Stronsay Beast


The Stronsay Beast was a large carcass or globster that washed ashore on the island of Stronsay, in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, after a storm on 25 September 1808. The carcass measured 55 ft in length, but as part of the tail was apparently missing, it was estimated the animal was longer than that. The Natural History Society of Edinburgh could not identify the carcass and decided it was a new species, probably a sea serpent. The Scottish anatomist John Barclay gave it the scientific name Halsydrus pontoppidani in honor of Erik Pontoppidan, who described sea serpents in a work published half a century before. Later, the anatomist Sir Everard Home in London dismissed the measurement, declaring it must have been around 36 ft, and deemed it to be a decayed basking shark. In 1849, Scottish professor John Goodsir in Edinburgh came to the same conclusion.
The Stronsay Beast was measured by three witnesses. It was 4 ft wide and had a circumference of about 10 ft. It had three pairs of 'paws' or 'wings'. Its skin was smooth when stroked head to tail and rough when stroked tail to head. Its fins were edged with bristles and it had a 'mane' of bristles all down its back. The bristles glowed in the dark when wet. Its stomach contents were red.