Sea-Monster or Shark

On the 25th of April 1977, a Japanese trawler named Zuiyo Maru was trawling for mackerel about 30 miles east of Christchurch, New Zealand when it caught a strange, unknown creature in its net. The creature was thirty-three feet long and weighed about four thousand pounds. It had a one and a half meter long neck, four large, reddish fins and a tail about two meters long (which sort of resembles the Loch Ness monster).

The crew was convinced it was an unidentified creature, but despite the potential biological significance of the curious discovery, the captain decided to dump the carcass into the ocean again so not to risk spoiling the caught fish. However, before that, some photos and sketches were taken of the creature, measurements were taken and some samples of skeleton, skin and fins were collected for further analysis by experts in Japan.

The discovery resulted in immense commotion in Japan. Professor Tokio Shimaka from Yokohama University was convinced that the remains was of a supposedly extinct plesiousaur (or prehistoric 'sea-monster'). However, other scientists were more skeptical.

So was this a great basking shark or was it a relic from the past, a dinosaur or some other imcredible creature that may still live in our oceans today, trawling the depths of the only last undiscovered country on the planet. Other scientists have argued that it was actually a decayed basking shark.

So was this a great basking shark or was it a prehistoric sea-monster?