Historedia
AmericasEvent

St. Augustine Monster carcass washed ashore

When
1896–1897
Where
Anastasia Island; Crescent Beach; St. Augustine, Florida
Episodes
4

A large carcass washed ashore near St. Augustine, Florida, in late 1896. Initially identified as a giant octopus, it was later re-evaluated as whale blubber. The event involved discovery by boys, scientific examination, and subsequent reinterpretation of the remains.

Episodes

  1. 1896-11-30 · Anastasia IslandDiscovery on Anastasia Island

    Two boys discovered the carcass on November 30, 1896, while bicycling near St. Augustine, Florida.

  2. 1897-01 to 1897-04 · St. Augustine, FloridaVerrill's Initial Identification

    Alpheus Hyatt Verrill identified the carcass as a giant squid, later naming it Octopus giganteus.

  3. 1897-01-09 to 1897-01-15 · Crescent BeachStorm Tide Relocation

    A storm tide moved the carcass to Crescent Beach in January 1897.

  4. 1986 · St. Augustine, FloridaRe-evaluation as Whale Blubber

    Gennaro's 1986 histological examination found the tissue resembled octopus, while later analyses concluded the carcass was likely whale blubber.

Background and detail

Background. The St. Augustine Monster is a name for a large carcass found on the US coast near St. Augustine, Florida. It is sometimes called the Florida Monster or St. Augustine Giant Octopus. This event is one of the earliest recorded examples of a globster, a term for unclassified marine carcasses.

Discovery. The carcass was first spotted on the evening of November 30, 1896, by two young boys, Herbert Coles and Dunham Coretter, while bicycling along Anastasia Island. The location is near St. Augustine, Florida, on the Atlantic coast. The carcass became a tourist attraction, visited by large numbers of people.

Scientific Examination. Alpheus Hyatt Verrill initially suggested the carcass was a giant squid, later naming it Octopus giganteus. Drawings based on photographs were published in 1897. Later, histological and amino acid analyses by Gennaro and others concluded the tissue was collagenous matrix, likely from a sperm whale, contradicting the octopus theory.

People involved

Sources

  1. St. Augustine Monster Wikipedia, revision of 2026-05-29
  2. St. Augustine, Florida Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-05

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.