- According to 13th-century Norse texts, when the great fish “hafgufa” goes to feed, it belches some food, then stretches its massive mouth wide.
- The sea monster remains still, mouth agape, as fish come to nibble on the food, not knowing that they rest in the jaws of the behemoth.
- At first, he thought it was just an interesting coincidence, but it soon became evident that this similarity could be something more.
Norse literature from the 13th-century claim that the enormous fish “hafgufa” opens its enormous mouth wide after belching food when it goes to eat, as published in Smithsonian Mag.
Sea monster
Fish approach to munch on the meal, unaware that they are in the behemoth’s jaws, but the sea monster stands still, mouth gaping.
When enough unaware victims commit this deadly error, the hafgufa snaps its jaws shut and savours the meal it has just caught.
John McCarthy, a maritime archaeologist at Flinders University, was reading a description of this mythical monster when it occurred to him that this feeding method—and a similar one employed by an ancient Greek beast called “aspidochelone”—resembled those of certain whales.
At first, he thought it was just an interesting coincidence, but it soon became evident that this similarity could be something more.
Most interesting connections
“Once I started looking into it in detail and discussing it with colleagues who specialize in medieval literature, we realized that the oldest versions of these myths do not describe sea monsters at all, but are explicit in describing a type of whale,” McCarthy says in a statement.
“The more we investigated it, the more interesting the connections became and the marine biologists we spoke to found the idea fascinating.”
In 2011, researchers noticed humpback whales leaving their jaws open at a right angle and waiting for food to come to them.
This practice, known as trap feeding, has been seen at least a dozen more times since, but scientists thought it was a new behaviour.
“It shows that such interesting feeding behaviour has clearly captured humans’ imagination in the past.”
Referred as ‘Aspidochelone’
Indeed, rather than evolving the strategy recently, it appears that whales may have been eating like this since more than 2,000 years ago when the first known reference to “aspidochelone” appeared in a Greek manuscript. In addition to ancient and medieval texts, researchers also found 17th and 18th-century texts that described the hafgufa—but with more flair than their Norse predecessors.
“Everybody assumed that it was so fantastical, it just couldn’t possibly be real,” Erin Sebo, an expert in historic manuscripts at Flinders University and a co-author of the new research, says to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Genelle Weule.
“It is really interesting that ancient and medieval people were seeing enough whales and getting close enough to whales to actually be able to observe this behaviour as accurately as they did when modern people haven’t.”
Why scientists didn’t observe trap feeding until just over a decade ago remains a mystery.
Perhaps modern technologies like drones have prompted discoveries by allowing scientists to watch whales more easily, McCarthy tells Sascha Pare of Live Science.
It’s also a reminder, they say, that even though ancient people didn’t have the same scientific knowledge we have today, their observations could be more accurate than we realize.
One specialist in Scandinavian history and culture at the University of Washington, Lauren Poyer, who was not part of the study, tells Jocelyn Solis-Moreira of Popular Science, “It can be easy to forget that individuals in the mediaeval period were just as discerning as we are now.” When it comes to surviving and prospering in their distinctive geographies, their cultural knowledge and customs were just as rich and possibly even more valuable than ours today.
Did you subscribe to our newsletter?
It’s free! Click here to subscribe!
Source: Smithsonian Mag
