Top 5 Creepy Things You Didn't Know About Mermaids

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Top 5 Creepy Things You Didn’t Know About Mermaids

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water… Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the top 5 creepy things you didn’t know about mermaids.

For this list, we’re looking at things you may not know about these mythical underwater creatures. However, we’re sticking to facts and information with a deep history and connection to this staple of folklore, rather than things made up to make Hollywood blockbusters more exciting.

A creature with the top half of a human and the bottom half of a fish is pretty unusual, but what’s more unusual is just how wide this legend spreads. It’s impossible to trace the exact origin of the mermaid myth, but the earliest account of a mermaid-like creature likely comes from Ancient Syria, and the fertility goddess Atargatis who was half-woman and half-fish. In Greek mythology, mermaids end up conflated with sirens, while in the 11th Century a stone carving in Durham Castle, England has the earliest artistic depiction of a mermaid in Europe. They also appear in the works of the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, as well as the Arabian Nights.

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#4: The Aquatic Ape Theory

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In 1960, marine biologist Alister Hardy hypothesized that humans may actually be descended from some kind of water-dwelling creature, and that our watery ancestors led to us developing different physical traits from other primates, like walking on two legs and being almost hairless. The gist of the hypothesis is that humans needed to walk on two legs in order to breathe air and wade through deep water, are hairless because hair is inconvenient when you live in the ocean, and also that the human larynx is specially adapted so that we can hold our breaths for a long time. Incidentally, the world record for breath holding underwater is 24 minutes, which does give this theory some weight.

In many traditions, mermaids have a variety of supernatural abilities – aside from the whole being-half-fish thing.Some stories claim mermaids and mermen can shapeshift, or at least become human in order to walk on land. Meanwhile, in Scandinavian myths a version of mermaid called a Havfine who were able to see into the future, and this along with other European mermaid traditions also claim that seeing a mermaid was a bad omen to superstitious sailors, meaning a dangerous storm was brewing.

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#2: Some Legends Claim They Drag Men Under the Sea

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The concept of the mermaid we’re most familiar with today actually originates primarily from Irish folklore and a creature called a merrow, which was first written about in the early 19th Century. They have scaly, green fish tails, green hair, and pale green skin, but are also supposed to be incredibly beautiful. This, along with the enchanting music they play from the furthest depths of the ocean, is probably why young men become so enamored with them that they allow themselves to be dragged under the water to be with the mermaids, captured and docile.

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#1: Sightings Are Still Happening

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Though there is absolutely no concrete evidence of mermaids, sightings have been happening for hundreds of years and continue to happen today. In 2009 in Kiryat Yam, Israel, many people report that they saw a mermaid on the beach performing tricks. Three years later, installation of irrigation pumps in Zimbabwe had to be halted because the workers claimed they were being harassed by the mermaids living there. In fact, people are so willing to believe in mermaids that when sideshows began exhibiting so-called Fiji Mermaids, people seemed oblivious to the fact that it was the top half of a monkey sewn onto the bottom half of a fish and mummified.