An Atlantis for lemurs? It's not quite as crazy as it sounds.
TOM HALE
Senior Journalist
March 17, 2023
IFLSCIENCE
An artist's impression of Lemuria, complete with lemurs, from 1893. Image credit: Édouard Riou/New York Public Library/No Known Copyright.
In the 19th century, a rumor circulated in the scientific world that a "lost continent" was laying undiscovered at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. They named it Lemuria as their misguided efforts were driven by some very confusing lemurs.
The idea is largely credited to British zoologist Philip Lutley Sclater who wrote a paper titled “The Mammals of Madagascar” in 1864, published in the Quarterly Journal of Science. Sclater explained that lemur fossils could be found in Madagascar and India, but not in Africa or the Middle East, suggesting that Madagascar and India were once been part of a larger continent that’s since gone missing in the Indian Ocean.
Sclater wasn’t alone in his dreams of Lemuria and a number of other prominent European scientists jumped on the bandwagon.
In 1868, German biologist Ernst Haeckel published “The History of Creation,” in which he argued the origin of humanity was to be found in Asia, not Africa as Charles Darwin correctly stated, and that humans were closely related to the primates of Southeast Asia.
The "missing link, " he believed, could be found on the long-lost landmass of Lemuria. Acting as a continental superhighway between India and Africa, Lemuria could explain how humans migrated to the rest of the world, at least in his mind.
That’s right: according to Haeckel, we are descended from lemurs and the remains of some strange lemur-human hybrids are likely to be lurking in the Indian Ocean on a long-lost continent
.
The (nonsense) map explains the 12 varieties of men emerging from Lemuria and migrating all over the Earth. Image credit: Library of Congress/Public Domain
Another equally eccentric idea came from Helena Blavatsky, a 19th-century Russian mystic whose work is teeming with bizarre pseudo-science and mysticism. In her 1888 book, The Secret Doctrine, she promoted the ridiculous idea that all of humanity is descended from seven "root races." One of these was from Atlantis, and one was apparently from the continent of Lemuria, which she placed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
As wild as the idea of Lemuria may sound, it’s not totally baseless.
The theory gained a bit of traction in the 19th century because this was long before the discovery of plate tectonics and "continental drift", which explained how the world’s continents are constantly (and very slowly) drifting around the planet.
It turned out, the theory that India and Africa were once joined was true. Until around 200 million years ago, all of Earth's continents were once smooshed together in one supercontinent, Pangaea. In this configuration, the Indian Plate was tucked up close to the east of the Africa plate.
Furthermore, there was genuinely a microcontinent called Mauritia that was located between India and Madagascar until their separation about 70 million years ago.
In 2017, scientists confirmed the existence of the "lost continent" by finding evidence of a piece of continental crust under the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Their work indicated that this chip of ancient continent likely broke off from the island of Madagascar, when Africa, India, Australia, and Antarctica split up.
Unfortunately, however, lemurs had little to do with any of it.
The (nonsense) map explains the 12 varieties of men emerging from Lemuria and migrating all over the Earth. Image credit: Library of Congress/Public Domain
Another equally eccentric idea came from Helena Blavatsky, a 19th-century Russian mystic whose work is teeming with bizarre pseudo-science and mysticism. In her 1888 book, The Secret Doctrine, she promoted the ridiculous idea that all of humanity is descended from seven "root races." One of these was from Atlantis, and one was apparently from the continent of Lemuria, which she placed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
As wild as the idea of Lemuria may sound, it’s not totally baseless.
The theory gained a bit of traction in the 19th century because this was long before the discovery of plate tectonics and "continental drift", which explained how the world’s continents are constantly (and very slowly) drifting around the planet.
It turned out, the theory that India and Africa were once joined was true. Until around 200 million years ago, all of Earth's continents were once smooshed together in one supercontinent, Pangaea. In this configuration, the Indian Plate was tucked up close to the east of the Africa plate.
Furthermore, there was genuinely a microcontinent called Mauritia that was located between India and Madagascar until their separation about 70 million years ago.
In 2017, scientists confirmed the existence of the "lost continent" by finding evidence of a piece of continental crust under the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Their work indicated that this chip of ancient continent likely broke off from the island of Madagascar, when Africa, India, Australia, and Antarctica split up.
Unfortunately, however, lemurs had little to do with any of it.
Everything You Need To Know About Lemuria, The Lost Continent Of Lemurs
By Esther Inglis-Arkell
Published August 21, 2014
In 1858 a young zoologist, playing around with an idea, came up with a possible lost continent. This led to one of the longest and weirdest pseudoscience theories of all time, as Lemuria became a lost island of lemurs that had everything from sanskrit to sasquatch.
This was thanks to Philip Lutley Sclater, who has plenty of less crazy credits to his name. He amassed a collection of thousands of bird specimens, which he gave to the British museum. He described the okapi to western zoologists. He founded The Ibis, a journal of ornithology. And he fathered a son, who grew to be another respected ornithologist. But in 1858, when Sclater was in his 20s and all the crazy young kids were coming up with tales of land bridges and lost continents, he undertook a study of the fauna of Madagascar. Sclater with struck by the fact that Madascar's ecology was similar not only to Africa but to India as well. Sclater's conclusion, drawn from the puzzling similarity, was that both continents had once been connected by a lost land called Lemuria.
The world hadn't arrived at the theory of continental drift just yet, but scientists studying the geology, zoology, and botany of different continents had noticed some links and uncanny coincidences. They came up with all kind of possible connections between continents, and Lemuria, a lost continent of lemurs, was Sclater's contribution. He wasn't alone. If he had been, Lemuria would have faded into obscurity; Ernst Haeckel, a Darwin enthusiast often credited with promoting Darwin's ideas of natural selection in Germany, also came up with the idea of Lemuria. He added his own spin on it, claiming that Lemurians were not just lemurs, but humans as well. The Lemurians migrated to India as their continent sank, Haeckel claimed, and became the Aryans.
Once Lemuria was connected to a mythical human race, everyone had a theory about it. Helena Blavatsky, noted cult leader and nutbag , claimed that the Lemurians were actual human-sized lemurs. They were "hermaphrodites," she said, that reproduced without sexual intercourse, until they discovered sex, and their wickedness made their continent sink into the sea. People believed that the Lemurians came up with Sanskrit, that they were telepathic, that they were unable to reason but lived happily by instinct alone. Herbert Spencer Lewis, a member of the Rosicrucians, published a book claiming that the Lemurians were actually ancestors of the Maya. (Though how they got from India and Africa to Central America was anyone's guess.) Furthermore, he believed that the last pure Lemurians lived in secret on top of Mount Shasta, in California. (Again, no word on their mode of transportation.) Hikers, he said, sometimes spotted them, as they had long hair and English accents. (Seriously. These people got around.)
Lemurian legends spring up to this day, and have less and less to do with lemurs. Sclater would not approve.
[Via Bogus Science]
By Esther Inglis-Arkell
Published August 21, 2014
In 1858 a young zoologist, playing around with an idea, came up with a possible lost continent. This led to one of the longest and weirdest pseudoscience theories of all time, as Lemuria became a lost island of lemurs that had everything from sanskrit to sasquatch.
This was thanks to Philip Lutley Sclater, who has plenty of less crazy credits to his name. He amassed a collection of thousands of bird specimens, which he gave to the British museum. He described the okapi to western zoologists. He founded The Ibis, a journal of ornithology. And he fathered a son, who grew to be another respected ornithologist. But in 1858, when Sclater was in his 20s and all the crazy young kids were coming up with tales of land bridges and lost continents, he undertook a study of the fauna of Madagascar. Sclater with struck by the fact that Madascar's ecology was similar not only to Africa but to India as well. Sclater's conclusion, drawn from the puzzling similarity, was that both continents had once been connected by a lost land called Lemuria.
The world hadn't arrived at the theory of continental drift just yet, but scientists studying the geology, zoology, and botany of different continents had noticed some links and uncanny coincidences. They came up with all kind of possible connections between continents, and Lemuria, a lost continent of lemurs, was Sclater's contribution. He wasn't alone. If he had been, Lemuria would have faded into obscurity; Ernst Haeckel, a Darwin enthusiast often credited with promoting Darwin's ideas of natural selection in Germany, also came up with the idea of Lemuria. He added his own spin on it, claiming that Lemurians were not just lemurs, but humans as well. The Lemurians migrated to India as their continent sank, Haeckel claimed, and became the Aryans.
Once Lemuria was connected to a mythical human race, everyone had a theory about it. Helena Blavatsky, noted cult leader and nutbag , claimed that the Lemurians were actual human-sized lemurs. They were "hermaphrodites," she said, that reproduced without sexual intercourse, until they discovered sex, and their wickedness made their continent sink into the sea. People believed that the Lemurians came up with Sanskrit, that they were telepathic, that they were unable to reason but lived happily by instinct alone. Herbert Spencer Lewis, a member of the Rosicrucians, published a book claiming that the Lemurians were actually ancestors of the Maya. (Though how they got from India and Africa to Central America was anyone's guess.) Furthermore, he believed that the last pure Lemurians lived in secret on top of Mount Shasta, in California. (Again, no word on their mode of transportation.) Hikers, he said, sometimes spotted them, as they had long hair and English accents. (Seriously. These people got around.)
Lemurian legends spring up to this day, and have less and less to do with lemurs. Sclater would not approve.
[Via Bogus Science]
Scientific American
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com › a-geologists-dre...
May 10, 2013 — "The probable primeval home or "Paradise" is here assumed to be Lemuria, a tropical continent at present lying below the level of the Indian ...
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com › a-geologists-dre...
May 10, 2013 — "The probable primeval home or "Paradise" is here assumed to be Lemuria, a tropical continent at present lying below the level of the Indian ...
BEST BOOK ON THE SUBJECT AS IT RELATES TO TAMIL LEGENDS
by S Ramaswamy · During the nineteenth century, Lemuria was imagined as a land that once bridged India and Africa but disappeared into the ocean millennia ago, ...
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