Sea serpent
A sea serpent or sea dragon is a type of dragon sea monster described in various mythologies, most notably Mesopotamian (Tiamat), Judaeo-Christian (Leviathan), Greek (Cetus, Echidna, Hydra, Scylla), and Norse (Jörmungandr). Mythology. The mytheme, the chief god in the role of the hero slaying a sea serpent, is widespread both in the ancient Near East and in Indo-European mythology, e.g. Lotan and Hadad, Leviathan and Yahweh, Tiamat and Marduk (see also Labbu, Bašmu, Mušḫuššu), Illuyanka and Tarhunt, Yammu and Baal in the Baal Cycle etc. The Hebrew Bible also has less mythological descriptions of large sea  creatures as part of creation under God's command, such as the Tanninim mentioned in Book of Genesis 1:21 and the "great serpent" of Amos 9:3. In the Aeneid, a pair of sea serpents killed Laocoön and his sons when Laocoön argued against bringing the Trojan Horse into Troy. In antiquity and in the Bible, dragons were envisioned as huge serpentine monsters, which means that the image of a dragon with two or four legs and wings came much later during the Late Middle Ages. Stories depicting sea-dwelling serpents may include the Babylonian myths of Tiamat, the myths of  the Hydra, Scylla, Cetus, and Echidna in Greek mythology, and Christianity's Leviathan. In Norse mythology, "Jörmungandr" (or "Midgarðsormr") was a sea serpent so long that it encircled the entire world, Midgard. Some stories report of sailors mistaking its back for a chain of islands. Sea serpents also appear frequently in later Scandinavian folklore, particularly in that of Norway. In 1028 AD, Saint Olaf is said to have killed a sea serpent in Valldal, Norway, throwing its body onto the mountain Syltefjellet. Marks on the mountain are associated with the legend. In Swedish ecclesiastic and writer Olaus Magnus's "Carta  marina", many marine monsters of varied form, including an immense sea serpent, appear. In his 1555 work "History of the Northern Peoples", Magnus gives the following description of a Norwegian sea serpent: Norwegian Bishop Erik Pontoppidan (1698–1764) is more cautious than the Archbishop of Upsala and does not believe that the sea snake they would also be hunted. On the other hand, according to credible sailors, he acts to wrap the ship around with plenty of long bodies and pull him down into the deep in every way. If the sailors approach you will see as a defense make something  bigger, such as a paddle a shovel is thrown in front of him, and a deceived animal receives this, and with it falls down the into the water. Reported sightings. An apparent eye-witness account is found in Aristotle's "Historia Animalium". Strabo makes reference to an eyewitness account of a dead sea creature sighted by Poseidonius on the coast of the northern Levant. He reports the following: "As for the plains, the first, beginning at the sea, is called Macras, or Macra-Plain. Here, as reported by Poseidonius, was seen the fallen dragon, the corpse of which was about  a plethrum  in length, and so bulky that horsemen standing by it on either side could not see one another, and its jaws were large enough to admit a man on horseback, and each flake of its horny scales exceeded an oblong shield in length." The creature was seen sometime between 130 and 51 BC. Hans Egede, the national saint of Greenland, gives an 18th-century description of a sea serpent. On July 6, 1734, his ship sailed past the coast of Greenland when suddenly those on board "saw a most terrible creature, resembling nothing they saw before. The monster  lifted its head so high that it seemed to be higher than the crow's nest on the mainmast. The head was small and the body short and wrinkled. The unknown creature was using giant fins which propelled it through the water. Later the sailors saw its tail as well. The monster was longer than our whole ship", wrote Egede. In 1845, a 35 meter long skeleton claimed as belonging to an extinct sea serpent was put on a show in the New York City by Albert C. Koch. The claim was debunked by Prof. Jeffries Wyman, an anatomist who  went to see the skeleton for himself. Wyman declared that the skull of the animal had to be mammalian in origin, and that the skeleton was composed of bones of several different animals, including an extinct species of whale. On 6 August 1848, Captain McQuhae of and several of his officers and crew (en route to St Helena) saw a sea serpent which was subsequently reported (and debated) in "The Times". The vessel sighted what they named as an enormous serpent between the Cape of Good Hope and St Helena. The serpent was witnessed to have been swimming with of  its head above the water and they believed that there was another of the creature in the sea. Captain McQuahoe also said that "[The creature] passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter, that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily have recognized his features with the naked eye." According to seven members of the crew, it remained in view for around twenty minutes. Another officer wrote that the creature was more of a lizard than a serpent. Evolutionary biologist Gary J. Galbreath contends that what the crew of "Daedalus" saw was a sei  whale. A report was published in the "Illustrated London News" on 14 April 1849 of a sighting of a sea serpent off the Portuguese coast by .