Zuiyo-maru Carcass - Discovery

Discovery

On April 25, 1977, the Japanese trawler Zuiyō Maru, sailing east of Christchurch, New Zealand, caught a strange, unknown creature in the trawl. The crew was convinced it was an unidentified animal (Bord, 1990), but despite the potential biological significance of the curious discovery, the captain, Akira Tanaka, decided to dump the carcass into the ocean again so not to risk spoiling the caught fish. However, before that, some photos and sketches were taken of the creature, nicknamed "Nessie" by the crew, measurements were taken and some samples of skeleton, skin and fins were collected for further analysis by experts in Japan. The discovery resulted in immense commotion and a "plesiosaur-craze" in Japan, and the shipping company ordered all its boats to try to relocate the dumped corpse again, but with no apparent success. (Sjögren, 1980).

Read more about this topic:  Zuiyo-maru Carcass

Famous quotes containing the word discovery:

    I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn’t love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country ...
    Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)

    It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.
    Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)

    The gain is not the having of children; it is the discovery of love and how to be loving.
    Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)