December 28, 2014
Dr Georg Wilhelm Steller was a German physician and naturalist participating during the early 1740s in the last of Danish explorer Vitus Bering’s Russian expeditions to the Arctic waters (now called the Bering Sea) separating Siberia’s Kamchatka Peninsula from Alaska. During this expedition, Steller documented many new species of animal, including four very contentious forms that continue to arouse cryptozoological curiosity even today.
(c) William M. Rebsamen
I have previously documented one of these, Steller’s sea-bear. So here now are the other three. Namely, Steller’s sea-cow (officially long-extinct but possibly still surviving today); Steller’s sea-raven (a mysterious black-and-white bird only occurring in the least accessible of localities); and Steller’s sea-monkey or sea-ape (a mandarin-moustached mystery sea mammal, seemingly lacking forelimbs and reported not only by Steller but also by modern-day eyewitnesses).
Further details can be obtained here on my ShukerNature blog.
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.
Filed under Avian Mysteries, Classic Animals of Discovery, Cryptozoology, Expedition Reports, Extinct, Eyewitness Accounts, Megafauna, Merbeings, Sea Monsters, ShukerNature