Over the centuries, people have never stopped reverie about the ocean, believing that it is full of sea monsters, deep-sea monsters and other unknown strange creatures.
With word-of-mouth legends and hands-on experiences, mysterious creatures in the ocean are entering our lives in different ways.
Among these images, one creature that often appears is the mermaid.
Myths about mermaids are very diverse, with different appearances, origins, and personalities.
The first recorded half-fish, half-human creature was Oannes, a Babylonian god of the 4th century BC who went out to sea every day and returned at night.
Mermaids are originally described as having a bird-like body, but in most descriptions, it is a figure of a humanoid beauty with her upper body dragging her tail.
Unlike the mermaid's beautiful appearance, most describe it as a beautiful kraken, attracting sailors in the ocean with its song and then dragging them into the water to kill.
Do mermaids really exist?
The legend of the mermaid made everyone want to see it.
There are always some news about "mermaids" popping up all over the world from time to time, but almost all of the news is unconfirmed and seems to be just for the sake of attracting people's attention.
Historically, however, Columbus did make it clear in his voyageary diaries that he had seen "mermaids" and that the real mermaids were much uglier than the ones legends had.
On January 8, 1493, on a journey to the Americas, Columbus clearly saw three "mermaids" on the ship, which slowly emerged from the sea, and surprisingly, the mermaids were not beautiful, with small eyes, large noses, and the whole face looked particularly masculine.
It turns out that Columbus saw not a real mermaid, but a manatee.
Mermaids seem to exist only in mythology, while in reality, manatees and dugongs are considered the creatures closest to "mermaids".
How could a rough manatee be associated with a beautiful mermaid?
The manatee is a rough creature with a shape that doesn't match beauty.
Relatively close to the manatee is the elephant, which originally lived on land and was forced to live in the water.
The body is very large, generally 3-4 meters long, weighs up to 360 kg, is stout, spindle-shaped, and has nothing to do with elegance.
Dugongs, along with manatees, belong to the order Manatee, and the two are very similar in size.
So why are manatees or dugongs considered the closest animals to mermaids?
First of all, the shape is a bit like.
Manatees have short and stout forelimbs, the hind limbs degenerate into a tail, when the manatee surfaces, the light on the sea surface is relatively dark, it is indeed easy to think of as a mermaid;
Secondly, the female manatee surfaces in the night, picks up the cubs and feeds them, which is very similar to humans, so it is always misunderstood;
Most importantly, the manatee is more docile, feeds on aquatic plants, and is a very gentle "giant" in the ocean.
This "character setting" is very similar to the feminine gentle persona.
At last
Whether the mermaid in the myth exists or not, no one can say well, but the actual existence of the "mermaid" has rarely received people's attention.
Today's manatees and dugongs are in steep decline, and the culprit is still humans.
They did not eat the poisonous algae and died.
In addition, because of the selfish desires of human beings, many creatures have also become extinct.
The most typical is the Stella sea cattle of the Dugong family.
In June 1741, an expedition shipwrecked, starving and cold, encountered stella's great cattle, which the crew fed on. The crew who returned home safely told this thrilling story, but also promoted this special "food" to the people in their hometown: the meat was delicious and tasted a little almond.
Just because of this unintentional planting of grass, people took a large-scale hunting campaign, which led to the extinction of the Stella sea cattle in just 26 years.
Because it is delicious and leads to extinction, the Stella sea cow is not the only one.