A bizarre ‘mermaid’ that seems to be part fish, part monkey, and part reptile is being probed by scientists in a bid to unravel its mysteries.
But now its secrets could be revealed, after the so-called mermaid was X-rayed and CT scanned for the first time in an effort to decipher its true nature.
Joseph Cress, a radiologist at Northern Kentucky University, said: ‘It seems to be a hodgepodge of at least three different species externally.
A bizarre ‘mermaid’ that seems to be part fish, part monkey, and part reptile is being probed by scientists in a bid to unravel its mysteries
The mummy was brought back from Japan by an American sailor and donated to the Clark County Historical Society in Springfield, Ohio, in 1906
This mysterious creature – dubbed a ‘mermaid globster’ – caused a stir when it washed up on a beach in Papua New Guinea
‘There’s the head and torso of a monkey, the hands seem to be that of an amphibian almost like an alligator, crocodile or lizard of some sort.
‘And then there’s that tail of a fish – again, species unknown.’
Barnum, whose life inspired the 2017 blockbuster The Greatest Showman, exhibited a similar specimen at his American Museum in New York before it burned down in 1865.
In Japan itself, some legends say mermaids grant immortality to whoever tastes their flesh.
The so-called mermaid was X-rayed and CT scanned for the first time in an effort to decipher its true nature
Joseph Cress, a radiologist at Northern Kentucky University, said: ‘It seems to be a hodgepodge of at least three different species externally’
‘There’s the head and torso of a monkey, the hands seem to be that of an amphibian almost like an alligator, crocodile or lizard of some sort,’ Cross said
‘One woman, whose father was the curator in the 1970s recalls that it ‘scared her to death’ when she would visit her dad at work.’
Fritz added that the mummy could date back to the 1870s, when records showed the original donor had served in the US Navy.