Early traditional legends describe mermaids: supernatural beings that lived in the sea, a combination of human and fish. As time went on, they were described as having a human body and a fish’s tail. But where did the mermaid legend come from? For centuries, sailors travelled the oceans and returned to their homelands with tales of exotic creatures from distant shores, one of which was the mermaid. These sailors had been on the high seas for months. They may have been dehydrated, suffering from sunstroke, ill or simply lonely. They saw creature with smooth bodies and long flowing hair swimming through the water. Mermaids! Of course to our eyes a dugong ( Dugong dugori ) does not look much like a mermaid. But to a lonely sailor with the sun in his eyes, these graceful aquatic human-like creatures could have captured the imagination. The long flowing hair was possibly sea grasses, which the dugong feeds on. In an early record in his book, A Voyage to New Holland , the explorer C
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