TWO BRIEF NOTES

TRUNKO AND DOBHARCHU

Trunko is the name given to something strange that washed up on the South African shore.  It appears in lists of cryptids but Karl Shuker has proven that it is not a cryptid at all, but a decomposing whale.

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With regard to the Dobharchu, I suggested to Jon Downes recently that it was not a separate species of otter or anything else.  I suggested that some otters carried an hereditary gene that manifested, not in every generation, but from time to time, resulting in an outsize specimen.  In the Irish language, dobharchu is generally used for an ordinary otter.

There is, actually, a Saint Dobharchu, also known as Mac Onchon.