Creature record / 1546
The Øresund, off Malmö. Around 1546. In one telling, a herring net came up heavy with something that was not fish. It was about 4 ells long. It had a human head and face, like the men with shorn heads whom people called monks. The face was black. The body was marked with red and black spots. According to many who saw it, the creature lived no more than three days. It did not speak. King Christian III had it drawn and sent the picture to Emperor Charles V. Copies spread through the great natural histories of the age, and naturalists have argued over the sea monk ever since.
The Øresund is the narrow strait between Zealand and Skåne. In the 1540s both shores were Danish. Malmö, on the eastern side, was known in German as Elbogen. Most sources date what came out of these waters to 1546. Some give 1549, and Anders Sørensen Vedel gives 1545. A French text of the time garbled the place into "Den Elepoch" in the region of "Diezunt", and even placed it in Norway. It is read today as Die Sund, the Sound, off Elbogen.