Sea ape

He did, though, cause a stir at a talk to a sub-aqua club in Brighton in 1960 which prompted a Sunday newspaper headline "Oxford professor says man a sea ape", an episode regarded as best brushed over by many of his less open-minded colleagues.

A mysterious creature he glimpsed in the Gulf of Alaska he called a "sea ape." Each creature was likened to some unrelated animal rather than being given its own name, seen for its own remarkable self.

However, a new theory has suggested that they might have seen 'sea apes' instead.

For instance, he reviews ancient seafarers' accounts of mysterious "sea apes," horse-headed sea serpents, and other creatures.

German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller first described the seals as 'sea apes' when he observed them in 1741 off the coast of what would become Alaska.