Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe mccormaking. Today
Speaker 1: I wanted to start off by doing one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things to to kick off a Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind episode, which is go back more than a
Speaker 1: hundred years and read an article about what kinds of
Speaker 1: animals there are? And I think this one's especially who
Speaker 1: because it concerns the animals of Iceland. So this was
Speaker 1: published in a periodical called the Scottish Review I believe,
Speaker 1: in the year nineteen hundred by an author named Olaf Davidson.
Speaker 1: And it's an article called the Folklore of Icelandic Fishes
Speaker 1: in which Davidson catalogs examples of both totally mundane animals,
Speaker 1: like you know, talking about different kinds of whales and
Speaker 1: fish and sharks and things, but then also bizarre stories
Speaker 1: of the boreal realms about you know, uh, weird deadly
Speaker 1: creatures of the waters. And there are just some great
Speaker 1: stories in here, some of which he seems to source
Speaker 1: at least partially from Icelandic newspapers and other ones. I
Speaker 1: guess he's drawing more on just general folklore. Um, so,
Speaker 1: the first one I wanted to mention is is great
Speaker 1: he He talks about something called the coil eel or
Speaker 1: rock all, which is something like a cross between a
Speaker 1: fish and a wire saw. So just let me read
Speaker 1: from Davidson here. The coil eel or rock all is
Speaker 1: about two ft in length and lives chiefly in ditches
Speaker 1: or stagnant pools, but is sometimes found in running waters.
Speaker 1: If any animal or human being puts foot into the
Speaker 1: water where it is, the eel coils itself round their
Speaker 1: leg and cuts into the bone or even takes it
Speaker 1: right off. Frequently. Yeah, yeah, wire saw right. This frequently
Speaker 1: happens with horses, but cheap escape because their legs are
Speaker 1: too slender for the eel to work upon. How the
Speaker 1: cutting is done is a point on which opinions differ.
Speaker 1: Some say that the venom in the eel is so
Speaker 1: strong that it corrodes the flesh and bone. Others say
Speaker 1: that the eel has fins as sharp as the teeth
Speaker 1: of a saw and does the work with these. It
Speaker 1: is also said to have thin scales as hard as iron,
Speaker 1: and its flesh is poisonous. Wow, this is incredible. It's
Speaker 1: like the swimming guillotine, a very good comparison. You need
Speaker 1: to get like a an Icelandic wizard who's got one
Speaker 1: of these on a leash that he can throw. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be great. I mean, these these are this
Speaker 1: is a great hard gimmick right here. Yeah, and and uh,
Speaker 1: it's even got an origin story. The rock All was
Speaker 1: allegedly created, according to the tails, when a wizard once
Speaker 1: breathed life into a dead, half rotten eel, thus creating
Speaker 1: this poisonous animal. Oh my goodness that this needs to
Speaker 1: go into a monster manual right here. Yeah. It also
Speaker 1: strikes me as like a good way to convince your
Speaker 1: children not to step in puddles. Yes, yes, the rock
Speaker 1: All made lurk in the puddles? Yeah, do you ever,
Speaker 1: by the way, go through And I know some kids
Speaker 1: do this, Some kids have a real like puddle splashing
Speaker 1: stomping phase. I don't know if you ever dealt with that,
Speaker 1: but I've definitely definitely went through a puddle splashing uh
Speaker 1: phase for sure. Yeah, I mean I can't deny it's fun.
Speaker 1: But okay, So Davidson goes on to another one. There
Speaker 1: there's one called the ohfu oogie, which is a fish
Speaker 1: that has backwards facing fins and which swims in reverse
Speaker 1: tail first. And then there's another one that he calls
Speaker 1: the sea mouse. But I think what he's referring to
Speaker 1: is now called the rabbit fish or the rat fish
Speaker 1: scientific name Chimera monst rosa. Uh. This is a This
Speaker 1: is a cartilaginous fish of the North Atlantic and Mediterranean
Speaker 1: that can grow to about one point five meters in length.
Speaker 1: And so the legend that Davidson recounts about this animal again,
Speaker 1: this is probably now the rabbit fish. But what he's
Speaker 1: calling the sea mouse is that it swims so ferociously
Speaker 1: that the sea foams ahead of its path, and that
Speaker 1: it can open its jaws wide enough to swallow an
Speaker 1: entire boat, which is not true. But I did want
Speaker 1: to read his anecdote about this quote. On one occasion,
Speaker 1: two men were out at sea on the East coast
Speaker 1: in an open boat, while near them was a French
Speaker 1: fishing vessel. Uh. They had been fishing quietly for some
Speaker 1: time when they heard a tremendous noise out to sea,
Speaker 1: and at once suspected that it was caused by a
Speaker 1: sea mouse. In a short time, they saw it, coming
Speaker 1: in the midst of a white foaming wave and making
Speaker 1: straight for their boat. The men were so scared that
Speaker 1: they could do nothing to save themselves. The Frenchman saw
Speaker 1: their danger and ran their schooner right in the way
Speaker 1: of the monster, which however still kept the same course
Speaker 1: and speed, and struck the vessel with such force as
Speaker 1: to cant it over to one side. The sea mouse
Speaker 1: continued to press against the ship for a little while,
Speaker 1: and during that time the men were taken on board.
Speaker 1: Then it disappeared and the men afterwards road to land.
Speaker 1: So okay, saying this fish could like actually knock a
Speaker 1: ship over, uh, definitely not true about that species. If
Speaker 1: there is any truth to this story at all, it's
Speaker 1: it's obviously not about a rabbit fish. Um. But also
Speaker 1: to confuse things even further, there actually is a marine
Speaker 1: animal now commonly known as a sea mouse, but it
Speaker 1: is not a fish at all, but a marine poly
Speaker 1: keyed worm, usually about three to six inches in length, which, uh,
Speaker 1: this will be relevant to what we're talking about today,
Speaker 1: is often covering in something that looks kind of like
Speaker 1: a sparkly fur now and and this is an interesting
Speaker 1: organism to be to be sure, but I also looked
Speaker 1: up a picture of the rabbit fish, and it is
Speaker 1: interesting that its head does have kind of the appearance
Speaker 1: of a rabbit's head. It had I can set definitely
Speaker 1: see the comparison. There, something about the way that the
Speaker 1: eyes or are structured. Uh, it has has this kind
Speaker 1: of rabbit looking skull. Um. But but then again, I'm
Speaker 1: also reading that they can grow to the five feet
Speaker 1: in length. So I guess if one of these creatures
Speaker 1: was to slam into the side of your boat, it
Speaker 1: could at least startle you. It could at least be
Speaker 1: a moment that could then be exaggerated into greater threat
Speaker 1: and tails. Yeah, I guess that's reasonable. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: picturing boats of a size in this story where that
Speaker 1: wouldn't really make sense because it's talking about like a schooner,
Speaker 1: right the I don't know how big is a schooner.
Speaker 1: Can a schooner be small enough to be severely disturbed
Speaker 1: by a by a one point five meter fish? I mean,
Speaker 1: if your imagination is there, it can certainly certainly be alarming,
Speaker 1: I imagine to confuse things about that story even further, Uh,
Speaker 1: this so called rabbit fish Camira monstrosa. That is one
Speaker 1: type of fish called rabbit fish, but then there's also
Speaker 1: a totally different type of fish, also called a rabbit
Speaker 1: fish that's not related. So lots to throw you off
Speaker 1: right there, But anyway, I wanted to get to the
Speaker 1: final citation I want to make from from Olaf Davidson's
Speaker 1: article here because it concerns the topic that we're going
Speaker 1: to be getting into over the next couple of episodes.
Speaker 1: So here he goes on my favorite part. On the
Speaker 1: shores of lakes in the north of Iceland, there have
Speaker 1: sometimes been found strange and ugly fishes resembling trout, which
Speaker 1: neither dogs nor birds of prey would eat. These were
Speaker 1: doubtless specimens of the shaggy trout or load selunger, also
Speaker 1: a very poisonous fish. One of these was cast on
Speaker 1: shore at Savina Votten in eighteen fifty four, and an
Speaker 1: illustration of it is given in the newspaper nor Dury
Speaker 1: for eighteen fifty five. It was very unlike in ordinary trout,
Speaker 1: both in shape and in color. On its lower jaw
Speaker 1: and its neck, it had reddish hair forming a kind
Speaker 1: of beard. There were also hairy patches on its sides.
Speaker 1: And hair on its fins, so there can be no
Speaker 1: doubt it was a shaggy trout, though the writer of
Speaker 1: the article in Nordury does not say so. Now I'm
Speaker 1: suspecting that wizard again. Yeah, I mean one I'm wondering.
Speaker 1: Iceland is not super densely populated, right, so you know,
Speaker 1: you have a few larger cities and then the little settlements,
Speaker 1: especially around the coasts all around, but then big parts
Speaker 1: of the inner country are you know, mostly uninhabited. So
Speaker 1: I wonder is that wizard territory? Is that where the
Speaker 1: wizards are out there making fish with beards? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there aren't enough people around to really mess with,
Speaker 1: so yeah, they're doing terrible things to fish. But this
Speaker 1: is by no means the only account of the shaggy
Speaker 1: trout or the furry trout of Iceland. I found more
Speaker 1: about this this local lore in an article in the
Speaker 1: Paris Review by David Buckspan from sixteen, which is actually
Speaker 1: about something totally different. It's not an article about Icelandic legends.
Speaker 1: It is about a speaking event with an Icelandic novelist
Speaker 1: who goes by the name Sean spelled s j o
Speaker 1: in but pronounced Sean and you might know him as
Speaker 1: a collaborator with Bjorke. He apparently wrote lyrics for some
Speaker 1: of her songs, and I think they've performed in bands
Speaker 1: together at least at some point. Um. But then at
Speaker 1: a certain part in the evening at the speaking thing,
Speaker 1: Sean turns to explaining his personal obsession with this shaggy
Speaker 1: trout legend of Iceland, and he definitely expands on what
Speaker 1: we've just established. So he does say, yeah, there's an
Speaker 1: animal allegedly known as the furry trout. It looks the
Speaker 1: same as a normal trout, except it's covered in fur,
Speaker 1: which is a little different than what Davidson said. Davidson
Speaker 1: said it looked very different from a regular trout. But
Speaker 1: Sean goes on to say that according to the legend,
Speaker 1: you might be fishing for a school of regular trout
Speaker 1: with a net and then suddenly one of them there
Speaker 1: in your net is completely covered in fur, and it's
Speaker 1: just right there with the other ones. But he there's
Speaker 1: the really interesting variation. Olaf Davidson says that the common
Speaker 1: belief is that the shaggy trout is poisonous, so you
Speaker 1: shouldn't need it because it could hurt you. Maybe make
Speaker 1: you sick or kill you. But Sean says that the
Speaker 1: legend he learned when he was nine years old was
Speaker 1: that if a man ate the furry trout, he would
Speaker 1: become pregnant and he would end up having to give
Speaker 1: birth through his scrotum. Okay, well, I have some doubts
Speaker 1: and some questions about that that last claim. Yes, and
Speaker 1: he actually even describes like the birthing procedure, which involves
Speaker 1: like the scrotum swelling with the child and like you
Speaker 1: have to get a knife and lay him on a
Speaker 1: table and all that. It's you can go read the
Speaker 1: article if you want. Uh. But then is it a
Speaker 1: normal human child or is it like a fish person? Oh,
Speaker 1: I think it's just a human child. After that where
Speaker 1: I don't know, he doesn't really go into what the
Speaker 1: implications for the child is. But anyway, the more I
Speaker 1: got interested in the store is the more I discovered
Speaker 1: that there are, in fact stories from all over the
Speaker 1: world about various types of furry fish. And so that's
Speaker 1: what I wanted to look into for the next couple
Speaker 1: of episodes here, because I think you you may well
Speaker 1: agree that fish generally do not have fur, So we
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about like what these stories are and
Speaker 1: where they come from and what might explain them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and these are going to cover a fair amount
Speaker 1: of ground. We're gonna get into some legends and mythology.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about some some some some definite uh,
Speaker 1: denizens of the of the the actual oceans and lakes
Speaker 1: and rivers of our world. Uh, and then also some
Speaker 1: possible like misinterpretations of natural creatures. So there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot on the table here with the furry fish, and
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I think everybody's gonna be pleasantly surprised. Now.
Speaker 1: The shaggy trout of Iceland is actually one of several
Speaker 1: reports of furry fish that are collected in a book
Speaker 1: that I was looking at called The Beasts That Hide
Speaker 1: from Man, Seeking the World's Last Undiscovered Animals, by an
Speaker 1: author named Carl Schucker. I think this was originally published
Speaker 1: in two thousands three. I might have been looking at
Speaker 1: an addition from but Shooker is a British crypto zoologist,
Speaker 1: and as you may well know, crypto zoologist can mean
Speaker 1: extremely different things, right, So it could be a clear skeptical,
Speaker 1: responsible researcher who tries to investigate reports of animals that
Speaker 1: are not well documented or not documented at all by
Speaker 1: by regular scientific methods, and find out if these reports
Speaker 1: can in fact be confirmed. And there are cases like this.
Speaker 1: There are cases of, for example, of animals thought to
Speaker 1: be long extinct but then turning up extant in the
Speaker 1: world today. For example, the sela can't the type of
Speaker 1: lobe finned fish that was thought to be long extinct,
Speaker 1: but then live specimens were found. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: of course we know, if you know, if you're a
Speaker 1: fan of like certain types of TV documentaries or whatever,
Speaker 1: a cryptozoologist could also be a self applied label for
Speaker 1: somebody who says that they have a big foot corps
Speaker 1: in their freezer, but you're not allowed to look at it. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a broad spectrum in the crypto zoology world, right,
Speaker 1: And so I think, from at least what I was
Speaker 1: looking at in this book, I think Shooker seems to
Speaker 1: be closer to the former. Somebody who's you know, trying
Speaker 1: to responsibly apply, uh, you know, reasonable skeptical methods of
Speaker 1: investigation to reports of perhaps not well documented animals. There
Speaker 1: may be something I missed, but at least in the
Speaker 1: parts of the book I was looking at. He he
Speaker 1: does not seem to treat reports of strange animals with
Speaker 1: automatic credulity and and certainly not talk like the big
Speaker 1: foot freezer guy. But anyway, a useful thing about this
Speaker 1: book is whatever the actual explanations for these reports, it
Speaker 1: is useful in itself just to collect the reports, right uh,
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, what are people saying about, for example,
Speaker 1: furry fish, whether or not there actually is such a
Speaker 1: thing or something that we can identify that could have
Speaker 1: been mistaken for such a thing. At least you know,
Speaker 1: what are people saying? And so that's what he does
Speaker 1: in this chapter. He's got at least five different examples.
Speaker 1: And so the next thing I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: was another one that that I came across because I
Speaker 1: found in this chapter, and this is Marco Polo's hairy Fish.
Speaker 1: So this story is originally told in the Travels of
Speaker 1: Marco Polo, which is the English title of a thirteenth
Speaker 1: century Italian travelogue written by a guy named Rusticello or
Speaker 1: perhaps Rusticiano of Pisa, based on the accounts of Marco Polo,
Speaker 1: the Venetian merchant, diplomat and explorer of of great renown.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know who Marco Polo is. Yes, if, if,
Speaker 1: even if you are not super familiar within you know
Speaker 1: the pool name of Marco Polo, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: the last pool I was at, or one of the
Speaker 1: most recent pools I was at, they had a sign
Speaker 1: that said no Marco Polo. Marco Polo was explicitly banned
Speaker 1: from the pool. Why what is it dangerous? I got
Speaker 1: the impression that it was just maybe annoying because they were, like,
Speaker 1: you know, people were living near the pool, and therefore
Speaker 1: they didn't want to hear children say Marco Polo over
Speaker 1: and over again. But occasionally a child would get in
Speaker 1: the pool start saying Marco Polo, and the more rule
Speaker 1: oriented children would would remind them that it was not allowed,
Speaker 1: and then some would try and do it, do Marco
Speaker 1: Polo with different words, and and and other kids or
Speaker 1: sometimes adults would be like, no, no, you can't, you
Speaker 1: can't just do that. It's still Marco Polo. No, instead
Speaker 1: of Marco Polo, you do Rusty Cello or Rusty Chano.
Speaker 1: You know, Rusty Cello. Yeah, wouldn't work. Not not allowed,
Speaker 1: not allowed. I forget, what's kind of variations. They were trying,
Speaker 1: um very obvious ones like you know, um pool cleaner
Speaker 1: fish or something, you know, just based on the first
Speaker 1: two things they saw. Well anyway, so I found out
Speaker 1: about this story of a furry fish because of this
Speaker 1: passage from Shooker's book. But then I actually went and
Speaker 1: looked up the original text to put the claim in
Speaker 1: its full context. So this passage from Marco Polo's account,
Speaker 1: which is the version translated to English by Ronald Latham
Speaker 1: for for Penguin, is describing a marvelous city that Marco
Speaker 1: Polo calls King Pai, but which I believe corresponds to
Speaker 1: the modern day city of Hung Sho. And so at
Speaker 1: the time he entered the city, Marco Polo was operating
Speaker 1: under the aegis of Kubla Khan. That that's a bit
Speaker 1: if you don't know much about Marco Polo's journeys. He
Speaker 1: had a relationship with the court of the cons I
Speaker 1: think uh at least going back through his father. But
Speaker 1: he was favored by by the court of Kubla Khan.
Speaker 1: And so he was not only a merchant and a
Speaker 1: trader and explorer, but he also operated as a diplomat
Speaker 1: on behalf of Koplakan, and at the time of his
Speaker 1: visit to this city that is now known as hung Show,
Speaker 1: the cons had conquered it. So there are a couple
Speaker 1: of names to define ahead of time, so this paragraph
Speaker 1: makes sense. He mentions a figure named King fak Fur,
Speaker 1: who was the original ruler of Kingsai before it was conquered,
Speaker 1: and then he also mentions Bayon, who was a Mongol
Speaker 1: general who commanded the armies of Kubla Khan during the
Speaker 1: conquest of Song dynasty China. So the account goes, let
Speaker 1: me tell you now of a marvel that occurred when
Speaker 1: Bayon was besieging this city. It happened after King fak
Speaker 1: Fur had taken to flight, that a multitude of the
Speaker 1: town's folk were fleeing by boat by way of a broad,
Speaker 1: deep river that flows past one side of the city.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, while they were actually on the river,
Speaker 1: the water completely dried up, so that Bayon, on learning
Speaker 1: the news, came to this part and compelled all the
Speaker 1: fugitives to return to the city. And a fish was
Speaker 1: found lying high and dry across the river bed. And
Speaker 1: what a fish for it was fully one hundred paces long,
Speaker 1: but its girth was by all means proportionate to its length.
Speaker 1: Its whole body was hairy. Many people ate of it,
Speaker 1: and many of those who did so died. Mr Marco,
Speaker 1: as he relates, saw the head of this fish with
Speaker 1: his own eyes in a certain temple of the Idols.
Speaker 1: Now we should put some caveats in, right, because there
Speaker 1: are several reasons the story is already coming to us
Speaker 1: in a kind of hazy fashion. Right. We're getting it
Speaker 1: through several layers. This is an account written by Mr
Speaker 1: Rusty Cello Rusty Chano of Pisa, based allegedly on the
Speaker 1: accounts of Marco Polo, who claims that he saw the
Speaker 1: head of this fish with his own eyes. But it
Speaker 1: sounds like he must have at best heard second hand
Speaker 1: the accounts of the story about the river drying up,
Speaker 1: revealing the giant hairy fish a hundred paces long, and
Speaker 1: then the people eating it and dying from it. Right,
Speaker 1: because the story is saying, oh, the head is preserved
Speaker 1: in this particular temple, and this is the backstory on
Speaker 1: that head. Right now, While I think they're good jumping
Speaker 1: off points to to start thinking about possibilities, I don't
Speaker 1: think we can be too sure that either of these accounts,
Speaker 1: either the Icelandic furry fish or Marco Polo's hairy fish
Speaker 1: and in Hung Joe Uh, that they are necessarily based
Speaker 1: on anything real than anybody actually saw. These could be
Speaker 1: you know, fanciful imaginative stories people made up, or they
Speaker 1: could be based on something. But I do think it's
Speaker 1: interesting that in either case that both of these hairy
Speaker 1: fish so far are regarded as poisonous and harmful to eat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is very interesting, and I was particularly fascinated by
Speaker 1: this Chinese um account or this Chinese episode. It was
Speaker 1: like technically a Venetian account, but decided to read a
Speaker 1: little bit more about it. So I was looking at
Speaker 1: a C. Mules Marco Polo's descriptions of Quinsai, and the
Speaker 1: author here basically looks at this everything that Marco Polo
Speaker 1: has to say about the city, and it's analyzing it
Speaker 1: and comparing it to other accounts and Chinese historical accounts,
Speaker 1: and the there says that they can find no mention
Speaker 1: of this this fish in Chinese sources detailing the siege
Speaker 1: in question. However, he says that roughly forty years before
Speaker 1: Polo's visit, strange aquatic creatures had been reported in the river.
Speaker 1: This would have been the summer of twelve thirty nine.
Speaker 1: Quote Chao Yu Kon reported that recently, while he was
Speaker 1: watching the violence of the boar. Now just a quick
Speaker 1: description of what the boar is, and this will make
Speaker 1: sense if you think back to the passage that that
Speaker 1: that Joe just read. Uh, this is a bore current,
Speaker 1: a rare natural phenomenon in which the leading edge of
Speaker 1: an incoming tide forms a wave or waves of water
Speaker 1: that travels up a body of water and reverses the
Speaker 1: direction of the current. Anyway, the author continues, Um, while
Speaker 1: he was watching the violence of the boar, he had
Speaker 1: suddenly seen strange creatures which were neither dragons nor fishes
Speaker 1: in shoals, ruffling up their bristles and raising their spines.
Speaker 1: And he wished to report and announced to the emperor
Speaker 1: that he proposed to use powerful crossbows and guns. And
Speaker 1: there's a question mark after guns, So I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if the particular terminology is in question there or whatnot?
Speaker 1: Um to remove this ill omened portent whoa so this
Speaker 1: along with other accounts and quote the sight of some
Speaker 1: monstrous skull or tooth which may well have been shown
Speaker 1: in some temple um and they also point out that
Speaker 1: a large tooth was actually shown as Buddhist tooth at
Speaker 1: the time. All of this may may have then been
Speaker 1: cobbled together and you know, reformed into the account we
Speaker 1: just looked at. Okay, so it's possible that the account
Speaker 1: we're getting, I guess third hand at this point through
Speaker 1: Marco Polo's uh biographer here is some sort of half
Speaker 1: remembered synthesis or reassemblage of these other pieces that we're
Speaker 1: seeing in Chinese sources. Right now, this is conjecture on
Speaker 1: my part, but I'm reading that the the sing Tang
Speaker 1: river here was no own to at least sometimes have
Speaker 1: yang Z River dolphins in it um now their namesake river.
Speaker 1: The Z is several hundred miles north, but at least
Speaker 1: prior to the nineteen fifties there were sightings of dolphins
Speaker 1: in this river. So I can't help but wonder if
Speaker 1: this might have been a case of a half rotted
Speaker 1: river dolphin washing up. Because tissue and fibers on rotting fish, dolphins,
Speaker 1: and whales can sometimes take on shocking forms that maybe
Speaker 1: that then can be connected to various myths and legends
Speaker 1: or theories about cryptids. Oh yeah, I mean that. We
Speaker 1: actually did a couple of episodes. It was a few
Speaker 1: years back at this point about globsters, the which is
Speaker 1: the nickname for these objects. You know, these sort of
Speaker 1: masses of biomaterial that will often wash up on beaches
Speaker 1: and be proclaimed monsters. You know, they get their own
Speaker 1: article in the Daily Mail and it's oh, here's a
Speaker 1: dragon from the sea. And most of the time, I'm
Speaker 1: they're whales. Not every time, but most of the time
Speaker 1: there's some type of whale in some stage of decomposition
Speaker 1: which can truly take on bizarre appearances. Yeah. For example,
Speaker 1: consider the Sacklin Island wooly whale, which was washed up
Speaker 1: on Sacklin Island in Russia back in you can find
Speaker 1: pictures on this. The spelling is s A K H
Speaker 1: A L I N. It looks weird and it does
Speaker 1: look furry. But one of the chief theories here is
Speaker 1: that this is just a dolphin carcass, that this is
Speaker 1: a dolphin carcass that is decayed. It's a dolphin globster.
Speaker 1: So I again this is conjecture on my part, but
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder if that might have been what
Speaker 1: we were looking at. It would also explain why eating
Speaker 1: the flesh of this creature might not be a great
Speaker 1: choice for your digestion or your overall health. Right. So
Speaker 1: if this were the origin of the story from Keensai
Speaker 1: or hang Joe, now, um, it would be that some
Speaker 1: in some way the water washed back and revealed the
Speaker 1: carcass of a large, perhaps young c river dolphin or
Speaker 1: some other type of aquatic mammal that was dead sitting
Speaker 1: there on the bank in some stage of decomposition. It's
Speaker 1: the fibers of its body kind of looked like hair
Speaker 1: in a weird way that you know, we've we've seen
Speaker 1: with other globsters before. Somebody decided to eat it, and
Speaker 1: obviously it made them sick because this is rotten meat.
Speaker 1: And then somehow that got estranged and gave rise to
Speaker 1: this legend. Yeah, or you can also imagine how it
Speaker 1: could have just been a situation where the thing was
Speaker 1: clearly foul and someone wisely said I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: should eat this, and eventually that becomes I heard somebody
Speaker 1: ate it and they died. But then I heard that
Speaker 1: I heard that several people ate it and they died,
Speaker 1: So I don't know. There you can easily imagine various
Speaker 1: ways that the the story could form based on just
Speaker 1: this one weird encounter with a st range globster body
Speaker 1: in the water. Yeah, so we don't know, but I
Speaker 1: do think that's a reasonable possibility to imagine as an
Speaker 1: inspiration for these types of stories. And in fact, in
Speaker 1: his book, Shooker sort of goes to the same place.
Speaker 1: He says, Yeah, it's possible that this is a this
Speaker 1: is a half remembered story about a decomposing animal body
Speaker 1: of some kind, And of course the decomposing flesh would
Speaker 1: have made people sick if they tried to eat it.
Speaker 1: And again the other half being that, yes, often decomposing
Speaker 1: flesh really does look hairy in a certain way. Than Now,
Speaker 1: there's another interesting possibility about explanations that I wanted to
Speaker 1: come back to, which has to do with parasitic infections
Speaker 1: in fish. So think back to that first example I
Speaker 1: mentioned of the furry fish claim, the one from Olaf
Speaker 1: Davidson's reports of the shaggy trout of Iceland. Just to
Speaker 1: refresh here on what Davidson says about the one example
Speaker 1: hold that is reported in the newspaper nor Dury in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five, which he says must be an example
Speaker 1: of a shaggy trout. He says that it's that it's
Speaker 1: lower jaw and its neck had reddish hair, forming a
Speaker 1: kind of beard, and there were also hairy patches on
Speaker 1: its side and hair on its fins, so there can
Speaker 1: be no doubt it was a shaggy trout. But then
Speaker 1: he also says it was unlike an ordinary trout in
Speaker 1: both shape and in color, but he doesn't explain much
Speaker 1: more about what he means by that, so I'm not
Speaker 1: quite sure. I don't know if that means unlike in
Speaker 1: terms of just like these patches on it, or if
Speaker 1: it's also just like a differently shaped fish, and in
Speaker 1: which case it probably originally wasn't a trout, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what it was. But anyway, when raising the
Speaker 1: story in his book, Karl Schuker mentions one possible explanation,
Speaker 1: which is, what if these stories are based on observations
Speaker 1: not of furry trout, but of trout that are suffering
Speaker 1: from some kind of infection, such as a fungus that
Speaker 1: covers their body with patches of mysilia. So there could
Speaker 1: be a number of types of parasites and infections that
Speaker 1: could lead to this misimpression. But one type of infection
Speaker 1: that I've seen uh singled out as a possible inspiration
Speaker 1: for furry trout legends is an oama site called Saprolegnia
Speaker 1: or saprolegnia so. Oama sites are sometimes known as water molds.
Speaker 1: They are a class of eukaryotic micro organisms that used
Speaker 1: to be considered fungi, I believe due to their morphological
Speaker 1: similarities to fungus, but I think now they're understood to
Speaker 1: be a more separate branch of the tree of life.
Speaker 1: But there are a number of different types of Oama
Speaker 1: sites that can form parasitic relationships with fish and shellfish,
Speaker 1: causing disease and eventually death in the hosts. And there's
Speaker 1: this genus called Saprolegnia in particular, which has been singled
Speaker 1: out as a possible source of these myths since when
Speaker 1: an adult fish is in act did it can display
Speaker 1: lesions or discolored patches on its skin, which in some
Speaker 1: cases do look kind of furry or even sometimes like
Speaker 1: cotton and rob I've just got a couple of pictures
Speaker 1: for you to look at. One is of a man
Speaker 1: holding up a salmon caught from a river that does
Speaker 1: have these mold like patches appearing along it's its dorsal side. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does look like there's something wrong with this fish,
Speaker 1: like something bad happened to a fish. And uh, the
Speaker 1: other pictures shared there does have more of a hair
Speaker 1: like quality to it. It looks like there's some kind
Speaker 1: of whispery white sideburns and some whispery white hair on
Speaker 1: the top of the fish's head. Yeah, and there are
Speaker 1: other types of infections. One problem is if you're just
Speaker 1: like doing an image search for this, you can't always
Speaker 1: be sure what type of infection you're looking at. Because
Speaker 1: there's another thing that I think is a more bacterial
Speaker 1: infection called cotton wool disease in fish that also kind
Speaker 1: of looks like cotton sprouting out on on these fish.
Speaker 1: But that's a different organism causing it. But anyway, just
Speaker 1: to learn more about saparolegnia, I was looking at a
Speaker 1: book by Kurt Lemore and Sophien Commune, who are researchers
Speaker 1: at the University of Tennessee. Both of them I believe
Speaker 1: called um Oamacite Genetics and Genomics, Diversity Interactions and research tools,
Speaker 1: And this is an academic book about uh these types
Speaker 1: of parasites and micro organisms, and there's a part of
Speaker 1: this about Saparolegnia in particular. So this species is Saparolegnia parasitica,
Speaker 1: which the author's claim is a devastating pathogen on freshwater
Speaker 1: fish species, which has contributed to significant damage in global
Speaker 1: fish farming. And in the past, this and some other
Speaker 1: fish related related fish pathogens were controlled by anti microbial
Speaker 1: that Originally I think it was actually a die. The
Speaker 1: dye is called malachite green, but it was found to
Speaker 1: have these alleged anti microbial properties. But then this use
Speaker 1: was scaled back after concerns arose about possible carcinogenic effects
Speaker 1: on the fish and on consumers of the fish that
Speaker 1: were treated with this die. So as of the time
Speaker 1: this book was written or published in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: the the this was still a problem with the freshwater fisheries,
Speaker 1: I think, especially with with fish farming. But in the
Speaker 1: case of fur that forms on the skin of the
Speaker 1: infected fish, this would actually not be hair, but it
Speaker 1: would be my celia or the part of the microbial
Speaker 1: colony that begins as these little hype often seen in
Speaker 1: fungus that forms these hair like branches which can spread
Speaker 1: out in in these patches on the skin. I think
Speaker 1: they often begin originally at like a like a wound
Speaker 1: or maybe some kind of opening in the skin. I
Speaker 1: think they can attack the gills or they can attack
Speaker 1: a wound, But then once they have established a colony
Speaker 1: within the skin, they can kind of spread out from there,
Speaker 1: and it's bad for the fish. Obviously, they will will
Speaker 1: from the outer layer from the skin UH, and the
Speaker 1: and the scales begin to invade down further into the
Speaker 1: muscle tissue, which can eventually kill the fish over time.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, I think we wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to be too bullish about attributing all of these stories
Speaker 1: of furry fish to observations of infections of this kind
Speaker 1: UH for one reason, because the while these infections can
Speaker 1: form patches on fish that look strange, and sometimes these
Speaker 1: patches in certain types of parasites can look kind of
Speaker 1: hairy or cottony or wooly, they don't form coats of
Speaker 1: fur that surround the full fish as described in some
Speaker 1: of these legends. Yeah, we'd be talking something that would
Speaker 1: be loosely describable as patches of fur, patches of weird
Speaker 1: hair on a fish, which is it's different than a
Speaker 1: shaggy fish, right, And so I think this explanation can
Speaker 1: actually go too far and become a misconception of a zone. So,
Speaker 1: for example, I was looking at modern allegations of furry fish,
Speaker 1: which do still exist. I think I was reading one
Speaker 1: story about a some people who were claiming that a
Speaker 1: bunch of furry fish were created in a river when
Speaker 1: there had been an accident and a bunch of hair
Speaker 1: tonic was spilled into the river. So yuck, yuck. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so this one example is something I found
Speaker 1: documented on Snopes in an article by Dan Evan from
Speaker 1: May of And this actually was not surprisingly from a
Speaker 1: chain email, but a photo and report that was posted
Speaker 1: to a Wisconsin local news website. And so it's got
Speaker 1: a photo of a guy dressed up, you know, like
Speaker 1: he's out fishing in the cold, and he is holding
Speaker 1: a fish that is completely covered in white fur. It
Speaker 1: looks like a it's got a fish head, but then
Speaker 1: the rest of it is just like a polar bear's arm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and well, yeah, I don't know what exactly is going
Speaker 1: on here, but um, it's an image that makes me suspicious.
Speaker 1: This looks like a This fish should be mounted on
Speaker 1: a wall and when there's movement in the room, it
Speaker 1: should move and sing. Um, there's something it just it
Speaker 1: has a look of fake grey to me, which is
Speaker 1: not to say it's not legitimate, but it has the
Speaker 1: look of fake gray for sure. It's the Christmas edition
Speaker 1: of the Billy Bass. It sings Christmas carols? Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: what is it? What would it be if it was
Speaker 1: the Billy Bass, it wouldn't be like classic carols. It
Speaker 1: would be Santa Claus is coming too town. What did
Speaker 1: Billy did Billy Bass sing Christmas songs? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: I'm saying if there were a Christmas version of the
Speaker 1: Big Mouth Billy Bass, what did the Big Mouth Billy
Speaker 1: Bass actually sing? This is again a robotic fake trout
Speaker 1: that you would buy off the TV. Yeah, these things
Speaker 1: were great, truly remarkable achievement of culture. Um. They sang
Speaker 1: take Me to the River that song they sang. I
Speaker 1: think one saying Y M C A. And that's all
Speaker 1: I remember. There may have been others. Okay, did you
Speaker 1: have one? Are you just remembering the t the TV?
Speaker 1: You never had one? No, okay, well, call out to listeners.
Speaker 1: Do you have one on the wall of your house
Speaker 1: right now? Inside We're out? Doesn't matter what does it
Speaker 1: still work or is it? Is it dying now? Or
Speaker 1: as electronics sing this warped, sad, slowed down version of
Speaker 1: the song. Oh man, that would that would be great. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm quitting the show. My career from now on is
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a DJ. I'm gonna make beats
Speaker 1: entirely out of samples from dying big mouth billy basses
Speaker 1: to anyway anyway, Okay, back to so, back to the
Speaker 1: this image of what looks like a Christmas themed uh
Speaker 1: billy bass. So the allegation accompanying this photograph originally, this
Speaker 1: is documented in that Snopes article goes like this says,
Speaker 1: wanted to share rather remarkable catch I had this afternoon.
Speaker 1: I was fishing in the Minominee River while some trout
Speaker 1: were packed into a bottleneck. I caught a few, and
Speaker 1: nothing was out of the ordinary until I reeled this
Speaker 1: one in. I've never seen anything like it. I contact
Speaker 1: did a local wildlife official and they referred to it
Speaker 1: as a rare, furbearing trout. They went on to explain
Speaker 1: that this was an extreme case of saprolegnia or cotton mold. Apparently,
Speaker 1: old Great Lakes legends spoke of these as a uniquely
Speaker 1: evolved trout species that existed only in the deepest, coldest
Speaker 1: parts of the lake and needed the fur to stay warm.
Speaker 1: I doubt it will make my Cabella's non traditional mount wall,
Speaker 1: but I'm still excited to reel in a genuine Wisconsin legend.
Speaker 1: You have my permission to share and use this photo
Speaker 1: in any form if you'd like. Uh, and then uh
Speaker 1: the person gives their credits. I don't want to say
Speaker 1: this in case this is not actually the person who
Speaker 1: did the hoax. Uh So so okay, so you look
Speaker 1: that up if you want to know who to track
Speaker 1: it down to. But um, but you got one on us. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is definitely not actually a furry trout, and it's
Speaker 1: also definitely not actually a case of saprolegnia because the
Speaker 1: the fur just does not grow like that. Having looked
Speaker 1: at a lot of images, now I can tell by
Speaker 1: looking at it. Uh, the this this is a deliberate hoax. Now,
Speaker 1: I guess it could be a situation where we don't
Speaker 1: know who the perpetrator of the hoax might be could
Speaker 1: be someone could have made such a fish us you know,
Speaker 1: manufactured such a specimen and throwing it into the water,
Speaker 1: and then it's uh, you know, acquired by someone else,
Speaker 1: always a possibility. Just seating the world with with beauty.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is this is that would
Speaker 1: be beauty. I mean, I'm all for catch and release,
Speaker 1: but not like this, not like this, Yes, not like this,
Speaker 1: I I agree, but so yeah, so I think this
Speaker 1: is actually going a little too far with the possible
Speaker 1: explanation for the origins of these legends based in these
Speaker 1: parasitic infections, because it's it's trying to reconcile two things
Speaker 1: that are just very different. One is that people when
Speaker 1: they hear a story about a furry trout or imagining
Speaker 1: a trout covered in fur like a mammal. And then
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you've got this possible explanation that
Speaker 1: is real science, but it is something that can explain
Speaker 1: weird looking blotches and matches on a fish that can
Speaker 1: in some cases have kind of like furree hype or
Speaker 1: mys celia growing out of them. Huh yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: can see how that would work well, well, they're just
Speaker 1: not the same. So you would have to imagine there's
Speaker 1: a process in between of like a sort of exaggerating
Speaker 1: or extrapolating an original observation into something totally different. I
Speaker 1: like the tidbit to of the legend being that this
Speaker 1: is how the fish of the deep stay warm, which
Speaker 1: I think is also kind of kind of telling in
Speaker 1: all of this, because obviously fish do not need fur
Speaker 1: coats to to operate in cold waters, right. We have
Speaker 1: too many examples of a fish that do just fine
Speaker 1: and they have no fur. But as mammals, you know,
Speaker 1: we we know that that the the other mammals in
Speaker 1: our world to survive in winter, they frequently do require
Speaker 1: fur coats, and then we require fur coats made of
Speaker 1: them in order for us to survive. And so you know,
Speaker 1: we get into sort of an abstra act, you know,
Speaker 1: comparison of of rather different physiologies here. Oh yeah, and
Speaker 1: it also ignores several things like would fur actually keep
Speaker 1: you warm if it was wet? No, I don't think
Speaker 1: it would. In fact, marine mammals that need to keep
Speaker 1: their bodies warm in very very cold water, are they
Speaker 1: covered in fur? No? They actually lost there? For these
Speaker 1: are evolved from creatures that used to have for and
Speaker 1: they adapted to deep, deep water and extreme cold temperatures
Speaker 1: in part by losing their fur and having other adaptations
Speaker 1: in their body to help maintain their internal temperature. But
Speaker 1: could they require fur coats if they leave the water
Speaker 1: to go about their business on the land? Ah, there
Speaker 1: you go. Maybe have some wizard sells them such a coat. Okay,
Speaker 1: you bring it back around. This is a tricky fish wizard.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, maybe we need to call part one there,
Speaker 1: but we will be back with so much more furry
Speaker 1: fish next time. Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna go to some
Speaker 1: some really interesting places. Well, even ask the question, is
Speaker 1: an otter of fish? The answer may surprise you. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you would like to check out other
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we have core
Speaker 1: episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind podcast feed, you'll find Artifact episodes on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Little Listener Mail on Monday. On the weekends, we have
Speaker 1: a Vault episode that's a rerunning on Friday, we do
Speaker 1: a little Weird How Cinema. That's just our way of
Speaker 1: closing out the week by setting most of the science
Speaker 1: aside and just looking at a weird film. Huge thanks
Speaker 1: as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, just to say hello, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact and Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind. It's production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My heart Radio,
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