Science
Here There Be Dragons: A Sea Serpent’s View of Climate Change
Origins of marine monster myths and why this cryptid’s future might be in peril
Sea serpents have slithered into our imaginations.
They terrorized ships of yore and plunged unsuspecting travelers down into the ocean depths. Sea serpents are often depicted as ancient creatures of chaos and destruction.
So where are these slippery legends today?
To be clear: as far as we are concerned here, this salty cryptid does not, and never did exist. What terrified sailors called sea serpents might have been mistaken identities — sharks, fish, or ocean reptiles that they didn’t understand. But so what? If these creatures inspired the original sea serpent myths, then we can use these species to answer: How are sea serpents doing today?
Spoiler alert: they’re facing a rather rough ocean.
Sea serpent mythology
The Library of Congress describes an explosion of interest in sea serpents during the 19th century in the United States in Europe. Sea serpent myths come from Indo-European folklore and South Asian storytelling. It’s likely that early humans shared these stories with different regions as they traveled between continents.
“These migration patterns suggest the possibility that the tales of sea serpents in other parts of the world are also related, with the Norse sea serpent, the South Asian Naga, the Japanese Ryujin (sea dragon), and the Tizheruk of Inuit lore all inspired by stories of real large land snakes and sea snakes of South Asia,” explains The Library of Congress.
During the 19th century, many legends had been explained through the scientific method. Why not try to explain the phenomenon of sea serpents in the same way?
We know of course that what seafarers mistook for sea serpents were more likely sea snakes, deep sea creatures, unique sharks and other animals that don’t always visit surface waters. In other cases, these monsters were simply clusters of seaweed identified along the coast. And yet sea serpents still capture our imaginations today.
So instead of turning to science to explain away the existence of sea serpents, let’s learn how these serpents — or the animals that inspired these myths — are faring today.
Let’s dive in.
Sea serpent candidates— and how they’re coping
Climate change impacts on many ocean habitats, but is it affecting sea serpents? Where might these monsters of legend live, and how are their homes impacted by human activity?
Sea snakes
Sea snakes are descended from their swampy reptile ancestors and have adaptations that allow them to survive in marine environments. They are found along sea grass beds and coral reefs in the Indian and Pacific oceans. These areas are heavily impacted by human activities.
Sea snake populations have been declining for the last 20 years worldwide due to climate change, pollution, overfishing, habitat loss, mining and disease. Some populations in the Pacific Ocean are changing their appearance in response to this increased pollution.
Darker snakes are becoming more abundant in the Pacific because they are better able to survive the impacts of marine pollution. Snakes with darker skin shed their scales more frequently, so they are better able to shake off industrial pollutants such as arsenic and zinc than their lighter counterparts.
But this process of natural selection, called industrial melanism, is only a temporary fix. If pollution continues to affect sea snake habitats, even these darker snakes may not be able to survive.
What about eels?
Eels remain a mystery on many fronts. We do not know exactly where and how European eels reproduce, but we have some idea. Likewise, little is known about the reproduction of California moray eels, which drift along with plankton until they settle down in coastal grottoes as an adult. As such, eels are exciting research subjects.
One study found that moray eels are becoming more abundant on reefs where sharks have been over-hunted by humans. This might happen because eels compete with sharks for food… or alternatively become food themselves. This isn’t necessarily a positive thing for eels. In the absence of sharks, moray eel populations boom and bust.
Meanwhile the tastier, critically endangered European eel struggles to survive pressure from over-fishing. Many fisheries in the United States, Japan, and Europe have banned the capture of these eels, forcing suppliers to turn to remaining fisheries in Maine or to source eel from black markets. Climate change, undersea drilling, and habitat loss threaten coral reef habitats and the eels that live within.
Without protections for eels and the animals that prey on them, life for these sea creatures is going to get a lot more challenging.
Frilled Sharks
What on Earth is a frilled shark?
With their widely spaced needle-teeth and serpentine swimming pattern, frilled sharks are a perfect candidate for sea serpents’ mistaken identities. This deep-ocean creature has flexible jaws that allow it to swallow pretty up to half its size. No wonder then that it was first described by German ichthyologist Ludwig H.P. Döderlein as an “elusive creature, the serpent lake monster of the oceans.”
In Döderlein’s words:
“Though it could hardly on examination be taken for anything but a shark, its appearance … brings vividly to mind the triangular heads, deep-cleft mouths, and fierce looks of many of our most dreaded snakes. In view of the possible discoveries of the future…[it] certainly calls for a suspension of judgment in regard to the non-existence of that oft-appearing but elusive creature, the serpent-like monster of the oceans.”
If it swims like a sea serpent and eats like a sea serpent — chances are, early seafarers mistook frilled sharks (and possibly their relatives the basking shark) for sea serpents.
Frilled sharks were not seen in their natural habitat until 2004 by NOAA’s Atlantic deep ocean research teams. This species was previously thought to be near threatened due to their extremely long gestational period, but it has since been moved to the status of least concern. Conservationists warn that expansion of deep-sea trawling and climate change may harm frilled sharks.
Oarfish
While the oarfish may look like a creature of legend, it is actually the largest bony fish. This “King of Herrings” lives in the deep ocean, but they often rise to the surface during El Niño weather events, when the plankton they eat gather near the ocean surface. Oarfish may float vertically in the water to camouflage and hunt. This means that they can travel without being seen and seemingly pop out of nowhere. And as if that were not a great enough party trick, oarfish can also move their jaws forward to inhale plankton with gusto.
In Japanese, oarfish are also called “messengers from the palace of the dragon king.” Beached oarfish have been rumored to foretell great misfortune. Twenty oarfish carcasses were found in Japan before the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that wracked the nation. But this spike could have been due to storms or seasonal shifts in food abundance.
We still don’t know a lot about oarfish. We don’t know exactly how they breed and we haven’t yet raised adult oarfish in captivity. These gaps in their natural history make oarfish fascinating research subjects. But the less we know about these deep sea creatures, the more likely we are to relate them to mysterious creatures of lore. Whatever we don’t understand, whatever lies at the edges of our maps — these become our modern-day dragons.
Rest assured that the oarfish is a gentle giant.
Are humans impacting ocean depths?
The short answer is yes. We’re impacting the deep ocean a lot.
The deep ocean is a great place for carbon sequestration. During sequestration, carbon from waste and dead creatures trickles down to the darker, colder ocean zones below. This process ‘locks’ carbon away from the atmosphere so that it can no longer contribute to climate change.
This carbon sequestration is a good thing! But unfortunately, natural processes alone cannot solve the climate crisis. There’s more going on in the deep ocean than meets the eye.
For starters, deep sea creatures rely on nutrient cycling that brings yummy waste carbon beyond the sunlight zone. If the ocean surface suffers from warming, ocean acidification, deoxygenation, and collapsing food chains then these threats will also cause problems at greater depths.
Another concern is ocean upwelling. As ocean surfaces warm, these areas don’t mix as well with deep water. This reduces the amount of oxygen available to deep sea organisms, which have adapted to live in a place that already has very little oxygen. This decrease in oxygen and increase in CO2 may hurt deep coral reefs and reduce biodiversity in the deep ocean.
This is clearly a cause for concern. But what makes these issues so elusive is that scientists don’t have many tools for monitoring the deep ocean. Humans have only explored 5% of the deep sea.
Humans have explored areas of intense pressure and inhospitable cold using remote operated vehicles, satellites and other mapping technologies that help us reach great depths. The deep sea can seem a mystery, a region on Earth even less understood than the surface of Mars. But its creatures need our help.
Are sea serpents safe?
We know that many of our ocean habitats are suffering. Coral bleaching and habitat loss due to mining and pollution make it difficult for sea snakes and some species of eels to maintain their hold on these fragile ecosystems. And these negative human impacts are not limited to the shallows.
All of these sea serpent candidates face different threats, many of which link back to human activity. The real marine creatures that inspired sea dragon myths may continue to decline if world leaders continue to stall climate action.
Because even even though the tales about these marine monsters come from generations of folk tales, climate change is no myth.
