Tim the Yowie Man
ANCIENT TALES abound of mythical, giant serpentine, horse-headed beasts terrifying sailors in the Atlantic Ocean. But did you know Australia’s coastline is home to perhaps the most diverse hodgepodge of ‘sea monsters’ on Earth?
One of the first recorded sightings in Australian waters was at Geographe Bay, 200km south of Perth, in 1879, when Reverend W.H. Brown ‘encountered’ a denizen of the deep while riding his horse home from church along the beach. In the respected British journal
Nature (24 July 1879), the colonial chaplain claimed the unidentified creature was “60 feet long, straight and tapered, like a long spar, with the butt-end and its head and shoulders showing well above the surface”. Not surprisingly, it hasn’t been seen since.
One sea monster spotted several times off Queensland’s coast in the late 1880s even boasts a scientific name of sorts, Chelosauria lovelli. Known to locals as the Moha Moha, this curious creature was bestowed its scientific moniker in 1890 following its chance encounter with schoolteacher Klina Lovell. Her extraordinary account, published in English magazine Land and Water in 1891 makes for remarkable reading: “When it tired of my looking at it, it put its large neck and head into the water, raising its dome-shaped body about five feet out of the water, and put its twelve feet of fish-like tail over the dry land, elevating it at an angle. Then, giving its tail a half twist, it shot off like a flash of lightning, and I saw its tail in the air about a quarter of a mile off where the steamers anchor.” Sounds like a mutant dugong to me.
Lovell’s story caught the attention of William Saville-Kent, commissioner of fisheries in Queensland. Kent subsequently obtained a more comprehensive account of the encounter and included it in his 1893 book The Great Barrier Reef of Australia; Its Products and Potentialities (W.H. Allen, London), in which he named the creature after the teacher. However, Chelosauria lovelli must have been wary of international limelight, because there hasn’t been a single sighting since.
Most contemporary Australian sea monster reports originate nearer the other side of the continent. These include a bizarre
1959 incident when the Australian Navy was called to search Darwin Harbour for the Mandorah Monster, a 30m-long serpent, reportedly moving at breakneck speed both above and just below the water’s surface. Surprise, surprise: despite the best efforts of the navy, nothing was found.
One of the best-documented recent sea monster sightings was in 2000 when a 25-yearold fisherman from Perth witnessed “a slimy green-black colour at least 13 metres long” near the Swan River mouth. Despite such supposed modern-day encounters, there’s a complete paucity of photographic or physical evidence to suggest these so-called monsters of the deep are anything but cases of mistaken identity or figments of the imagination.
Oh, but if you do spot one, make sure you send me a photograph.
AS A NATURALIST, author, broadcaster and tour guide, Tim has dedicated the past 25 years to documenting Australia’s unusual natural phenomena. He’s written several books, including Haunted and Mysterious Australia
(New Holland, 2018). Follow him on Facebook and Twitter: @TimYowie