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Trunko

E

evilsprout

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Jul 27, 2001
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I don't think we've discussed this cryptid before, if we have I apologise.

From Karl Shuker, (1998) The Unexplained, Colour Library Direct, Surrey, p96:

On the morning of November 1 1922, visitors to the beach at Margate, South Africa, were treated to an amazing spectacle out at sea: two whales could be clearly observed engaging in battle with a bizarre sea monster with snowy-white fur and a huge elephantine trunk. As the titanic battle progressed,the monster seemed to weaken, and three hours later it was dead. During the evening it's lifeless body was washed ashore and proved to be truly colossal, measuring just over 14 metres(47 feet) in length,and including a 3 metre (10 foot) tail. Apart from it's luxuriant 20-cm (8-inch) long fur, however, the most remarkable feature abou this creature is that it did not possess a distinct head; instead, it bore only the trunk-like appendage, 1.5 meters (5 feet) long, that had been visible during it's fatal encounter with the whales.This creature was dubbed "Trunko".
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Apparently there was another one too. From http://www.xproject.net/cryptoqa/trunko.html:

The "other Trunko" just seems to add to the mystery, too. For those who are unfamiliar with it, a man named Mr. Hoad did indeed find a strange creature in Bungle Creek, Australia. I first came across this report in a copy of the Reader's Digest book "Mysteries of the Unexplained" (an oldie but goodie for all paranormal fans). Again, there's not much mentioned about this creature, but the sparse information definitely seems to point to Trunko. The Australian sighting took place in 1883, a good thirty-nine years before the sighting of Trunko. The creature did indeed have an elephant-like trunk with no apparent head, its body was piglike in shape, and it had a tail-like appendage that was likened to that of a lobster. No size was given in the description.
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There's a drawing of it here, but the drawing in Shuker's book is made to look much more mammalian, and to me resembles a ridiculously large marine desman.

Anyone got any ideas?
 
Size of an elephant!!

Is it Snork from the Banana Splits gone AWOL?
 
When sharks die and rot, doesn't the cartilage take on a
hair-like quality? And isn't that "shape" reminiscent of
the plesiosaur shape that many dead sea-cryptids take on?

Its always explained as being a rotted shark carcass that
lost the soft tissue around the head/gills to create the
long-neck (and in this case, trunk-like) appearance.

Couldn't the whales have been trying to get this carcass "out of their territory" by just pushing it around (or playing with it?)
Are whales that aggressive -- except for orcas, perhaps -- and isn't South Africa a bit out of their range?

Just my two cents...
TVgeek
 
WoW! I'm glad you brought this trunko subject up. I'ed read about that or heard about that creatue fighting the whales along time ago,and could never find or never heard any follow ups. I didn't realise that it happenned so long ago. I guess its like another story with a picture (drawing) I remember about a WW II ship shelling a sub or some ship and it show a giant CROC, BEING THROWN in the air I saw that somewhere but....
 
I stumbled across this the other day and thought of Trunko:
It has been known since 1682 that elephants' lungs are unusual, without the "pleural cavity", a space between the lungs and the chest wall that is filled with fluid, that most mammals have. Instead of fluid, elephants' lungs are surrounded by loose connective tissue.
It now looks as if this type of lung exists because it lets elephants go snorkelling, breathing through their trunks. In 2001 the physiologist John West calculated that with a normal pleural cavity, the pressure of the water would burst the tiny blood vessels in the pleural membrane and snorkelling could be fatal.
Land vertebrates first evolved from fish that came up on the seashore. Much later, a variety of mammals went back to the oceans and evolved into several kinds of sea-mammals, the most spectacular modern descendants being whales.
We now see that somewhere along the way, some of those water-adapted mammals came back on to the land and turned into elephants. So the elephant is now on its second evolutionary journey out of the water and on to the land.
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From The Science of the Discworld II. The Globe.

Make of that what you will...
 
ruffready said:
WoW! I'm glad you brought this trunko subject up. I'ed read about that or heard about that creatue fighting the whales along time ago,and could never find or never heard any follow ups. I didn't realise that it happenned so long ago. I guess its like another story with a picture (drawing) I remember about a WW II ship shelling a sub or some ship and it show a giant CROC, BEING THROWN in the air I saw that somewhere but....
Click to expand...

A U-boat torpedoed a freighter in the North Atlantic, which sank stern first then exploded under water. The U-boat skipper reported seeing a huge animal with a head like a crocodile being flung out of the water.
A possible pliosaur, or a bloody big saltwater croc that lost its way?
 
similarity of the creature called Trunko to a creature menti

To all:
Upon reflection, the pictures of the creature referred to as Trunko bear a physical similarity to the "slithy toves" in Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky". Not to demean Mr. Carroll's inventiveness, it can be questioned, though, what may be the basis for much of his “bestiary”, from the Jabberwock to the Snark to even the March Hare and Cheshire Cat.



Julian Penrod
 
Re: Re: trunko

Inverurie Jones said:
A U-boat torpedoed a freighter in the North Atlantic, which sank stern first then exploded under water. The U-boat skipper reported seeing a huge animal with a head like a crocodile being flung out of the water.
A possible pliosaur, or a bloody big saltwater croc that lost its way?
Click to expand...

IIRC, that story is a hoax. (Must remember to remove it from my Fortean timeline...).
 
Perhaps this is some sort of enormous, hitherto unknown pinniped? Possibly a resident of the Anarctic and very far out of its range. Sperm whales might be agressive enough to attack such a creature, but Orcas are cosmopolitan in all waters, including off south Africa. I reckon a creature as big as a sperm whale wouldn't take very long to dispatch a 47 ft. long critter lacking jaws.
 
Pity poor Trunko. He looks like hell, as if a child assembled him in a rage, and has a name that is vaguely demeaning. Moreover, he's apparently always engaged in some kind of life-or-death struggle with sleek and beautiful mammals, whose mere presence in the depiction underscore Trunko's grotesqueness. I can hear him now:

"Leave me alone (*sob*)! I am not a cryptid~I AM AN ANIMAL!"
 
The observers could have just seen two whales mating and mistook the *long trunk* whilst the whales were out at sea for erm... a flailing whale penis and elaborated on the story when something like this was washed up:

TVgeek said:
When sharks die and rot, doesn't the cartilage take on a
hair-like quality? And isn't that "shape" reminiscent of
the plesiosaur shape that many dead sea-cryptids take on?
Click to expand...
 
This page includes a different version of the battle in which Trunko was the winner of the battle. Hurra!
In accordance with this report, the whales were killed by the creature. Exhausted, the strange animal washed up on the beach and fell unconscious. After apparently resting for a period of 10 days, the animal made its way back into the ocean and swam away.
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from above link:
According to an article published in the December 27, 1923 edition of London's Daily Mail, which was entitled "Fish Like A Polar Bear", the event occurred on October 25, 1924.
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surely this is strange in itself?
 
Very cool Bannik- I'm glad you found that! I always felt sorry for 'ol Trunko! :D I'm glad theres another tale to the story!
 
Quixote said:
The observers could have just seen two whales mating and mistook the *long trunk* whilst the whales were out at sea for erm... a flailing whale penis and elaborated on the story when something like this was washed up:

TVgeek said:
When sharks die and rot, doesn't the cartilage take on a
hair-like quality? And isn't that "shape" reminiscent of
the plesiosaur shape that many dead sea-cryptids take on?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Ahh... replying to myself but here goes.

Did anyone else see the episode of The Blue Planet where Attenborough is observing whales mating out at sea?? I had nightmares for days after seeing that... :wince: ;)

Littleblackduck posted this in FNS:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... 913#520913

Personally, I think that the fact that you had two whales being observed where an *elephantine trunk* is also being seen, really does suggest to me that the people on the beach were witnessing a mating scene and didn't really have any previous experience or knowledge to say what it clearly was and so may have elaborated on the tale when the strange carcass was washed up.

I also hold that the carcass that was washed up afterwards was nothing more than coincidental and TVgeek comes up with a plausible explanation of what it might have been.

That being said, I would love a creature such as *Trunko* to exist! I'm really quite taken with the paintings that someone linked to earlier in the thread ;)
 
Quixote said:
Personally, I think that the fact that you had two whales being observed where an *elephantine trunk* is also being seen, really does suggest to me that the people on the beach were witnessing a mating scene and didn't really have any previous experience or knowledge to say what it clearly was and so may have elaborated on the tale when the strange carcass was washed up.

I also hold that the carcass that was washed up afterwards was nothing more than coincidental and TVgeek comes up with a plausible explanation of what it might have been.
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Last months Edfort talk by Charles Paxton covered this very subject. The photo he put up of a "happy" whale was convincing enough to me. I can see why it would be mistaken for another animal. :shock:

He also performed an experiment himself on a dead shark which did indeed, as TV geek says, melt into a plesiosaur type shape after a few weeks.

Kind of dissappointing but good work anyway.
;)
 
This thread on cryptozoology.com made me think of Trunko:

http://www.cryptozoology.com/forum/topi ... pid=291073

Sounds kind of unlikely, but an animal with a head/snout shape like either that Galemys (is Galemys the same creature as a Desman, or is that another weird semi-aquatic insectivore?) or the Amazon river dolphin could easily be mistaken for having a "trunk" but no head...

Scale up the dolphin and put some fur on it...
 
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