8. Kraken

8. Kraken

The Colossal Octopus: Pen and wash drawing by malacologist Pierre Dénys de Montfort, 1801, from the descriptions of French sailors reportedly attacked by such a creature off the coast of Angola

    There are countless witness and legend about UMA, unidentified mysterious animals, all over the world. Among them, kraken is the biggest one. It is said the size is 2.5 km. Kraken was made famous by, a Danish clergyman, Erik Pontoppidan. He described kraken’s size like a small island. It is natural that he told we cannot see its complete picture because of the bigness. It is said that some sailor mistook kraken floating on　the ocean for an island remote from any other land and landed it. The more we hear, the more suspicious we become against Pontoppidan’s stories. But it can be overhasty in conclusion that kraken is a mere monster in fantasy.

Pierre Dénys de Montfort's "Poulpe Colossal" attacks a merchant ship (1810)

    Kraken is too big. It is unbelievable, to be sure, but unidentified animals’ size tends to be exaggerated. If we were not strongly conscious of the unbelievable size, kraken will be not an absolute lie. The most famous feature of kraken is that kraken uses its long tentacles like whipping to attack the seaman on the ship. Then we can imagine kraken as a large cephalopod. In fact, there are large squids and octopuses such as giant squid it can become more than 10m, giant pacific octopus it can become more than 4m. In addition it is also said that kraken’s excrement have strong fragrant and it gather fish. This feature calls up ambergris which is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish color produced in the digestive system of sperm whales.

This specimen, caught in early 2007, is the largest cephalopod ever recorded. Here it is shown in its live state during capture, with the delicate red skin still intact and the mantle characteristically inflated.

Giant Pacific octopus

Ambergris

    Ancient times, sailor took a voyage at the risk of their life. During a traveling by sea, when they met such strange creatures on the ocean, they must have felt as if the creatures tried to attack them and shuddered with horror. After their return, such stories would become their legends of bravery and while the stories were passed on from one person to another they would be exaggerated. Finally kraken might have been born.

    By the way, now we tend to imagine kraken as a big octopus but also, kraken used to be described like giant shrimp, lobster, jellyfish, dolphin, whale and etc. Contrary to expectation, Erik Pontoppidan imagined kraken as a huge sea star.





referene
 http://umafan.blog72.fc2.com/blog-entry-348.html
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_squid
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambergris