"The migo first attracted notable attention beyond its island
homeland on 1 February 1972, when a Japanese newspaper
entitled the Mainichi Daily News reported a strange water
monster known locally by this name, which supposedly
inhabited Lake Dakataua, a caldera lake in the western
portion of New Britain. At approximately 320 miles long,
New Britain is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago,
situated off the eastern coast of Papua New Guinea
(PNG), which is the country occupying the eastern half
of the island of New Guinea, and to whom the Bismarck
Archipelago belongs. The lake has a diameter of 1400 ft,
has a maximum depth of roughly 400 ft, and contains a
submerged volcano plus three small islands.
"According to Shohei Shirai, at that time the head of
the Pacific Ocean Resources Research Institute, who was
quoted in that newspaper report, the migo was similar
in appearance to a mosasaur. This is the name given to a
taxonomic superfamily of sometimes ver y large prehistoric
lizards (the biggest species was up to 56 ft long) that were
closely related to today’s monitor lizards or varanids. However,
they were exclusively aquatic in lifestyle, equipped
with flippers and a laterally-compressed tail, the latter
being portrayed with a fin in some restorations. Other
than Mosasaurus itself, the most famous and frequently
depicted mosasaur was North America’s very impressive
Tylosaurus, whose largest species is believed to have attained
a total length of up to 46 ft.
"Although mosasaurs are traditionally assumed to have
been wholly marine in lifestyle, at least one exclusively
freshwater species is now known—Pannoniasaurus inexpectatus,
formally named and described in 2012 from fossilized
remains found in what is today Hungary. According
to the current fossil record, the mosasaurs had all become
extinct by the end of the Cretaceous Period, 66-65 million
years ago, along with the last non-avian dinosaurs, plesiosaurs,
and pterosaurs.
"In January 1994 (not 1993, as sometimes erroneously
claimed by others), after arriving in PNG during the rainy
season a crew from a Japanese TV production company
named the Stream Company, and headed by Nadaka
Tetsuo, journeyed on to New Britain and thence to Lake
Dakataua in the hope of encountering the migo. Moreover,
after setting up cameras around this lake, they
actually succeeded in filming what they deemed to be its
enigmatic denizen, which was duly included in a TV documentary
programme subsequently screened on Japanese
TV. . . ."
