St. Augustine Monster

[3] The carcass was first spotted on the evening of November 30, 1896, by two young boys, Herbert Coles and Dunham Coretter, while bicycling along Anastasia Island.

The two boys thought the carcass was the remains of a beached whale, as a similar stranding had occurred two years earlier near the mouth of the Matanzas River, located several miles to the south of St. Augustine (see map).

Webb, who was the founder of the St. Augustine Historical Society and Institute of Science, came to the beach the following day, December 1, to examine the remains.

A few days later, on December 7, Webb engaged two hobbyists, Edgar Van Horn and Ernest Howatt, to photograph the carcass for posterity.

These photographs were for a long time considered lost, and only drawings based on them, made by Alpheus Hyatt Verrill and published in the American Naturalist of April 1897, were known.

The eyes are under the back of the mouth instead of over it.This specimen is so badly cut up by sharks and sawfish that only the stumps of the tentacles remain, but pieces of them were found strewn for some distance on the beach, showing that the animal had a fierce battle with its foes before it was disabled and beached by the surf.Grant describes the animal as having seven "tentacles" and a "tail".

Allen apparently did not respond, but Webb's letter came to the attention of Prof. Addison Emery Verrill of Yale, at that time the foremost authority on cephalopods in the country.

[9]On January 16, the Tatler, a local news sheet that reported on the visitors to St. Augustine hotels, ran a story about the stranded creature.

It read:[10] The wide-spread interest in the very remarkable specimen of the giant squid, now lying on the beach a few miles below the city, is mainly due to its enormous size.

True and Dale [Dall] of the Smithsonian are in constant correspondence with Dr. DeWitt Webb, President of the St. Augustine Scientific, Literary and Historical Society, in regard to it.

So that they are probably arms twisted out of their true position.However, having examined samples of the mass sent to him by Webb, Verrill concluded that "the creature cannot be an Octopus, but is of cetacean nature."

With the help of "six horses and strong tackle", it was moved several miles closer to St. Augustine, "to the terminus of a railroad," where it was protected from the tide and drifting sand.

Photographs of the St. Augustine carcass were for a long time thought to be lost, and drawings remained the only pictorial evidence of the event.

Upon his death, this was bequeathed to the St. Augustine Historical Society and Institute of Science and later fell into the possession of Marjorie Blakoner.

The St. Augustine carcass was largely forgotten until 1957, when Forrest Glenn Wood, a curator at the Marineland of Florida and a founding member of the International Society of Cryptozoology, became interested in the story after finding a yellowed newspaper clipping mentioning the creature.

Prof. Verrill, of Yale University, who examined the remains, which alone reputedly weighed over six tons, calculated that the living creature had a girth of 25 feet and tentacles 72 feet in length!He learned that a sample of the integument was preserved in the Smithsonian Institution, and persuaded the curators to send a portion of the sample to his colleague, Dr. Joseph F. Gennaro Jr., a cell biologist at the University of Florida.

He published his findings in the March 1971 issue of Natural History:[4] Now differences between the contemporary squid and octopus samples became very clear.

In the squid there were narrower but also relatively broad bundles arranged in the plane of the section, separated by thin partitions of perpendicular fibers.It seemed I had found a means to identify the mystery sample after all.

I could distinguish between octopus and squid, and between them and mammals, which display a lacy network of connective tissue fibers.After 75 years, the moment of truth was at hand.

Even though the sea presents us from time to time with strange and astonishing phenomena, the idea of a gigantic octopus, with arms 75 to 100 feet in length and about 18 inches in diameter at the base—a total spread of some 200 feet—is difficult to comprehend.Roy Mackal, a biochemist at the University of Chicago and a founding member of the International Society of Cryptozoology (as was F. G. Wood), decided to test the samples himself.

+: less than 0.1% Identification of the samples: 1M: Stenella plagiodon (dolphin) 2M: Octopus giganteus (monster of Florida) 3M, 4M, 5M: arm, mantle and fin of Architeuthis dux (giant squid) 6M: Delphinapterus leucas (beluga or white whale) Identification of the samples: 1M: Stenella plagiodon (dolphin) 2M: Octopus giganteus (monster of Florida) 4M: mantle of Architeuthis dux (giant squid) 6M: Delphinapterus leucas (beluga or white whale) He published his findings in Cryptozoology:[11] On the basis of Gennaro's histological studies and the present amino acid and Cu and Fe analyses, I conclude that, to the extent the preserved O. giganteus tissue is representative of the carcass washed ashore at St. Augustine, Florida, in November 1896, it was essentially a huge mass of collagenous protein.

The authors conclude that "there is no evidence to support the existence of Octopus giganteus" and concur with Verrill (1897) and Lucas (1897) that the St. Augustine carcass was "the remains of a whale, likely the entire skin [blubber layer] .

The carcass as it appeared after being dug out of the sand.
Dr. DeWitt Webb.
The earliest surviving photograph of the St. Augustine carcass, taken on December 7, 1896. For a long time considered lost, it was obtained by Gary Mangiacopra in 1994.
Drawing based on the above photograph that appeared in the Hartford Daily Running on February 18, 1897.
Drawing made by A. E. Verrill based on the same image.
Drawing by A. E. Verrill, based on a photograph, showing the apparent arm stumps.
A fanciful depiction of the Florida "sea monster" published in the Pennsylvania Grit .
Crowd gathered to see the carcass, photographed by Van Lockwood.
The "Florida Monster" being examined by Webb and his colleagues.
Dr. DeWitt Webb beside the remains.
Cropped version of the above image, which has been much reproduced.
Photograph found in 1993, showing what appears to be an arm on the right.
Men digging up the carcass.
Photograph showing what appear to be arms.
Lateral view of the carcass.
The carcass in the process of being hauled further inland.
"The Facts About Florida" – the newspaper clipping found by F. G. Wood.
Comparison of the connective tissues of a squid, an octopus, and the St. Augustine carcass, as viewed under polarised light. [ 4 ]
Transmission electron micrographs of sections of the Bermuda Blob (left) and St. Augustine carcass. [ 3 ]
Transmission electron micrographs of sections of tissue from (A) the St. Augustine carcass, (B) Bermuda Blob 1, (C) Tasmanian West Coast Monster, (D) Bermuda Blob 2, (E) Nantucket Blob, and (F) Humpback whale blubber. [ 16 ]