Zuiyo Maru Carcass Comes to Life
Posted by: Scott Mardis on March 7th, 2014
John Conway’s Zuiyo Maru Creature Painting
London artist John Conway recently painted a hypothetical reconstruction of what the infamous Zuiyo Maru carcass (found off New Zealand in 1977) might have looked like in life, assuming the carcass as found was an accurate representation of the living animal. Here is a montage of Conway’s painting compared with the real item. This painting was made for the recent book Cryptozoologicon: Vol. 1 (John Conway, C. M. Koseman and Darren Naish, Irregular Books, 2013). With Conway’s kind permission, this montage has been presented here.
The Fort Knox of Zuiyo Maru scientific papers. Enjoy!
About Scott Mardis
Scott Mardis has been an active field investigator of the Lake Champlain “Monster” since 1992. He is a former sustaining member of the defunct International Society of Cryptozoology and a former volunteer worker in the Vertebrate Paleontology Dept. of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences (1990-1992). He co-authored a scientific abstract about the Lake Champlain hydrophone sounds for the Acoustical Society of America in 2010. He currently lives in Bradenton, Florida.
I remember that footage: From “Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World, Volume 2.” I have the complete set. ^_^
The reconstruction should resemble what the carcass looked like in life…a basking shark.
This case was closed by a Japanese scientific study of tissue samples from the carcass in 1978 when their findings pointed to a basking shark being the most likely answer as the sample and skeletal structure were closely aligned with shark characteristics.
While the vast oceans may yet yield a real “sea serpent” proper, the Zuiyo Mara carcass was not one.
If one didn’t know better this whole video clip looks like another viral video attempt by J.J. Abrams.
Just sayin! ;p
Neck looks way too long to be a basking shark. Plus the tissue samples that looked like shark cartilage? So what? Many creatures have similar looking cartilage. I’m open to a shark explanation-it just looks different in the neck dept. especially.