Brandon Lewis
Shawn Faucette
Richie Rene Juarez
Brent Guttenplan
Mermaids
Amermaidis a legendary aquatic creature with the upper body of a female human and the tail of afish.Mermaids appear in thefolkloreof many cultures worldwide, including the Near East, Europe, Africa and Asia. The first stories appeared in ancientAssyria, in which the goddessAtargatis transforms herself into a mermaid out of shame for accidentally killing her human lover. Mermaids are sometimes depicted as perilous creatures associated with floods, storms, shipwrecks, and drowning. In other folk traditions (or sometimes within the same tradition) they can be benevolent, bestowing boons or falling in love with humans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPUgmqEBeuY&list=PL6DE776A2F0861B60
This is a documentary that was on animal planet in 2012 and includes speakers from N.O.A.A. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)and a wide range of other scientists. One of these scientists is a forensic expert that worked on recreating the skull that was found in the same manner that they do in criminal cases today. Along with the facts that the film lays out there is just as much fluff in an attempt to make it “sexy” to compete with the other television programs. The film is about an hour in its entirety but if you have some time to kill it’s entertaining regardless of how you feel about mermaids.
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/mermaids.html
This link is too N.O.A.A.’s official website which is a government operated and maintained site, note the “.gov” in the web address. This foundation is the one who would be responsible for any research done on aquatic life and on their site they state that mermaids are not real. If you do take the time to watch the video in the first link you will see multiple former employees from N.O.A.A. being interviewed and stating the exact opposite. One of the employees that spoke out is Dr. Paul Robertson who was the lead of the fishery dept of N.O.A.A. from 1996 to 2005.
Mermaids in Cave Drawings
Other evidence found suggesting that mermaids are out there can be found in ancient carvings around the world. This particular carving that dates back to Ancient Mesopotamia depicts figures, some half fish, half human; and others (humans) with weaponry showing there must have been some sort of interaction with the worlds early mermaids.
http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/2401/mermaids_in_myth_and_art.html
“The carvings of Ancient Mesopotamia already offer alternatives, showing fish-tailed mermen (and occasionally merwomen) of the type with which we’re familiar, but also fish-garbed figures, standing men who seem to have a fish-body (or skin) hanging down their backs, the fish head worn like a hood (pictured left). The first type doesn’t seem to have any individual identity – probably they were protective dæmons rather than specific gods (the Mesopotamians were big on hybridisation – goat-fish, scorpion-men, lion-men, snake-dragons). The unquestioning Internet identification of such figures with Dagon, actually a god of corn, is part of a long-standing but highly dubious tradition based on the misinterpretation of a passage in the Old Testament. [1] The standing figures, however, might represent Oannes, a sage-like creature described as having the whole body of a fish yet also a human head and feet, who emerged from the sea to teach humanity everything from architecture to agriculture. Surviving texts are too fragmentary to clarify this mysterious imagery, but Mesopotamian fish-men, like bird-men, seem generally to be a (positive) part of the dæmonic universe existing alongside the merely human one – and possibly priests donned the fish-cloaks of the standing figure-type to access some of their power and demonstrate their living reality.”
Other evidence has surfaced however. Off the coast of Germany a piece of bone had been found, it looked as if there was a notch where a stingrays spine would fit in to create and underwater weapon/tool.
In 2004 off the coast of South Africa a skull was discovered that looked unlike any skull by today’s standards, but thought to be that of an early humanoid. Further study of the skull suggests the crown at the top of the head gives it a streamlined shape, for splitting through the water.
In line with the curiosity of people ifmermaidsdo really exist, two pictures ofmermaidskeletons surfaced in the internet which became viral.
The first one, labeled as ‘mermaidskeleton found in Bulgaria’ is a fake one and is just a combination of three different images combined using aphotomanipulation software.
Aquatic Ape Theory
http://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/mermaids-the-body-found/
“While coastal flooding millions of years ago turned some of our ancestors inland, is it possible that one group of our ancestors didn’t retreat fromwaterbut rather went in deeper? Could they have ventured farther into sea out of necessity and to find food? The Aquatic Ape Theory makes it possible to believe that while we evolved into terrestrial humans, our aquatic relatives turned into something strangely similar to the fabledmermaid. As evidence that humans once evolved into aquatic creatures, the Aquatic Ape Theory cites some of the striking differences between man and other primates and the many features wesharewith marine mammals, including the following:
§ Webbing between fingers (other primates don’t have this)
§ Subcutaneous fat (insulating from coldwater)
§ Control over breath (humans can hold breath up to 20 minutes, longer than any other terrestrial animal)
§ Loss of body hair (hair creates drag inwater)
§ Instinctive ability to swim (human babies are able to do this)
§ A highly developed brain, which depends on nutrients provided by seafood”
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/pseudoscience/aquatic_ape_theory.html
“And they can continue to criticize the "Savanna model" as inadequate to explain human features-especially soft tissue characteristics. This process itself displays an element of the disingenuousness, considering that the fossil evidence increasingly suggests that hominids did not originate on the savanna at all. In fact all hominid sites earlier than around 3 million years appear to represent woodland of an open or closed nature. It appears quite evident now that our "descent from the trees" didn't take us out of the woods. As the present evidence continues to develop, the Aquatic Ape debate gets farther and farther from relevance.”
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4357
“First, it's true that humans have no fur, but it's not true that a lack of fur is characteristic of aquatic mammals. The aquatic mammals that are furless, like the dolphins and manatees, are extremely specialized swimmers that have been radically adapted for swimming for tens of millions of years. Others like hippos adapted by becoming very massive. The rest — seals, otters, beavers — remain furry. An aquatic ape would beunlikelyto have lost its fur.”
“Second, the claims made by aquatic apers about body fat is factually wrong. Humans do have subcutaneous fat, but it's just like what the other great apes have, and is veryunlikethe blubbery fat developed by the furless aquatic mammals. An aquatic ape's subcutaneous fat wouldnotbe like a whale's insulating, buoyant blubber.”
“Third, bipedalism has developed only in land animals, and is not an adaptation for an aquatic life. All the mammals who use two legs some or all of the time — kangaroos, primates, bears — are land animals. All of the aquatic mammals are either four-legged like hippos, or specialized swimmers like dolphins that use no legs at all. An aquatic ape wouldnotbe bipedal.”
“Fourth, it's untrue that only humans and aquatic mammals can control their breath voluntarily. Most primates can hold their breath, as can dogs. Humans do have much better breath control than any other animal, but we also use our breath for speech and other skills not found in the animal kingdom, dolphins included. An aquatic ape wouldnotneed a human's highly specialized breath control.”
“Fifth, humans do indeed have really big sebaceous glands that make our skin nice and oily. Only one other mammal does, and it's not aquatic. It's the lemur. Why lemurs and humans have this is not thoroughly understood, but there's clearly no correlation between enlarged sebaceous glands and swimming. An aquatic ape wouldnotneed enlarged sebaceous glands, at least not according to any evidence from the animal kingdom.”