By Diana Duel From Hartford Pets Examiner

Professional angler Jeremy Wade’s lust for adventure sent him on a mission to learn more about the legendary Lusca Monster renowned for attacking swimmers and divers in the Bahamas. Results of that quest were featured yesterday on Animal Planet’s May 5th River Monsters, episode “Terror in Paradise.” The show featured Wade’s adventure to hunt down the more than mythical monster fish by diving into the murky depths of the Caribbean to explore its supposed habitat of rugged underwater terrain and large undersea caves to determine whether the creatures really exist.

“My investigation now centers on whether a giant octopus could potentially catch and consume a person,” Wade stated in a trailer for the episode. “I’ve seen this animal’s amazing predatory behavior, so I know in principle this is a possibility.”

According to legend the terrifying beast has the “ferocity of a shark and the grip of an octopus, and is capable of slurping humans from the surface of the blue holes” off Andros, an island in the Bahamas. The beast has also been described as either a “multi-headed monster, a dragon-like creature, or some kind of evil spirit.”

Although the body of a globster, dubbed the St. Augustine Monster when it washed up on St. Augustine, FL in 1896, was initially believed to have been an elusive lusca, scientists later proved it was nothing more than a mass of rotting fat tissue from a decomposing sperm whale. Meanwhile, renewed interest in the creature surfaced on January 18, 2011, when witnesses reported seeing the body of (what looked like) a giant octopus washed ashore on Grand Bahama Island. However, no tentacles were found and the remains appeared to represent only a portion of the head and mouthparts of the original creature, which local fishermen surmised must have been somewhere between 20- 30 feet, based on their knowledge of octopus morphology. Meanwhile it should be noted that cryptozoologists have suggested lusca is indeed a gigantic octopus, anywhere from 75-200 feet long, far larger than the known giant octopuses of the genus Enteroctopus.

IMAGE: carcass that washed ashore in St. Augustine Monster seen in 1896. Wikicommons public domain

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