Haunting 'mermaid' mummy from Japan is a gruesome monkey-fish hybrid with 'dragon claws,' new scans reveal
Researchers have begun to analyze the remains of a creepy "mermaid mummy" that was brought to the U.S. from Japan in 1906. (Image credit: Fiji Mermaid Project/Joseph Cress) A mysterious, malevolent-looking mermaid mummy that was brought back to the U.S. from Japan more than 100 years ago appears to be a mix of fish, monkey and lizard parts that have been joined together like Frankenstein's monster, initial scans suggest. The haunting mummy , which is around 11.5 inches (29 centimeters) long, is known as the "Fiji mermaid " due to its similarities with an object of the same name supposedly acquired from Fiji by controversial showman P.T. Barnum in the 1840s . The mummy was purchased in Japan by an American naval officer who donated it to the Clark County Historical Society in Springfield, Ohio, in 1906. Documents supplied to the society with the mummy suggest it dates back to the mid-1800s. Now, for the first time, researchers have investigated the merm...