Stronsay Beast

Sea carcass found in Scotland in 1808

The Stronsay Beast was a large globster that washed ashore on the island of Stronsay, in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, after a storm on 25 September 1808. The carcass was measured as 55 ft in length, without part of its tail. The Natural History Society of Edinburgh could not identify the carcass and decided it was a new species, probably a sea serpent. The Scottish naturalist Patrick Neill gave it the scientific name Halsydrus pontoppidani in honor of Erik Pontoppidan, who described sea serpents in a work published half a century previously. The anatomist Sir Everard Home in London later dismissed the measurement, declaring it must have been about 30 ft, and deemed it to be a decayed basking shark. In 1849, Scottish professor John Goodsir in Edinburgh made the same conclusion.

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