A Human-seal Hybrid?

Human Hybrids

EUGENE M. MCCARTHY, PHD GENETICS, ΦΒΚ

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Eudemus asserts that a seal fell in love with a man whose habit was to dive for sponges, and that it would emerge from the sea and consort with him where there was a rocky cavern.

—Claudius Aelianus
On the Nature of Animals, IV.56

Caution! The evidence for this cross is scant, and this entire webpage was created simply to have a heading under which to file the news report quoted below.

According to a report that went the rounds of American newspapers in the late nineteenth century, a woman in Lewiston, Maine, gave birth to a tertium quid, half seal and half human, that is, a seal-human hybrid. The material quoted here was taken from the Phillipsburg, Kansas, Herald (Dec. 28, 1882, p. 1, col. 3):

A woman at Lewiston, Me., gave birth to a monstrosity a few days ago. The lower portions of the body were shaped like those of a well-formed child, while the head and upper parts were like the young of a sea-lion. The creature had a hairy head, neck and muzzle. After it was a day or two old it barked and spat.

Lewiston is about ten miles from the coast of Maine.

To the foregoing may be added two passages from the Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore that relate to this cross. One is that "Some scholars remark upon the claim of seal ancestry by certain coastal families—in Ireland, the Coneelys, Flahertys, MacNamaras, Sullivans, and many families on Achill Island; on the Hebrides, the MacPhees; on the Scottish mainland, the MacCondrums; on the Isle of Skye, all fair-haired people." Another is that "Marriage between water fairies and humans was apparently very common, if folklore that claims of seal ancestry for many coastal families is to be believed."

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By the same author: Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World, Oxford University Press (2006).