As for a land mammal, there is nothing on Nantucket ... Local residents and tourists descended on the beach to investigate further. A sea serpent had, in fact, visited the island.

Sea serpent myths go back into antiquity to a point in time we can't even discern,' Oliver says. 'If we are looking for candidates from the natural world that generated these tales, then the oarfish ...

You may have heard stories about sea serpents, whether from myths in ancient Greece and the Mediterranean, folklore from Germanic and Scandinavian cultures or tales from Mesopotamia. These stories ...