ABSTRACT
As early as the XVIIth century, a Sherlock Holmes of Zoology could have deduced, on the basis of legends and anecdotes alone, the existence in the North Atlantic of squids of a tremendous size, comparable to that of whales. To establish what Science would still not recognize for another two hundred years, all he would have had to do would have been to use that same method which I use in my research on cryptic animals: to scrutinize the texts of ancient authors, perhaps prone to exaggerate, but also full of naive honesty; to track the sources of various fables; to sieve through reports and laymen’s testimonies, and thus, altogether, to exploit the least item of available information, without ever rejecting a priori even the most implausible statements. What is true is not always plausible!
