Real Life Monsters of the Deep
Water. Nature’s life giver. It drifts aloft the atmosphere in vast, multi-million pound pockets of clouds and collects in pools far below (some categorized as oceans) and nearly every living thing on Earth relies on its sustenance. But dark things drift below the effervescent ripples. Things of nightmares. Horrid creatures.
Real Life Monsters Of The Deep… Rivers, Lakes, And Oceans Oh My!
Fresh water, salt water. It matters not the source, for there are monsters lurking in nearly every pool and puddle on the surface of this great blue planet.
What The F*#% Is That?!
At 6 foot across and roughly 400 lb, this is quite possibly the largest stingray ever caught and captured on camera. Part of the magnificent “River Monsters” television series, this was a long time coming. An exhaustive cat and mouse game that locked the show’s host, extreme angler and biologist Jeremy Wade, in a battle for many hours with the ferocious river beast. The end result was an incredible pay off with a shiny, silver little lining on top.
Check out the clip above to see the creature in all its glory.
Legendary Drifters
Found nearly anywhere in the open ocean, sperm whales are monsters in stature and mythology. The famed Moby Dick was a sperm whale and there are old fishing tales of sperm whales capsizing vessels or locked in fierce battle with other sea monsters.
Here are a few facts that makes sperm whales terrifying:
- Can live for more than 60 years.
- Second deepest diving mammal.
- It has the largest brain of any animal on Earth.
- The largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator on the planet.
An Elusive Predator
Possibly the long lost cousin of famed man-eater Lolong (see below) the Nile crocodile Gustave, known as the Monster of Lake Tanganyika, takes up residence in the Republic of Burundi located in East Africa. At 20 feet long and approaching 2,000 pounds, Gustave is reputed to have devoured scores, even hundreds of villagers in the war-weary African country.
In 2004 National Geographic set out to track down and radio-tag the beast but ultimately left empty-handed, convinced he had either been killed or slipped away into hiding.
In fact, “Gustave is quite alive,” Patrice Faye, a self-taught naturalist who has been stalking Gustave since 1998, said by telephone on the third anniversary of NatGeo’s aborted mission. “After a long absence he has come back to the Rusizi, and a lot of tourists have had the privilege of seeing him. He’s in excellent health, and his prize list of victims has grown.”
Hook’s Nightmare
If you didn’t see the video with your own eyes then you might not believe this baddy actually existed. A nightmarish legend to locals, this crocodile was captured in a densely populated river region of a fishing village in the Philippines after an exhaustive search that brought in some of the world’s foremost crocodile hunters. Measuring over 20 foot long and weighing 2,370 lb, and considered one of the largest saltwater crocodiles ever to be observed in the wild, Lolong, as he was named, was captured in 2009 using steel cables and a rice wagon. This croc is one of the real life monsters of the deep.
In November 2011, Australian crocodile expert Dr. Adam Britton of National Geographic sedated and measured Lolong in his enclosure and confirmed him as the world’s largest crocodile ever caught and put in captivity.
Do you have a story about real life monsters of the deep? Have you seen something in the waters that made your skin dance with electricity? Tell us! Comment below and share on Facebook!
