Tag Archives: sea turtles

Episode 510: The Sea Serpent of the Tresco

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Further reading:

The “Tresco” Sea Serpent of 1903

Show transcript:

Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw.

I have a fun episode for you this month, about the Sea Serpent of the Tresco, a sighting that occurred in 1903.

The Tresco was a merchant marine steam ship, and a detailed account of its encounter with a sea monster was reported by the second officer, Joseph Ostens Grey, who wrote about it for “The Wide World Magazine” soon after it happened. The account appeared in the October 1903 issue.

According to Grey, the ship left Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 28, 1903, reached Cuba on June 5, and returned to Philadelphia on June 14. On the return trip the ship was near Cape Hatteras, a barrier island off the coast of North Carolina, when Grey spotted a disturbance in the otherwise calm water. At first he thought it was porpoises playing around, but as they approached the ship, he realized he was watching a large group of sharks traveling together very quickly. He thought they were bottle-nosed sharks, which is an old name for the porbeagle shark.

The porbeagle is a common shark in that part of the Atlantic. It’s silvery-gray and white in color, and grows around 8 feet long, or 2.5 meters. It mainly eats fish and squid, and while Grey was confused as to why the sharks were in a group, it sometimes gathers in groups. It’s a fast-moving, energetic shark that can thermoregulate, which is something we talked about in episode 353, about warm-blooded fish.

Grey estimated there were about 40 sharks in the school, and he described them as “swimming shoulder to shoulder, closely packed together.” They passed out of sight and an hour later he saw something else approaching from the same direction that the sharks had traveled from. At first he thought it was a derelict boat floating low in the water, and in fact was so convinced that’s what it was that he ordered the Tresco to steer for it to check for survivors.

But in the 20 minutes or so that they traveled toward the big black thing in the water, Grey got more and more confused. It looked like the thing wasn’t just drifting on the current, but was actually traveling toward the Tresco. Then, when the ship came close, a big head raised out of the water.

Grey described it as dragon-like, and he stared at it in shock for a few seconds. Then he and the crew member steering the ship hid in the wheel-house, which allowed them to steer away from the monster without it being able to see them.

Grey went over to a porthole to get another look at the monster. The body was motionless but the snake-like tail was out of the water and lashing, while the head was still reared up. Grey estimated it was about 100 feet long, or a bit over 30 meters, and about 8 feet in diameter at the widest, or 2.5 meters. The ship itself was about 300 feet long, or 90 meters or so. The back was humped up toward the neck and sloped down to the tail end, and also sloped down toward the neck. The neck was thick but looked slender compared to the head, which was about 5 feet long, or 1.5 meters.

Grey got a good look at the head. Its mouth was open and he saw a pair of fangs curving backward like walrus tusks. He didn’t see a tongue or nostrils, but did notice a pouch or drooping skin under the jaw and discolored saliva dripping from the corners of the mouth. Its eyes were reddish and set near the top of the head.

Grey also saw scales on the body, looking like big rough plates like an alligator’s hide, not like fish scales. The body looked bronze in color but oddly enough, it appeared darker underneath, more of a green color as far as he could see. It also had pectoral fins.

But as he watched, a dorsal fin raised along its back and a webbed crest raised on the head. He estimated the head crest was about a foot high, or 30 cm, at the front where it was tallest, which was a point with a webbing of skin stretched taut behind it.

As the ship passed by, the monster suddenly turned as though pivoting, its long tail trailing behind, and lowered its head. Grey had been terrified that the monster would attack the ship, and now that the danger seemed to be past, he remembered he needed to alert the ship’s captain. He rushed out to the state-room and burst in, where the captain was lying down to take a nap. Grey brought him on deck where the sailors had gathered to watch the monster as it swam away.

At this point the monster’s head seemed to be resting on its back or shoulders, and Grey thought it had folded its neck like a resting swan. By the time it was a quarter mile away it looked more or less like a derelict boat again. The captain was astonished, but mentioned that earlier he had heard a snorting or hooting sound nearby that made him thing of a tug-whistle, but higher in pitch, and the sailors wondered if that had been the monster. Grey hadn’t heard the sound himself.

And that was the last they saw of the sea monster. Five days later the ship returned to Philadelphia and Grey prepared his report. He included a copy of the ship’s log for the day, which included the note “10am passed school of sharks followed by a huge sea monster.”

So, what on earth could this monster really be? I’m assuming it’s not actually a real monster, since it doesn’t really resemble anything known to science, living or extinct. Grey reported its length as that of the blue whale, the largest animal ever known to live on earth, but in shape it sounds a lot more like a humongous leatherback sea turtle.

We talked about the leatherback most recently in episode 406. It’s the largest turtle alive today, and can grow some nine feet long, or 3 meters. Instead of having a hard shell like other sea turtles, its carapace is covered with tough, leathery skin studded with tiny osteoderms. Seven raised ridges on the carapace run from head to tail and make the turtle more stable in the water. Not only is the leatherback the biggest and heaviest turtle alive today by far, it’s the heaviest living reptile that isn’t a crocodile. It has huge front flippers, is much more streamlined even than other sea turtles, and has a number of adaptations to life in the open ocean.

The leatherback lives throughout the world, from warm tropical oceans up into the Arctic Circle. It mostly eats jellyfish, so it goes where the jellyfish go, which is everywhere. But even the biggest leatherback that ever lived can’t be mistaken for a hundred-foot-long monster.

Assuming the report wasn’t a hoax, it’s possible that the sailors saw a big leatherback or some other animal tangled in a lot of floating debris. When the ship approached it, the animal thrashed around in a panic before managing to turn around and swim away. That would explain why Grey said the monster pivoted around. That would also explain why from a distance the monster looked like a derelict vessel of some kind. It might actually have been a derelict, and the shock of seeing a head rise out of the debris made the sailors think the whole thing was a gigantic monster instead of a distressed animal all tangled up in old rigging.

Then again, maybe it was actually a monster unknown to science, but if that’s the case, no one has seen anything like it since.

Thanks for your support, and thanks for listening!

Episode 406: Some Turtles and a Friend

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Thanks to Riley and Dean, Elizabeth, and Leo for their suggestions this week!

Further reading:

Groundbreaking study reveals extensive leatherback turtle activity along U.S. coastline

A bearded dragon:

The tiny bog turtle:

The massive leatherback sea turtle:

The beautiful hawksbill turtle [photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]:

Show transcript:

Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw.

This week we’re going to learn about some reptiles suggested by four different listeners: Riley and Dean, Elizabeth, and Leo.

We’ll start with the brothers Riley and Dean. Dean wants to learn more about the bearded dragon, and that may have something to do with a certain pet bearded dragon named Kippley.

“Bearded dragon” is the name given to any of eight species of lizard in the genus Pogona, also referred to as beardies. They’re native to Australia and eat plants and small animals like worms and insects. They can grow about two feet long, or 60 cm, including the tail, but some species are half that length. Females are a little smaller than males on average.

The bearded dragon gets its name because its throat is covered with pointy scales that most of the time aren’t very noticeable, but if the lizard is upset or just wants to impress another bearded dragon, it will suck air into its lungs so that its skin tightens and the spiky scales under its throat and on the rest of its body stick out. They’re not very sharp but they look impressive. Since the bearded dragon can also change color to some degree the same way a chameleon can, when it inflates its throat to show off its beard, the beard will often darken in color to be more noticeable. Both males and females have this pointy “beard.”

Bearded dragons that are sold as pets these days are more varied and brighter in color than their wild counterparts, although wild beardies can be brown, reddish-brown, yellow, orange, and even white. Australia made it illegal to catch and sell bearded dragons as pets in the late 20th century, but there were already lots of them outside of Australia by then. Pet bearded dragons are mainly descended from lizards exported during the 1970s, which means they’re quite domesticated these days and make good pets.

Like some other reptiles and amphibians, the bearded dragon has a third eye in the middle of its forehead. If you have a pet beardie and are about to say, “no way, there is definitely not a third eye anywhere, I would have noticed,” the eye doesn’t look like an eye. It’s tiny and is basically just a photoreceptor that can sense light and dark. Technically it’s called a parietal eye and researchers think it helps with thermoregulation.

Next, Riley wants to learn about turtles, AKA turbles, and especially wants everyone to know the difference between a tortoise and a turtle. It turns out that while many turtles are just fine living on land, they’re often more adapted to life in the water. Turtles have a more streamlined shell and often flipper-like legs or webbed toes. Tortoises only live on land and as a result they have shells that are more dome-shaped, and they have large, strong legs that resemble those of a tiny elephant.

You can’t always go by an animal’s common name to determine if it’s a tortoise or a turtle, but it’s also not always clear whether an animal is a tortoise or a turtle at first glance. Take the eastern box turtle, for instance, which is common in the eastern United States. It has a domed carapace, or shell, but it’s still a turtle, not a tortoise. And, I’m happy to say, it can swim quite well. This is a relief to find out because when I was about six years old, my mom visited someone who had kids a little older than me. I didn’t know them but they were nice and showed me the swampy area near their house. At one point one of the older boys found a box turtle, took it over to a little bridge over a pond, and dropped it in the water. I screamed, and he was absolutely shocked. He said he thought box turtles belonged in the water and he was helping it, but I thought they couldn’t swim and he’d just killed the poor turtle. I have continued to think he’d killed the poor turtle until just now, when I learned they can swim, and I can’t even tell you how relieved I am. Anyway, eastern box turtles have a domed shell, yes, and stumpy club-like front legs, but their hind legs are less like elephant legs than regular turtle legs. Since box turtles can live to be 100 years old, it’s possible that that one is alive and well even now.

Riley also wants everyone to know not to take a turtle from the woods, which is a very good rule to live by. In fact, it’s important not to take any wild animals from the woods no matter how cute they are. To continue our example, eastern box turtles have small territories that they defend from other box turtles. If you take the turtle out of its territory even for just a few days, when you return it to the woods, another turtle may have already taken over and will chase it away. Turtles don’t travel very fast and are vulnerable to being hit by cars and eaten by lots of different predators, so without a safe territory where it can hide and find food, it can die very quickly.

One of the turtles Leo suggested we learn about was the bog turtle. It’s the smallest turtle in North America, with a carapace barely four inches long, or 10 cm. It lives in a few parts of the eastern United States, and likes marshy areas with slightly acidic water. It spends a lot of time in the water, but also plenty of time on land. It eats worms, slugs, snails, water plants, berries, insects, and even small frogs when it can catch them.

The bog turtle is so small that pretty much anything big enough to swallow it will eat it. Its main defense is to bury itself in soft mud and hide. It’s almost completely black or dark gray in color, but it does have a bright orange spot on each side of its neck.

The bog turtle is critically endangered due to habitat loss, pollution, and poaching for the illegal pet trade. Conservationists are working to improve its habitat, and in the meantime some zoos and aquariums are helping with a captive breeding program. Since a bog turtle isn’t old enough to lay eggs until it’s at least 8 years old, the species as a whole reproduces slowly.

Leo also suggested hawksbill and leatherback turtles, and Elizabeth wants to learn about sea turtles in general. We talked about sea turtles way back in episode 75, so it’s definitely time to revisit the topic.

Seven species of sea turtle are alive today, and you can tell they’re turtles and not tortoises because they have streamlined shells and flippers instead of feet. They migrate long distances to lay eggs, thousands of miles for some species and populations, and usually return to the same beach where they were hatched. Female sea turtles come ashore to lay their eggs in sand, but the males of most species never come ashore. The exception is the green sea turtle, which sometimes comes ashore just to bask in the sun. Once the babies hatch, they head to the sea and take off, swimming far past the continental shelf where there are fewer predators. They live around rafts of floating seaweed call sargassum, which protects them and attracts the tiny prey they eat.

Six of the extant sea turtles are relatively small. Not small compared to regular turtles, small compared to the seventh living sea turtle, the leatherback. It’s much bigger than the others and not very closely related to them. It can grow some nine feet long, or 3 meters, and instead of having a hard shell like other sea turtles, its carapace is covered with tough, leathery skin studded with tiny osteoderms. Seven raised ridges on the carapace run from head to tail and make the turtle more stable in the water, a good thing because leatherbacks migrate thousands of miles every year. Not only is the leatherback the biggest and heaviest turtle alive today by far, it’s the heaviest living reptile that isn’t a crocodile. It has huge front flippers, is much more streamlined even than other sea turtles, and has a number of adaptations to life in the open ocean.

The leatherback lives throughout the world, from warm tropical oceans up into the Arctic Circle. It mostly eats jellyfish, so it goes where the jellyfish go, which is everywhere. It also eats other soft-bodied animals like squid. To help it swallow slippery, soft food when it doesn’t have the crushing plates that other sea turtles have, the leatherback’s throat is full of backwards-pointing spines. What goes down will not come back up, which is great when the turtle swallows a jellyfish, not so great when it swallows a plastic bag. It’s endangered due to pollution, accidental drowning when it gets caught in fishing nets, and habitat loss of its nesting beaches.

The hawksbill, or hawkbill sea turtle grows to a much more reasonable size, around three feet long, or 90 cm, and mostly lives around tropical reefs. It has a more pointed, hooked beak than other sea turtles, sort of like a hawk, which gives it its name. You might think it eats fish with a beak like that, but it mostly eats jellyfish and sea sponges. It especially likes the sea sponges, some of which are lethally toxic to most other animals. It also doesn’t have a problem eating even extremely stingy jellies and jelly-like animals like the Portuguese man-o-war. The hawkbill’s head is armored so the stings don’t bother it, although it does close its eyes while it chomps down on jellies. Its meat can be toxic due to the toxins it ingests. People used to kill hawksbill sea turtles for their multicolored shells, but these days it’s a protected species like all sea turtles.

The hawksbill is also biofluorescent! Researchers only found this out by accident in 2015, when a team studying biofluorescent animals in the Solomon Islands saw and filmed a hawksbill glowing like a UFO with neon green and red light. So you never know what other secrets sea turtles might be hiding.

You can find Strange Animals Podcast at strangeanimalspodcast.blubrry.net. That’s blueberry without any E’s. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, email us at strangeanimalspodcast@gmail.com. We also have a Patreon at patreon.com/strangeanimalspodcast if you’d like to support us for as little as one dollar a month and get monthly bonus episodes.

Thanks for listening!