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MNN.COM›Earth Matters›Animals›Photos›

12 animals mistaken for mythical creatures

12 animals mistaken for mythical creatures

Photo 5 of 14  
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Photo: ZUMA Press

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anonymous
rosie 08/21/2010 04:15 AM

well done. i was about to write the same thing.
a lot of the info in this list is greatly inaccurate.

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anonymous
finbar 07/08/2010 03:41 AM

I think the sailors that mistook manatees for beautiful mermaids nust have been either very drunk or very desperate or both.

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anonymous
Clotho 06/11/2010 16:51 PM

John Smith only made Pocahontas swoon in the Disney universe (Smith was almost 30 and Pocahontas was 11 when they met, and only knew each other for a short time). John Rolfe was the one who made her swoon, and he married her 5 years later

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Dugongs and manatees

Christopher Columbus, while sailing near Haiti, believed he was looking at a mermaid when he saw his first manatee. He got close enough to note that they were "not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men." Closely related to the portly manatee, which prefers estuarine or fresh waters, the dugong is slimmer and more strictly a marine mammal, and is the likely suspect for most mermaid origin stories. To be fair to the manatee, not everyone has been quite so dismissive as Columbus. Explorer John Smith (who famously caused Pocahontas to swoon) also reported seeing a mermaid once, noting that it was "by no means unattractive."
 
 
 
 
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