"In May 1925, a strange decaying corpse washed ashore on Moore's Beach, now known as Natural Bridges State Beach, in Santa Cruz. Locals who swarmed out to investigate the specimen described elephantine legs, a fish-like tail and a long neck stretched across the sand. It was quickly dubbed a sea monster. Photographs published at the time reveal that much of the monster's carcass had collapsed, leaving only the head mostly intact. Its eyes were small, its forehead bulbous; its jaws formed a duck-like beak. Sensational accounts were plastered across newspapers from California to Texas."
"Barton Warren Evermann, then director of the California Academy of Sciences, visited the specimen on the beach and identified it as a beaked whale - a little-studied group of whales with dolphin-like heads - and had the specimen sent to the academy. Scientists there later confirmed the creature was a Baird's beaked whale, Berardius bairdii, publishing their findings in 1929 in the Journal of Mammalogy. The Santa Cruz sea monster shows how decay can mislead even careful observers. Decomposing whales can form a tubular shape known as a "whale sock," said Moe Flannery, ornithology and mammalogy collections manager at the California Academy of Sciences."
In May 1925 a decaying carcass washed ashore on Moore's Beach, Santa Cruz, and was described by locals as having elephantine legs, a fish-like tail and a long neck. Photographs show a collapsed body with the head mostly intact, small eyes, a bulbous forehead and duck-like jaws. Barton Warren Evermann identified the specimen as a beaked whale; scientists later confirmed it as a Baird's beaked whale. Decomposing whales can form tubular "whale socks" as gas and tissue breakdown reshape the carcass, causing bones to fall out and skin to flow around. Sensational media coverage fueled myths but the specimen aided understanding of deep-sea whale biology.
Read at The Mercury News
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