moha moha

noun

A type of sea creature reported seen by a Miss Lovell and others at in South-East Queensland, Australia on 8 Jun 1890. She described it as some 30 feet long with a turtle-like neck extending from a rounded body some 8 feet across, and a long fish-like tail. Never seen again, and improbabilities in the description suggest a hoax.

1891: Native blacks call it Moka, moka and say they like to eat it, and that it has legs and fingers. — S. Lovell, Tempus omnia monstra, in Land and Water, London, 3 March 1891 (quoted by Malcolm Smith, Bunyips and Bigfoots, Millenium Books, 1996, ISBN 1-86429-081-1, who was unable to obtain the original and so quotes from Bernard Heuvelmans, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, 1968, who in turn apparently quotes from Antoon C. Oudemans, The Great Sea-Serpent, 1892).

Syn: chelosauria lovelli