In 1977, a rotting carcass was dredged up off the coast of New Zealand by the Japanese trawler Zuiyo Maru. On board was Michihiko Yano, a qualified biologist and an experienced crew. All of them were puzzled by what had been dredged up. Yano took five photos and pulled a few horny hairs off the edge of the front flipper, but the carcass had to be thrown back as it was feared that it might contaminate the whole catch.

Since then, there have been several articles in creationist publications, the majority of which concluded that the carcass was only that of a basking shark that had decomposed in such a way that the remains looked similar to a plesiosaur-type animal [Refs. 1, 2, 3, 4]. Wood's article [2] drew three letters [5,6,7] of criticism which were published in the Creation Research Society Quarterly journal.

In 1978 an official Franco-Japanese report [8 - CPC] consisting of separate papers by various Japanese scientists was published. Most of the papers concluded the carcass was probably a basking shark. (It should be mentioned that this report is very difficult to obtain and the British Museum did not have a copy. My creationist friend, Paul Garner, had to write to Tokyo for a copy and was eventually sent the English translation section. Paul very kindly sent me a copy of the CPC pages he had received but these did not have any of Yano's photos or diagram of the carcass. Fortunately I had downloaded good quality colour pictures of four of his photos from a website <http://www.gennet.org/nessy.htm> and Yano's drawing was in one of the articles.)

As I read this paper, it became clear that those who had later written on this subject and accepted the "basking shark" identification had obtained almost all their evidence from this one document. However, when I examined it, I concluded that it was an extremely unsatisfactory review of the original evidence and was heavily biased in favour of the "basking shark" identification from the beginning. Therefore, I have dealt first with the Collected Papers report itself. After that I examine some further articles on the carcass that agree with the "basking shark" identification, and then to one article in particular that supported the identification of the carcass as a "plesiosaur type." It is important to understand that I am not identifying the carcass as a plesiosaur - the bone formation is too different. But I do believe the evidence clearly shows that the carcass was not that of a fish or shark, but of an unknown mammal, not unlike a plesiosaur.

Regarding this examination, when quoting a passage, all words emphasised in italics or enclosed in square brackets within it are by this author. The downloaded photos all had to be reversed left-to-right to agree with those in other articles, and we have enlarged the areas to present the important information as large as possible. Some drawings have been turned so that all the creatures face the same way and they have been made the same length for easier comparison of proportions.

1. THE "COLLECTED PAPERS ON THE CARCASS..." [Ref 8 - CPC]

In the forward, Dr. Sasaki wrote that he decided to publish the report "from a proper scientific society, plainly presenting our divided opinions. Then, let the readers have their own views based on their own evaluation of the articles presented in the publication, and, from now on, let us refrain from giving individual publicity to our opinions."

This sounds a very unbiased presentation and while the whole paper does have some conflicting views, most reports generally support the identification of the carcass as that of a basking shark. An indication of this bias is contained within the foreword itself. The primary meeting was held on September 1st. at which 12 people were present, all in high positions of authority. This appears to have been the main meeting, for a second on the 19th September was for "exchanging references and opinions." Now, one might have expected the person at the centre of this investigation, Michihiko Yano, the biologist on board the boat at the time, would have been present at both meetings, but he was not; he only attended the second meeting. It would appear that the first meeting was the crucial one during which the general approach was discussed. More important, there is no paper by him recounting his first-hand account of the events in this collection of papers. It appears that all his evidence was carefully filtered by his superiors and he is only occasionally referred to in their writings.

Yano's qualifications and standing are also diminished. He is described as "one of the crewmen" [p67]. It is only in the creation articles that he is acknowledged as a trained biologist. In fact Yano was 39 years old, had graduated from the Yamaguchi Oceanological High School and was the Assistant Production Manager of the Taiyo Fisheries.

This bias against him is seen from the first page of the first paper in the report [p45]. The two authors admit that, due to their specialist subjects, they may not be fully qualified to discuss the classification of the carcass. They continue saying that "the only material providing evidence" is the horny fibres Yano brought back. They contend the photos "are apt to lead to diverse interpretations", and the verbal descriptions and sketch "may have been largely biased or influenced by the observer's preconception."

Such a comment is quite unjustified. Yano and all the crew members were experienced and would have easily recognised the corpse of a shark and thrown it back. Yet they were baffled by the identity of the carcass. They all gave as accurate a description of it as they could without claiming that it was any particular species - living or extinct. Why should such evidence be dismissed as "biased" when they had no motive to gain from their evidence?. They could not make any money or prestige from the incident as the carcass had been thrown away. There is a very clear dismissal of their evidence throughout the whole of this paper. When they are quoted, it is immediately followed by an "explanation" that suggests why they were "misled" in believing what they saw was something different. Thus, the authority of the "experts" -- who admitted they were not fully qualified to discuss the classification -- looking at only photos of the carcass overruled the first-hand evidence of Yano and the crew. They even contradict Yano's insistence that a particular member in one photo was a right anterior fin of unusual structure. Instead, these two authors consider the item to be two separate fins close together.

THE DECAYED CARCASS [p48]

The first report notes;

"The surface of the body was whitish and covered with dermal fibers which intersecting each other like in whales and other mammals but were not weak as in fish. There were thick, white, fat-like tissues on the back, and reddish muscles were seen running longitudinally beneath the white tissues. The putrefactive smell was not like that of teleostean fishes or sharks, but resembled that of marine mammals.... The head was said to have been hard, exposing the cranium, and not shark-like.... Unlike sharks, in which the nares [nose holes] are situated in the lower surface of the skull, the carcass had nares at the front end of what remained of the cranium."

This is one of the most important statements in this whole report for several principle features were admitted.

(a) The covering of strong dermal fibres - as in mammals;
(b) The fat-like tissues - fat is not found in fish
(c) The red muscles - not possessed by fish
(d) The smell was of a mammal, not the strong ammonia smell of putrefying fish and sharks.
(e) The head was hard, unlike that of a fish.
(f) The nares were on the front of the skull - not like sharks.

It is important to note that every one of these features is a strong indication that the carcass was that of a mammal and not that of a fish or shark. This eyewitness information could only have come from Yano and the crew, but every effort is later made to "explain away" these features on the weakest of arguments - or ignore them - as we show below.

In the meantime, it cannot be emphasized strongly enough that only ONE of the above listed points need be present to ensure the carcass could not possibly have been that of a fish or shark.

Let us then examine the way in which some of these points were treated in an effort to dismiss them as not crucial evidence of a mammal.

(b) THE DECAYING FATTY TISSUES. "The strongest argument opposing the shark theory comes from Yano's observation that the carcass was covered by a fat-like sticky substance. Sharks do not have a thick layer of fat under the skin" [p65] The fourth paper makes no further observation on this subject which flatly contradicts their conclusion, but immediately discusses the red flesh.

The sixth paper is devoted to the decay of fat to adipocere, a white substance with the consistency of a soft soap - just as was found on the carcass. There is no suggestion in this sixth paper that the carcass was that of a shark and the subject gets little treatment in other papers. But this layer of fat remains indisputable and strong evidence that the carcass could not have been that of a shark and was almost certainly that of a mammal. No paper even attempts to explain how this fat could be from a shark.

(c) THE RED MUSCLES. [See Fig. 4 at top of page] The fourth paper admitted there were red muscles along the spine like that of mammals but minimised this aspect by saying ".. a former student of mine... has informed us that even the muscle of squalid sharks appears as red as tuna meat along both sides of the backbone" [p65].

Now notice what has happened in this line of reasoning. Red flesh is observed on this carcass, and it is dismissed by referring to similar red meat on squalid sharks. But Basking sharks are not one of over 70 types of squalid sharks! What has happened is that to explain away the presence of red flesh, a quite different type of shark has been referred to. Now it can either be a squalid shark (which would explain the red meat) OR a Basking shark (which would explain some of the other features). But the carcass cannot be both at the same time. Thus, if the experts wish to explain the red meat, they must stick with the "squalid shark" identification throughout, not change it to a basking shark when they meet other features. This (temporary) switching of identification gives an indication of the level of the logic used in some of these papers

(d) THE ABSENCE OF SMELL OF AMMONIA. "...the carcass did not smell of ammonia, which is a characteristic feature of shark flesh. An explanation for this could be due to the extent of skin loss and decomposition, and therefore allowing the ammonia from the carcass to be washed out by the sea" [p65].

But why should this particular carcass, if it is a shark, not smell of ammonia as all others do? If the sea washes out ammonia, there should be few carcasses that smell of it. We are asked to believe that this one shark carcass has been subjected to virtually a unique treatment by the sea which has occurred to no other shark. This is hardly acceptable. It was still decaying as one paper said that it had "a putrid smell", yet it did not smell of ammonia. This indicates, once again, it most probably was not the carcass of a shark.

YANO'S SKETCH

Whilst the carcass was laying on the deck, Yano took a number of measurements, and when it had been thrown back he made a sketch while his memory was still fresh [p48] , although Shuker claims Yano did not make the drawing until he returned to Japan. Yano did not draw the body lengths of the carcass to the correct scale to match his measurements, but his drawing (Fig. 5) was sufficiently detailed to present the basic anatomy of the animal.

Fig. 6. Yano's drawing in proportion