Slothunog

[Plugg Firetail]

I'm not sure if it/he/she counts as a character,but I was always wondering"What was Slothunog.Any suggestions?

[Log-a-Log]

Maybe he was a descendant of the Deepcoiler, although I don't know how he eould have gotten into that lake in the crater

[Nightfire]

On the High Rhulain map then it's portrayed as a Pleiseosaur.

[Taggerung_of_Redwall]

Plesiosaur, actually. Just wrote a short paper on them.
Anyway, the Slothoung is one of Brian's mythical elements, with the Wearat. Neither are modern living creatures, the latter being his intellectual invention and never living.

[Tiria Wildlough]

A Wearat is a weasel/rat, but I have no idea what Slothunog is. Still, he's cool. If not for him, Pitru would still be alive and kicking.

[Plugg Firetail]

Thanks for helping.In the chapter picture he looked like a eel.

[Dotti]

I pictures Slothunug as being significantly smaller than the Deepcoiler, since the lake he was in wasn't nearly an inland sea.  I picture him as being some sort of eel-like creature, not really defined all that well because we never get to see all of him.  
This is slightly off-topic, but do you suppose the otter clans used the lake for fishing after Slothunug died?

[Plugg Firetail]

I don't know.I always thought where slothunog lived was a swamp.(scratches head)I have to read High Rhulain again.

[Nightfire]

Pleiseosaurs are not actually mythical, and are alive today. There has been physical evidece found of a living Pleiseosaur in Lake Erie, near where I live!

[Taggerung_of_Redwall]

The name, as I've already pointed out, is 'plesiosaur'.
And they are scientifically speaking extinct, though that lies in dispute by sightings without reliable evidence.
The many times they've been 'proved' to not be extinct is more than is countable.

I think I'll write and post a description, since discussion on it seems to be mounting.
The plesiosaur would have looked like what is pictured in High Rhulain, with a broad body and a short tail, and four flippers. Due to their physiology they are thought to have been rather slow swimmers. Also that they would have cruised below the surface of the water and used their long neck to their advantage in catching fish. For instance, reaching into rocks.
I suppose fish would have to have been in the crater for a food source for the monster.

Worth pointing, plesiosaur skeletons show that they could not have been capable of maneuvering itself into the famous "swan-like" pose. Their necks could not have bended so far up, and gravity would have tipped their body forward and kept most of their neck submerged.
And plesiosaurs would have been quite smaller than normally depicted, only 4 meters long at largest.
The pliosaur is a relative, much larger, with bodies measuring 54 meters in length, and massive heads.

[Skalrag of Marshank]

It says on Slothunog's Redwall Wiki page that it's a Plesiosaur, like the Loch Ness Monster.

http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Slothunog

[Nightfire]

People have atually found the recently dead bodies of them, though. I'm talking PHYSICAL SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE, not witness sightings.

[Taggerung_of_Redwall]

I've heard of a few such things, all ended up testing otherwise. Take the baleen whale found near New Zealand which was in fact a baleen whale, both by appearance had it not been largely decayed, and eventually DNA testing.
Evidence would imply the specimen being observed, documented and applied to previously gathered knowledge regarding the specimen. Such a thing has not happened.

[Redwall Musician]

Well, I do believe there was a plesiosaur found in the 1970's. I just got done reading (well, I read part of) a report about the plesiosaur from 1977. Of coarse the smart peopke said the dead body found was a "shark" but if you look at the picture, that's no normal shark.

If you want I could post a link to were I read that.

[Skalrag of Marshank]

Yes, please. I love articles like that.