Mystery Creature Carcass Identified?
Posted by: Karl Shuker on August 24th, 2015
Has the creature in these two photos from Arlene Gaal’s book In Search of Ogopogo ever been conclusively identified and, if so, what was it and does anyone have any published sources for the identification?
Here’s pic #1:
And here’s pic #2:
About Karl Shuker
My name is Dr Karl P.N. Shuker. I am a zoologist (BSc & PhD), media consultant, and the author of 25 books and hundreds of articles, specialising in cryptozoology and animal mythology. I have a BSc (Honours) degree in pure zoology from the University of Leeds (U.K.), and a PhD in zoology and comparative physiology from the University of Birmingham (U.K.).
I have acted jointly as consultant and major contributor to three multi-author volumes on cryptozoology and other mysterious phenomena.
I am the Life Sciences Consultant to The Guinness Book of Records/Guinness World Records (Guinness: London, 1997-present day), and was consultant to Monsters (Lorenz Books: London, 2001), as well as a contributor to Mysteries of the Deep (Llewellyn: St Paul, 1998), Guinness Amazing Future (Guinness: London, 1999), The Earth (Channel 4 Books: London, 2000), and Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained (Chambers: London, 2007).
I appear regularly on television & radio, was a consultant for the Discovery TV series Into the Unknown, and a question setter for the BBC's quiz show Mastermind.
I am a Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, a Member of the Society of Authors, and the Cryptozoology Consultant for the Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ).
I have written articles for numerous publications, including Fortean Times, The X Factor, Paranormal Magazine, FATE, Strange Magazine, Prediction, Beyond, Uri Geller's Encounters, Phenomena, Alien Encounters, Wild About Animals, All About Cats, All About Dogs, Cat World, etc.
In 2005, I was honoured by the naming of a new species of loriciferan invertebrate after me - Pliciloricus shukeri.
As this happened in the 1980s, I’m pretty sure that some scientific paper or database includes this incident together with the identification as basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus). Following Karl Shuker’s question re the identification I’ve done some comparisons showing clearly that its another pseudoplesiosaur.
See: Update: Mystery Creature Carcass Identified?
I can honestly say I have never seen those photos before. Interesting. Of course I wish there had been a few close-ups…always the tantalizing photo without enough to say….
Sturgeon? Awful big and awful dark, but who knows how long it was laying there. There do seem to be some band marks on the body in the lower picture, but not enough for me to make a guess one way or another…
cool find!
Not sure why we’re talking Ogopogo here when Lake Okanagan is on the other side of the Canada. The Gaspe’ Peninsula is open to the sea at the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The supplied images would suggest to me that this is a small baleen whale or large beaked whale or Pilot Whale. What appears to be a flipper is showing in one image and what appears to be tail flukes in another.
Well, the images were included in a book about Ogopogo for one…