Five reasons mermaids are impossible

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Although the list could be infinite.

by Emily Willingham  

“A Mermaid,” by John William Waterhouse. This animal does not exist. If it did, it would not look like this. Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

A sad thing that in 2013, I am writing this: There are so many reasons why mermaids don’t exist. So. Many. Sure, it’d be interesting. But the world’s packed with enough remarkable, impossible-seeming real species, many of them in the sea, that we don’t really need to invent half-anythings to keep our attention.

But the Animal Planet wanted you to think otherwise, at least long enough to slog through their “faux-cumentary” about mermaids, which, by the way, have historically been used to represent women as prostitutes and otherwise sexually fatal creatures. Sadly, what the Animal Planet did was dupe people into watching an entire show about an animal that’s not a remote possibility, and here are some really basic reasons why.

This mashup doesn’t compute.
Both images, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The first is that a mermaid is supposed to be half human (the top) and half fish. Nature, in building organisms, does not cut two completely and very distantly related species in half and fuse together the parts. Ever. Not even the platypus, appearances notwithstanding. Fish and humans don’t even have the same organs and other parts arranged in the same way to make this possible. Where the hips meet the fish tail in pictures? That’s parking a human colon on top of a fish liver, swim bladder, and stomach, among other things. Behold the comparative anatomy (right). Behold how it could not possibly, um, stack up although it would undoubtedly and painfully back up.

The second is that were Nature somehow to fuse a fish butt onto a woman’s torso, how does said fusion creature make new creatures? Are mermaids parthenogens, mitotically producing new mermaids from some unseen orifice after being sown together from fish and people? You see, reproduction is a key element of being something that exists, that is alive. Animals gotta get it on, either with themselves or others of their species, to be here. An all-female human-fish mashup organism without sex bits, much less some way to lay an egg (fish style) or push out a baby (human style), isn’t gonna be able to do that. For a review, check out the comparative anatomy again. See?

Third, consider the skin. Your skin. Consider it immersed in saltwater, nonstop, 24-7. Consider what happens to human skin when it’s in saltwater for only a quarter hour or so. Let’s just say a mermaid would not look like a beautiful, smooth-skinned maiden combing her hair with a conch while perched on a rock.

Fourth, consider the skin (again). This “half-human” organism would, presumably, have human skin exposed pretty much nonstop to the sun. We’re talking massive sun damage here. In other words, between the saltwater and the sun, a mermaid would basically look like a shriveled, peeling raisin on a fish tail. Yum.

Fifth-how do they poop? Serious question. See “swim bladder parked on colon,” above.

In the end, consider Animal Planet. Once a fairly reasonable place to go for a fun sciencey outing-sometimes a tad twee, sometimes a tad stagy-it’s now jumped the, er, mermaid and sucked in what it claims is a record number of viewers. Viewers who either (1) really, really want to believe that there are mermaids or (2) really need to find a mission in life above the level of “watch crappy faux documentary on Animal Planet.” Might I suggest starting small, perhaps picking up a book and opening it? Or you could read this article at Slate about some real animals in our blue planet’s oceans and what humans could do-or stop doing-on their behalf.

20 thoughts on “Five reasons mermaids are impossible”

  1. I love this! So much better than “well, science knows that they don’t exist.” Kudos for my mental image of a leathery wrinkle-faced salt-water-saturated mermaid who is mortally constipated.

  2. Mermaids don’t have to poop. Did you learn nothing from “Splash?” Darryl Hannah never pooped in that movie.

    I can’t understand why you didn’t already know this.

    • Or maybe she was on the brink of death from anal compaction and saved only because she became human and able to (off camera) use the bathroom. I can’t understand why you didn’t think of that.

  3. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah swim away at the end of that movie and no one ever hears from either of them ever again.

    Seriously – name a SINGLE MOVIE either of them EVER made after Splash.

  4. Pingback: whistle blowers and the media, mermaids and radical fundamentalists | inkbluesky

  5. I am actually finding websites where people believe a spell can turn them into a mermaid? Really? I mean … if a mermaid existed, I would think it would be more like part dolphin … being completely mammal with a type of skin that works …. lol!!! I can’t even get through this without cringing at the ludicrous idea. It’s creative, but that is all I have for the defense of mermaids.

  6. Dont you dare tell this to my ASD 17 year old daughter. Ever, she loves mermaids. And every summer we have to go to Mermaids on Main in Chatham MA. Twice. And pleeeeese dont look into fairies. She has 121 books about fairies. Proof enough that they exist.

  9. I’m curious to know if you have considered if the bottom half was not of a fish but that of a whale/dolphin which is a mammal which gives birth fine. I’m not implying that i think you’re wrong and that i’m some paranormal believer in mermaids. i dont believe in mermaids at all but i think you should consider that in this post despite the popularity of using an actual fish with scales. Because look at the matinee, it was once believed to be a mermaid and it’s not a fish. A sailor on a ship who was to hypothetically witness a mermaid can’t possibly be able to see if the creature they saw had a fish half or a whale half, but chose to call it a fish to simply explain to other people what they saw.

    • So first of all, it’s not real, so there is no bottom half of anything. Second of all … well, the first of all was enough, but the arrangement of a marine mammal is no more suitable than the arrangement of a fish to be attached to a human torso. Good Lord.

      • So in other words you’re just here to tell me nonsence right? I said consider, not believe.
        Thank you, for the useless comment.

          • Wow. You’re telling me how there’s nothing useful to hear about it yet here is an article. I’m not trying to be an annoyance but I feel if you’re gonna mention a fish half that it would be nice to mention a marine half too. If you think people would be interested to know why mermaids DON’T exist then why are do you keep speaking against my question? I was simply trying to start a discussion out of curiosity and instead of kindly explaining, you instead refuse to address it. This really leaves me disheartened and I almost feel belittled by you. For an article to be made, and a comment section below to discuss it, i didn’t see the problem with asking or posing a scenario, but thanks anyway.

          • Thanks for the link. I can’t really read it or understand it that well because the image is very small on my computer, but i’ll research the anatomy and discover this on my own time. Again, thank you.

          • Sorry…I get a lot of trolling comments on this particular post and mistook yours as one. Whether the animal is a mammal or a fish, it’s a vertebrate, and its shape for swimming constrains its anatomy in a similar way that would preclude attaching the lower half of either to a human torso and allowing either for survival or reproduction

      • It would be nice to hear why a marine animal wouldn’t work as well, which is what i’m saying above. I feel they left that factor out. Because i feel it’s an interesting thing to think about.

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