Con Rit

See more Monster Hunting. See best of Ha Long in Vietnam.

What is fifty feet long, two feet wide, has an armoured brown body and bright yellow belly, and walks along the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Indochina? Here’s a clue = it looks like a cross between a giant millipede and a Chinese dragon? It’s the Con Rit, the Vietnamese water dragon.

If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard of this marvellous creature it’s because there haven’t been any Con Rit sightings for some time. During the 1860s and 70s there were a large number of Con Rit sightings and a Con Rit carcass was discovered in Along Bay in 1883 which fitted the stories description perfectly and revealed that Con Rit’s segmented body parts were hexagonal shaped and that its ’legs’ were more like fins. Unfortunately the head was missing and the stink off the carcass became so over powering that locals threw it back into the ocean. This was one creature that scientists were eagerly anticipating examining in the flesh, however they’re still waiting.

Scientists at the time found Con Rit to be a credible creature, possibly more primitive whale than millipede or else a giant crustacean (the segments of a lobster were considered similar to that of Con Rit.) It also fits in with descriptions throughout oriental mythology of whiskered sea dwelling dragons who lived in caves on the bottom of the ocean, it could be that what were thought of as stories are actually Con Rit sightings.

Many scientists still believe that there are marine creatures who have managed to evade human discovery and that any discoveries of large animals will be refined to the ocean. In view of the fact that the majority of new animal discoveries made are of invertebrates then a large, invertebrate sea creature seems a credible possibility.

Review by editor Worldreviewer