According to reports, the latest research shows that Japan's most famous 300-year-old "mermaid" mummy is confirmed to be a fake, just a mixture of monkeys and fish, which is made by people sewing the trunk of the monkey corpse with the tail of the salmon, and then decorating human hair and nails. There is a sense of mystery about its origins. Due to legends that mermaid carcasses have extremely high medicinal value, this mummy is much worshipped by local Residents of Japan.
The "mummy" was found by members of the Okayama Mingu Society Council in Japan at a temple in Okayama Prefecture when the 30.5-centimeter-long mummy body was placed in a box. The member stated that it matched the mermaid specimen depicted in an encyclopedia of mysterious creatures. In the box was a note showing that the body was a mermaid caught by fishermen between 1736 and 1741 and subsequently sold to a wealthy family in Okayama.
The monks of the temple regarded the mermaid mummy as a health omen and admired it very much, hoping that it would help alleviate the epidemic, even if only slightly. Previously placed in a glass cabinet in the temple for visitors to pray, there are two other temples in Japan that enshrine similar mermaid mummies.
The temple had previously been persuaded to allow scientists to study the mysterious corpse, which was studied by Paleontologist Takafumi Kato of Kurashiki University of Arts and Sciences and colleagues, and on Feb. 2, scientists used CT scans to image the mummy and take DNA samples, which revealed that it was not a mermaid, but was a combination of a monkey carcass and salmon tail, possibly made by local Residents of Japan, for sale to curious Western tourists.
There had previously been a similar scam, known as the "Fijian Mermaid", which was sold to Dutch tourists who came to Japan in the early 19th century, later to British merchants, and eventually shipped to the United States and became the true prototype in the movie King of the Circus.