physician and naturalist Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672-1733) named a fossil found in the Onegen quarry "Witness of the Flood" (Homo diluvii testis). The fossil is about 1 meter long, with the skull, spine, and metacarpal bones clearly visible, but the bones of the lower body are missing.

"Witness" fossil | Rotatebot / Wikimedia Commons

Xu Ze believes that this is the skeleton of a boy, and not just an ordinary person, but a "sinner of the old world." According to the Bible, there was a great flood that destroyed the world in ancient times. Only the "righteous" Noah and his family survived on the ark, and everyone else died. This can also explain why this fossil has no leg bones - in the chaos of the end of the world, the body was trampled and incomplete. Xu Ze wrote: "Every tiny part is exactly the same as the parts of the human skeleton... This is a monument to a race that has been extinct. It is much older than Rome, Greece, and even Egypt, and all the Eastern countries."

Xu Ze's judgment can be traced back to the viewpoint put forward by British naturalist John Woodward (1665-1728) in the Natural History of British Fossils in 1695. Woodward believed that, as recorded in the Bible, there was a global flood in the history of the earth, which resulted in fossils. "All fixed substances were transported by water, the light ones floated up, and the heavy ones sank, which led to the stratification of rocks, and the remains of organisms were buried in rocks."

Scientific illustration of the giant salamander, with the title "witness of the great flood" written next to it | Wikimedia Commons

Scheuze's discovery caused a sensation, but some people questioned that the vertebral structure of the fossil was not like that of humans, and researchers successively proposed the "catfish theory" and "lizard theory". It was not until 1802 that the fossil was purchased by the Tyler Museum in the Netherlands (where it is still collected today). In 1811, French scientist Georges Cuvier, the founder of paleontology and comparative anatomy, carefully studied the fossil and determined that it was an extinct giant salamander, which was later named Scheuze's giant salamander (A. scheuchzeri).

Although the fantasy of "witnesses of the Great Flood" has been shattered, this bizarre image that blends science and mythology still remains in people's hearts. In 1936, Czech writer Karel Capek published the fantasy novel "The Rebellion of the Giant Salamanders", in which the protagonist is based on the fantasy of the giant salamander. The novel assumes that this giant salamander is not really extinct, but survives on a remote island in Sumatra and evolves wisdom. At first, the giant salamanders were forced by humans to collect pearls, but later they united to fight against humans, aiming to destroy the continent and create an underwater territory for the giant salamanders, becoming a powerful enemy that humans cannot resist.

Cover of "The Newt Rebellion", Newt is translated as salamandres | AELC / Wikimedia Commons

This novel sharply satirized the world political situation at that time and was banned by the German Nazis during World War II. It can be said to be the most glorious chapter in the history of salamanders playing mermaids.

Author: Yaohua

Edit: Red Queen

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