Nope. Lake monsters are not reported from the Great Lakes, although Lake Champlain, which is an outlier of the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence system, is reported to have once. Other North American lake monsters seem to be largely endemic to British Columbia, probably owing to the also-common-in-B.C. plants of the Cannabiaceae family. Lake monsters are often sighted in areas where those plants are common.
Not true. While each of the lakes have had occasional odd “sightings” (probably spurred on by reports of the original Nessie), Lake Erie has had a number of similar reports of the “Lake Erie Monster” (that has rarely been given a cute name, although around Huron they talk about “South Bay Bessie”). There is nothing to it–Erie is far too shallow and throroughly fished to support anything from the department of cryptozoology–but the claims have been appearing for a while.
Thanks for the correction, Tom. In one rescension my post had an AFAIK in it, but it seems to have dropped out in the final redraft. I wasn’t aware of a “Lake Erie Monster.”
The first sighting (of which I am aware) for a big serpent (or something) in Lake Erie was around 1817. Then there is a long hiatus until near the end of the nineteenth century, followed by another “absence” until the middle of the 20th century, after which, along with UFOs, grays, Champ, Nessie, Bigfoot, and similar critters, The Lake Erie Monster begins to show up more regularly. It certainly does not have the following of Nessie, and I doubt that it has as many believers as Champ, but we get a new story on it every couple of years.
Won’t someone say how funny this is?
Elfbabe, you shoot, you score!
Nothing but net!
That’s why I love Lake Michigan. All the benefits of the ocean, none of the creepy critters.
<<rises up, looks about irritatedly, listens to the waves of Lake Michigan in the distance, sinks back beneath the surface of the hot tub, turns on the bubbles>>
I await it crossing at Portage into the Fox via the canal. They never cover all the routes and it will end up in the Great Lakes.
Sadly, I agree that it’s nearly impossible to stop, but every effory helps. Asian carp are the reason we NEED giant nasty beasties in the lakes, because otherwise they have no natural predators.
The stink alone is enough to kill you.
Not a critter, but the occasional seiche can be deadly. Sure, not tsunami deadly, but still.
How so? I’ve experienced (and played in) more than a few seiches on the Lake and I can’t say I found them particularly deadly. Far more deadly is playing in the Lake when it’s real rough, if you don’t know what to expect and aren’t a strong swimmer.
Having no idea what a seiche is, I googled it, and apparently they have killed a few people.
Er, what? Is this something I should be cautious around? Do I need some Holostean fish repellant? Do they bite? Does their power match that of the mighty ninja? Wikipedia tells me nothing!
They can be deadly because they’re so quiet and occur in good weather.
Hmmm…easy way to explain this? Well, by “fish” we can mean a lot of things, but we need to narrow it down. First, two living Classes of fish: the sharks, rays, and chimera on the one hand; all the other “bony” fish on the other. Focus on the latter. Now, two subclasses: lobefinned fish like the lungfishes and coelacanth, one the one hand; ray-finned “normal” fish on the other. Again, focus on the larger group.
Having gotten us down to the subclass of ray-finned bony fish, we note that they went through three main radiations. These are not clades or sometimes even closely related in their development, but it’s convenient in discussing “normal fish” to examine their evolution in terms of those three main radiations. Both of the first two radiations largely died out when its various families were replaced in their econiches by more advanced forms from the third radiation, but both have “living fossil” survivors. The oldest, dating back to the Paleozoic, is the Chondostrean; the sturgeons and paddlefish, and the bichir and reedfish of Africa, are the surviving forms. The second group, dating from the Triassic, is the Holostean radiation, and its survivors are the dogfish and gars, both present in North American lakes and rivers. Both groups evolved dozens of families filling a wide variety of econiches, from catfish-like scavengers to something akin to angelfish. The third group, the Telosteans, underwent a radiation starting in the Cretaceous and includes virtually every form of modern fish not mentioned above.
And yes, the dogfish and the gars are survivors, animals selected to survive in a dog(fish)-eat-dog(fish) world. They are moderately large for freshwater fish, and have a nice dental array and the attitude to use it at need.
Quite true. Are they Registered Holosteans or Feral Holosteans ?
