A team of researchers have start their labor to analyze a " mermaid mummy "   – a strange - looking creature ( or creatures ) aver to be caught in a sportfishing net off the coast of   present - mean solar day Kochi Prefecture , Japan , between   1736 and 1741 .

Since its find ( or , if you ’re a little more healthily unbelieving , since someone tailor a fish to a rascal ) the " mermaid " has been keep at the Enjuin temple in Asakuchi , where it has been seen as an object of worship .

“ We have worshipped it , hop that it would help alleviate the coronavirus pandemic even if only slightly , ” the head priesttold Japanese news outlet Asahi .   “ I hope the research project can leave ( scientific ) phonograph record for future generation . ”

Now , Asahi report , it is to be studied scientifically for the first metre . research worker from   the Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts have so far remove the mummy from the tabernacle so as to place it on a CT electronic scanner .

The team will also test DNA samples strike from the mummy , to ascertain what creature have been used to make it   – it is believed to be a rascal and a Pisces . late field have looked at like animals , include one " mermaid " that wrick out to be a fish that was attached to a wire and wood torso , withhuman tomentum for a finishing touch .

Perhaps the most famous mermaid dupery was the " Fiji Mermaid " , put on exhibit by P. T. Barnum . Barnum advertised the exhibit with   drawing off of typical mythological mermaid : Beautiful creatures with the head and body of a cleaning woman ( depicted as bare in the leaflets ) tie to the bottom one-half of a fish . Whatactually greeted punterswhen they showed up to see the mermaid was the top half of a monkey , which had been sewn to a fish , and both parts were also   extremely dead .

The mermaid was likelycreated by a Japanese fisherman as a joke . The fisher take the rascal - fish had made a prophecy that everyone on the island would become sterile , and the only cure was to have a picture of the mermaid itself , which handily he could allow for for a small fee .

The team will publish their finding on the " mermaid " later on this twelvemonth , though do n’t hold your breathing place for confirmation that mermaids are real . According to   Hiroshi Kinoshita of the   Okayama Folklore Society who first sparked this a la mode project , another " mermaid " specimen turned out to be a monkey stitched to a salmon .