Mermaid - SCIFIPEDIA

Mermaid

<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Pearl by Lubov

This article is about the legendary beings. For other uses, see Mermaids.

Mermaids are creatures that are part human and part fish. Typically, the upper half is human and the bottom half is "fish-like".

Currently, people think of mermaids (and mermen, the male version of the term) as purely mythical and fictional creatures. In older times, mermaids were considered real creatures, and there are even documented cases.

One popular theory is that mermaids were a case of mistaken identity. Some sea mammals may appear to be nursing their young above water. The top half being female would then make sense (even though the face is not very human). One support for this is that mermaids were typically shown with horizontally flattened tails (which would be mammal like) as opposed to a vertical tail (which would be fish like).

Another point is that the conceptual line between humans and animals was in a sense fuzzier (although the theological line may have been stronger for some people). It is not uncommon for reports of wild men with clothes and tools to be described as animals in the late 1800s, and it is also possible that some "mermaids" were simply more aquatic humans.

Hoaxes were another factor. The "Fiji mermaid" may be the most famous, although "Jenny Hannivers", a type of dried and sculpted ray made to appear human-like used to be easily available in places like Thailand.

Sci Fi works have featured mermaids, both as main characters and as more peripheral ones. Peter Pan has mermaids, and the Disney version of The Little Mermaid is well-known. Splash really made a star of Daryl Hannah as the mermaid called Madison.

Mermaids are also now generally thought of as benign creatures but that was not always the case.

Some merpeople (the gender neutral term) appear nearly human, having legs, but possibly webbing or fins. Namor and Aquaman are both merpeople, being able to breath underwater.