Merhorse

Picture a giant sea lion stretched into the slim body of a plesiosaur, and you have the merhorse. It earns its name from a striking mane of reddish hair along its medium to long neck. Since sea mammals are nearly hairless, some suggest these strands are really breathing filaments that pull air from the water so the beast can stay down longer, much as certain frogs do. Reports of a jagged crest down its back are probably just clumps of matted hair.

Its horselike head is broad, so from the front it looks diamond-shaped and almost serpentine. Enormous forward-facing eyes, black but flashing red or green in direct light, mark it as a hunter of dark water. A wide, pale-lipped mouth ringed with bristles and a very hairy face can give it something like a mustache.

It swims with two front flippers. Behind, it has either a false tail made of hind flippers fused upright, or no hind flippers at all and a forked tail with a notched edge. The smooth, glossy hide may carry short fur and is a single dark shade of brown, black or steel gray except for the mane; warm-water specimens are reported as mahogany.

The merhorse apparently feeds on large fish and squid, which fits the old stories, told in places as far apart as Scandinavia and the South Pacific, of sea serpents warring with squid. Sightings come from almost every ocean except the Indian Ocean and the polar seas.