mermaid
Table of Contents
Mermaid
Background
Mermaids are seaborn creatures mentioned in several mythologies.
Descriptions
Mentions
Sightings
In Popular Media
- The X-Files Season 2 Episode 20 “Humbug” - Mention of the “Fiji Mermaid”, a popular fraud by business man P. T. Barnum, first displayed in 1842. Today the term is used for all sorts of fake mermaids displayed all over the world. They are categorized as clearly being made of different animal remains held together by string, glue and other methods of attaching the parts to one another, using for example the torso of a mammal and tail of a fish or the head of a stingray attached to the body of another fish. Tourists and collectors still like to buy fiji mermaids as a fun souvenir. This poses a problem, because they may be made of near extinct and threatned species such as various seahorses when small and apes when big.