Are mermaids,seahorses real or they are imaginary?Was Atlantis (name of a place)present before?
435752
Seahorses - yes\nMermaids/mermen - i wish, but not currently\nAtlantis - i think yes, it did exist at some point,  because of the oral legends.  For years people thought Troy was only a legend, and then evidence of where it was was, was found (in the 70's or 80's i think).  So, i'm holding out hope for Atlantis....
801101
Well common sense, to me it sort of goes like this....\nALL mythology has some sort of real-world counterpart.  What this means is that essentially that all myths contain some sort of universal truth when you strip away the dross.  As far as mythological creatures are concerned, I do believe that some may have definantly existed.  To say things such as ancient mariners thought that manatees were mermaids is a bit presumptuous.  That's making a giant assumption, saying that we know what and how ancient mariners thought, which we obviously cannot know for a fact.  So called mythological creatures are being discovered all the time.  A few years back, a breed of deer was discovered in Asia that was thought to have been a mythological creature.  It was tiny and breathed through the sides of its snout instead of having a nose.  For centuries, science scoffed at its existence, until one day someone caught one...And science looked stupid, as it does so often by down-playing things that don't fit its paradigm.\nThe unicorn was a creature featured in the original painting of the creatures going into Noah's Ark, two by two...I believe that they were probably abundant somewhere in the wrld at one time, but got wiped out as so many species do.\nIN fact, we discover new species of creatures every single day...Fish we thought were extinct, thus becoming the realm of myth....Giant squid, Giant sharks (Aussie Coast), and a plethora of critters that by our own technical and scientific standards shouldn't even exist (all those little critters living along the Mariennes Trench in water that's well over the temperature  that's supposed to support life)....\nIn closing, my answer to you is a YES.  I do believe at one point the so called "mythological" creatures not only existed, but were common as well.  Hit some of the crypto zoology websites and you'll see what I mean about everything I've written....Sites that deal with forbidden history are also a great source of information.\nPEACE!
57560
I don't know what those sailors had smoked or drunk, but the story goes that the Manatee or Dugong were the real world phenomenon behind the mermaid legend.\n\nMaybe that's too late - Celtic myth has Selkies, shapechanging seals, and while they claim that St Brennan crossed the western sea long before Columbus did, I haven't heard about any mermaids in his travels.\n\nYou could study anthropologists' reports on merman myths, and treat them as sightings. Maybe there could be a useful map made of that...
93677
I think Atlantis was supposed to have been located in the Atlantic Ocean. It was supposed to have been destroyed and some people believe that one of the citys that was found under the Atlantic was Atlantis. There is no proof that it existed, I think there is only one recording that it existed. The people that have found the citys can't prove whether it was Atlantis or some other city. \nI think that they still show stuff on it on the discovery channel, or maybe go to discoverychannel.com, if there is such a site.
197174
it hasnt been proven, but there are pictures out there, tho most of them are fake\n\ni personally believe that there probably once was one, but there really isnt much chance that it is still alive\n\nit was probably a decendent of some dinosaur thing\n\nso yea, id say it is, well, WAS real
135855
Are those really angry fish?\n\nOh! Mermaids... ;)\n\nNo, they aren't. They are creatures of myth and lore.\n\nhttp://www.rotten.com/library/cryptozoology/mermaids/
932706
Is there any reason that they could not exist in a parallel universe?  But yes, I have seen a real, live one.  He is dead now.  You can look up Unicorn in google and actually see his picture.  His name was Lancelot.  But he couldn't fly.
276418
I love unicorns myself and they were and are still real. They are part of a lower level of beings. We might never see it because we are in the middle level of reality. Sylvia Brown explains it a hell of a lot better than I do. Get or check-out her book, Mysteries of the Unknown. It has the explaination in there along with a lot of other things
845358
What a cool project!  So to answer one of your questions, the crucial distinction among your phyla will be whether or not they're chordates -- which of course includes the vertebrates (but also some invertebrates such as sea squirts and certain worms).  \n\nSo your bipedal wolf (I'm assuming the missing d was a typo, but if "bipeal" is a word from your universe, please let me know) would be phylum chordata, class vertebrata, order mammalia, family canidae, genus canus, species lupus bipedalis (and I'm envisioning something like a cross between Lawrence Talbot and Speaker-to-Animals, without retractible claws).  But that's just off the top of my head.\n\nOne thing I've discussed with my ten-year-old son is the absence of hexapod vertebrates -- e.g. flying horses, winged dragons, etc.  If you were closer, I'd invite you over for coffee and an all-day discussion of where to classify them, and how they evolved.  Since all terrestrial vertebrates have essentially the same structure, it's clear they all shared a common ancestor which makes hexapodal vertebrates, sadly, impossible in our known universe -- so was there a hexapodal (imaginary) marine vertebrate who also scuttled across the floors of silent seas before crawling out of the surf and saying "Hey, the carcharodons can't get me here!  Kewl!"?  ...Which of course suggests all sorts of hexapodal marine vertebrates that shared the same skeletal architecture.  Ooooh, fun.\n\nAnd the final question... so zoology is the study of animals.  There's also cryptozoology, which I've described flippantly as "the study of imaginary animals."  But of course, it's more technically the study of animals that may or may not exist.  So what would we call your zoology, which is the study of animals you've intentionally invented?  Oh, of course, poeiazoology (-poeia, meaing to construct -- as in mythopoeia, the term Tolkien invented to describe the invention of mythologies.)\n\nAnd on that note, elen sila lumen omentielvo!
740157
In the West, we're pretty cynical. We don't believe anything until it's shown to us: hence theories of dinosaurs were laughed at until bones were first turfed up in the 19th Century. Other examples: the komodo dragon, the seahorse, the blue whale, the dodo, the protozoa (tiny microscopic organism), the elephant, the narwhal, the white rhino, the moose, the platypus...the list is endless. And there are still loads of animals we think are myths that may be de-mythed in the future: the yeti, the bunyip, the Loch Ness Monster, the unicorn...
108791
No, the island of Atlantis was supposedly near the Azores island and a tsunami or hurricane wiped it out. The Bermuda triangle is on the other side of the world.
910488
Apparently not real, created by a photoshop artist: see comments on this site and the photo you probably saw.\n\nhttp://neddy.blogsome.com/2006/01/13/crescent-star-island/#comment-731
1104842
Go to Barnes and Noble or Borders. I am an avid Mermaid reference collector and have found that many of the books display mainly pictures and brief histories about mermaid witchcraft and urban legends. If you want a really good book that has some information you should go to the children's section (seriously) and look at The Secret World of Mermaids by Francine Rose, it comes with four useless figurines (unless you have kids), however, it has tons of interesting information about how mermaide came about and evolved, sightings,  the jewelry they wear, and also classifies the different kinds of mermaids along with there so-called present locations and abilities. For a more serious reader you should also look for Mermaids: Sirens of the Sea by Kerry Colburn: this book has mermiad songs and touches on how art has been influenced my mermaid culture....Enjoy!
850081
Over 11,000 years ago there existed an island nation located in the middle of the Atlantic ocean populated by a noble and powerful race. The people of this land possessed great wealth thanks to the natural resources found throughout their island. The island was a center for trade and commerce. The rulers of this land held sway over the people and land of their own island and well into Europe and Africa.\n\nThis was the island of Atlantis.\n\nAtlantis was the domain of Poseidon, god of the sea. When Poseidon fell in love with a mortal woman, Cleito, he created a dwelling at the top of a hill near the middle of the island and surrounded the dwelling with rings of water and land to protect her.\n\nCleito gave birth to five sets of twin boys who became the first rulers of Atlantis. The island was divided among the brothers with the eldest, Atlas, first King of Atlantis, being given control over the central hill and surrounding areas.\n\nAt the top of the central hill, a temple was built to honor Poseidon which housed a giant gold statue of Poseidon riding a chariot pulled by winged horses. It was here that the rulers of Atlantis would come to discuss laws, pass judgments, and pay tribute to Poseidon..\n\nTo facilitate travel and trade, a water canal was cut through of the rings of land and water running south for 5.5 miles (~9 km) to the sea.\n\nThe city of Atlantis sat just outside the outer ring of water and spread across the plain covering a circle of 11 miles (1.7 km). This was a densely populated area where the majority of the population lived.\n\nBeyond the city lay a fertile plain 330 miles (530 km) long and 110 miles (190 km) wide surrounded by another canal used to collect water from the rivers and streams of the mountains. The climate was such that two harvests were possible each year. One in the winter fed by the rains and one in the summer fed by irrigation from the canal.\n\nSurrounding the plain to the north were mountains which soared to the skies. Villages, lakes, rivers, and meadows dotted the mountains.\n\nBesides the harvests, the island provided all kinds of herbs, fruits, and nuts. An abundance of animals, including elephants, roamed the island.\n\nFor generations the Atlanteans lived simple, virtuous lives. But slowly they began to change. Greed and power began to corrupt them. When Zeus saw the immorality of the Atlanteans he gathered the other gods to determine a suitable punishment.\n\nSoon, in one violent surge it was gone. The island of Atlantis, its people, and its memory were swallowed by the sea.\n\n\nim greek what can i say lol
335673
The "Leviathan" in the bible was a large whale, its breath was spouting from its blowhole. There's all manner of enormous creatures in the ocean- giant squids, giant eels, giant sharks, giant whales. They can grow that large because of abundant food, and the water's buoyancy. Animals can't get that big on land because they couldn't support their own weight. \n\nDragons are another story. They were "real" also- that is, there were actual creatures, like the Komodo Dragon, that were sighted, and just got larger and more exaggerated with each re-telling. The Komodo Dragon does have foul breath (it never brushes its teeth, ever) it just wasn't fire.
482957
Atlantis is supposed to be the paradigm of human civilization because of its advanced technology and utopian society. As someone has noted before, Plato was the first to mention atlantis in his - I think - Critias and Timaeus. the advanced tech part sounds true (as in true to Plato's original representation), but it is not a utopia. In fact, plato slams it, since his beloved Republic is perfect, and Atlantis its opposite; the island kingdom is supposed to be brutish and riddled with disorder.
22078
The greek philosopher Plato was the first to describe Atlantis (Timaios and Kritias). According to Plato, it disappeared about 9.000 years before him. Strangely enough there are no other sources to confirm that, so most probably, Plato invented the story himself, maybe inspired by a natural disaster, like the explosion of the volcano Thera 1.500 b.c.\nDonnelly revitalised the story in a book from 1882. And later Madame Blavatsky.\nOceanologists have not found any profe of Atlantis, though they know the oceans quite well. So how interesting the story about Atlantis is, most probably it is just another good story!