What is a Mermaid's Diet?
Hello Nerdfighters!
Over the past few months of Dear Hank and John episodes, one of the conversations I've thought about the most has to be the "Mermaid Diet" discussion of Episode 106: Mermaid Cannibalism. In this discussion, John and Hank Green respond to a query from a listener named Laura. Laura's question went like this:
Now, disregarding the fact that mermaids are totally mythical, this seems like a huge dilemma. If I were a mermaid I probably wouldn't feel comfortable eating a fish, but then again being completely sustained by seaweed seems somewhat of a nightmare to me too.
John and Hank eventually came to the decision that mermaids probably do eat fish and considering fish species are very biologically diverse, it's probably not really cannibalistic. And that they likely eat seaweed and other sea plants, which seems fair.
BUT... is that the true answer? I needed to know so I set off to do some research and here's what I found.
_________________________________________________________________________________
As it turns out, there's no true consensus to exactly what a mermaid's diet is. It looks like different mermaids have different views on the humanity (fish-manity?) of meat eating. So here's a look at the daily diet of a few different popular mermaids.
1. Ariel the Mermaid
It's been awhile since I've seen The Little Mermaid , but I figured it was unlikely that Ariel and the other merfolk under the sea would eat their little friends. I did some research, and according to this Signature article, I was right. In the movie, there are a few instances in which eating fish is clearly frowned upon by King Triton and Sebastian. It actually seems that sea creature consumption is seen as a villainous activity as the movie's large, purple villain, Ursula, is the only one who eats fish (or prawns, rather). Therefore, it seems the rest of the sea characters are sustained on a purely vegetarian aquatic diet.
2. Ancient Mermaids
On the Wikipedia site for mermaids, there is a quotation from an early text regarding mermaids' eating habits. Around the years 100-200 AD, a man named Lucian of Samosata wrote of his experience encountering mermaids. He claims that the mermaids he encountered believed fish to be sacred and wouldn't consider eating them, but they did eat some birds (see the article for the full quote). It seems that these mermaids are slightly more adventurous than the music-loving Disney characters I just mentioned, but fish are still left off the plate.
3. Pirate Mermaids
The Little Mermaid isn't the only Disney movie that immerses mermaids into pop culture. Mermaids were part of the storyline in the fourth Pirates of The Caribbean movie: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Here, mermaids are depicted as mysterious and dangerous creatures that entice sailors through song and then drag to them to the bottom of the sea to eat their flesh. So, in this story, mermaids skip right past the fish and consume humans. This poses a secondary question: Are mermaids cannibalistic if they eat humans? Well... probably. Anyways, this getting a little creepy... Let's just assume this is all mythical and the mermaids in question here aren't these ones.
4. Humans Wearing Mermaid Costumes
So far everything has been both mythical and hypothetical, but there is one class of mermaids we can all agree exists: Humans in mermaid costumes. Humans can dress up like mermaids in many ways, especially with the introduction of the ever-popular mermaid tails for swimming and mermaid tail blankets for fashionable lounging. So in this case, mermaids eat whatever humans can eat. Maybe some mermaids are vegetarians, maybe some eat fish, maybe some are little kids who survive off of chicken nuggets and mac and cheese? Who knows.
So in conclusion, depending on what type of mermaids you believe in, mermaids can eat anything from seaweed to birds to fish to humans to chicken nuggets. Does that answer your question, Laura? I certainly hope so.
What are your opinions? What are some other classes of mermaids I may have missed? And as always, let me know if you have any other dubious advice from Dear Hank and John that you'd like me to try out!
DFTBA,
Liana
Over the past few months of Dear Hank and John episodes, one of the conversations I've thought about the most has to be the "Mermaid Diet" discussion of Episode 106: Mermaid Cannibalism. In this discussion, John and Hank Green respond to a query from a listener named Laura. Laura's question went like this:
"So a mermaid is half fish and half human, right? What do mermaids eat? I know that fish often eat other fish, and that's completely acceptable. But if someone is half fish and half human... would [they] feel cannibalistic eating a fish?"
Now, disregarding the fact that mermaids are totally mythical, this seems like a huge dilemma. If I were a mermaid I probably wouldn't feel comfortable eating a fish, but then again being completely sustained by seaweed seems somewhat of a nightmare to me too.
John and Hank eventually came to the decision that mermaids probably do eat fish and considering fish species are very biologically diverse, it's probably not really cannibalistic. And that they likely eat seaweed and other sea plants, which seems fair.
BUT... is that the true answer? I needed to know so I set off to do some research and here's what I found.
_________________________________________________________________________________
As it turns out, there's no true consensus to exactly what a mermaid's diet is. It looks like different mermaids have different views on the humanity (fish-manity?) of meat eating. So here's a look at the daily diet of a few different popular mermaids.
1. Ariel the MermaidIt's been awhile since I've seen The Little Mermaid , but I figured it was unlikely that Ariel and the other merfolk under the sea would eat their little friends. I did some research, and according to this Signature article, I was right. In the movie, there are a few instances in which eating fish is clearly frowned upon by King Triton and Sebastian. It actually seems that sea creature consumption is seen as a villainous activity as the movie's large, purple villain, Ursula, is the only one who eats fish (or prawns, rather). Therefore, it seems the rest of the sea characters are sustained on a purely vegetarian aquatic diet.
2. Ancient Mermaids
On the Wikipedia site for mermaids, there is a quotation from an early text regarding mermaids' eating habits. Around the years 100-200 AD, a man named Lucian of Samosata wrote of his experience encountering mermaids. He claims that the mermaids he encountered believed fish to be sacred and wouldn't consider eating them, but they did eat some birds (see the article for the full quote). It seems that these mermaids are slightly more adventurous than the music-loving Disney characters I just mentioned, but fish are still left off the plate.
The Little Mermaid isn't the only Disney movie that immerses mermaids into pop culture. Mermaids were part of the storyline in the fourth Pirates of The Caribbean movie: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Here, mermaids are depicted as mysterious and dangerous creatures that entice sailors through song and then drag to them to the bottom of the sea to eat their flesh. So, in this story, mermaids skip right past the fish and consume humans. This poses a secondary question: Are mermaids cannibalistic if they eat humans? Well... probably. Anyways, this getting a little creepy... Let's just assume this is all mythical and the mermaids in question here aren't these ones.4. Humans Wearing Mermaid Costumes
So far everything has been both mythical and hypothetical, but there is one class of mermaids we can all agree exists: Humans in mermaid costumes. Humans can dress up like mermaids in many ways, especially with the introduction of the ever-popular mermaid tails for swimming and mermaid tail blankets for fashionable lounging. So in this case, mermaids eat whatever humans can eat. Maybe some mermaids are vegetarians, maybe some eat fish, maybe some are little kids who survive off of chicken nuggets and mac and cheese? Who knows.So in conclusion, depending on what type of mermaids you believe in, mermaids can eat anything from seaweed to birds to fish to humans to chicken nuggets. Does that answer your question, Laura? I certainly hope so.
What are your opinions? What are some other classes of mermaids I may have missed? And as always, let me know if you have any other dubious advice from Dear Hank and John that you'd like me to try out!
DFTBA,
Liana
This was a cute analysis! I love the blog!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you liked it! It is a little bit of a different style from the other posts I've done, so I'm happy it worked out! Thank you :)
DeleteWell we do not eat other human but we eat animals. Mermaids live in the sea and eat fish, shimps, octopus and algae as well as human do on earth, they have a stomach and need more or less same nutritions we need but they luve underwater and cannot cook so they have to eat row. Their teeth really are different in their own world, they become pointy like the fish ones so they can eat better, only mermaids who can turn tail into legs can also transform teeth into human one but still is not clear how they do, some think they have a kind of shark teeth in two rows, if they are on earth the human ones come up, when they return to sea the fishy teeth row comes up in turn
ReplyDelete