Feejee Mermaid

Feejee Mermaid
reputedly a mermaid caught near the Fiji Islands and exhibited in New York by a "Dr. J. Griffin", an English gentleman, and then by the showman P. T. Barnum. Griffin was a fraud perpetrated by Barnum for heightening public interest. The mermaid was a traditional art form of Asia, formed by stitching an upper ape body to a fish body. Feejee Mermaid is now used as a generic term for any fake mermaid seen in sideshows and bars, and even in an episode of the X-Files ("Humbug" in season 2, episode 20)

Dictionary of ichthyology. 2009.

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