In October 1944 a white "furry beast" more than 20 feet long with enourmous eyes and feet resembling neither whale nor seal washed up in Machrihanish. Tentatively it was believed to be an outsized polar bear or the Great Sea Serpent. But then Dr. A. C. Stephens of the natural history department of the of the Royal Scottish Museum questioned a government official on the spof and decided that it was only a basking shark carcass. Sometimes when sharks tissues decompose the gill apparatus falls away leaving only the vertebrae with the small head. Also the fibres of the muscles break up into whiskers when the skin rots or is eaten away. So this looks like stiff fur varying from dirty white to reddish in colour when drying on shore. This are only examples of the so called pseudo-plesiosaur effect turning an basking shark carcass into an plesiosaur with long neck and small head and four flippers. This happend more than once in Scotland for example in Stronsay, Deepdale Holm, Hunda and Girvan and according to Dr. Stephens also in Machrihanish.
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