There are many reasons to book a Puerto Princesa tour package. Palawan has many attractive offers that can attract all kinds of tourists. One of them is the dugong or sea cow. According to some, the legend of the mermaid arose from this animal.
mermaid legend
Mermaids have long aroused people’s imagination. Artists used mermaids as subjects for paintings, songs, documentaries, and movies. According to stories, mermaids lure men into the water to their doom. Other stories say that they are kind, as they give gifts and help sailors in distress. Mermaids continue to be one of the most fascinating mythological creatures. Every culture has its mermaid stories. Most of the stories are from the Near East, Europe, Africa and Asia. In the Philippines, tales from the south speak of a “kataw”. It is what the Cebuanos call a mermaid that lives in the seas and caves of the islands.
Palawan Mermaids
A Puerto Princesa tour package will take you to Palawan, a province in the Philippines with its own mermaid story to tell. His version of a “kataw” is the dugong or sea cow. These are large creatures that feed on seagrasses. The locals associated these creatures with mermaids. Many sailors speak of encountering sea cows and mistaking them for mermaids. Interestingly, Christopher Columbus himself reported seeing newts during his exploration of the Caribbean. Similar sightings have also been reported in Israel, Canada and Zimbabwe. However, to this day no one has found evidence to prove its existence.
When you book a Puerto Princesa underground river tour package, your boatman can tell you a story about the fossil discovered inside the river cave. This is a dugong fossil, which experts believe to be about twenty million years old. Some people call dugongs Sirenia or Sirenians, an order of herbivorous, water-dwelling mammals. “Sirenia” is derived from the “sirens”, beings from Greek mythology who led sailors to their downfall. This explains why the Tagalog term for siren is “sirena”. Dugongs live in coastal marine waters, swamps, and rivers. You can also see them in estuaries.
The Miocene sea cow
In 2011, a team of Italian scientists discovered a 20-million-year-old dugong fossil. It belongs to one of the two extinct species of the sea cow. Experts believe that the Sirenian order evolved more than 50 million years ago. This is what makes the archaeological find very important. The specimen, found in the cave, is the first find from the Philippines. It is also the first such fossil find in the Southeast Asian region. The fossil is found in the deepest section of the cave, which cannot be accessed with a regular tour of Puerto Princesa’s underground river.
Do you want to visit the underground river? Apart from the fossil, you will find wonderful formations of stalactites and stalagmites in the cave. Contact a registered Philippine travel agency for more information on Puerto Princesa and famous underground river tour packages.
