4 ms·

I’d like to know how one “discovers” a non-existent animal.

• TheTester 5y ago
  By seeing it We believe that there is a lot of extinct species and suddenly we happen to find them this could well be the case
• nautilius 5y ago
  That's how every single claim of discovery has to start.
• _3u10 5y ago
  It can take millennia. Just ask the Vikings / Pliny the Elder / Aristotle about how long it took to find the kraken. It seems we just wait for them to wash up on beaches, and then the land lubbers start believing its real. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_giant_squid_specimens_and_sightings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_giant_squid_specimens_...
  • technothrasher 5y ago
    Is it really fair to equate giant squids with the Kraken? The Kraken is supposed to be the size of an island and capable of devouring massive ships. That sounds orders of magnitude bigger than a giant squid to me. Pliny the Elder and Aristotle seem to be describing giant squids. The Nordic legends seem to be describing a mythical animal that may have been inspired by giant squids but certainly is not the same thing. It seems like it would be similar to say the the Roc has been "found" because we have documented very large eagles. Until we have an eagle that can carry away a fully grown elephant, it's not a Roc.
    • rsj_hn 5y ago
      I thought the Kraken just broke the ships into pieces with it's super-tentacles
    • _3u10 5y ago
      I would imagine that between the people who saw the 'kraken' in small viking ships, and the people who wrote the history of these sightings that some embellishments were made.
• chatoyance 5y ago
  Grainy photographs and elaborate tales are very important.