The Feejee Mermaid was probably made from an orangutan and a salmon. Unlike images of mermaids in folklore and popular culture, such mermaids were unattractive, often described as hideous.

Although it helped make him a fortune, Phineas Taylor Barnum admitted that he wasn’t too proud of the spectacle: this tiny monkey severed at the waist and stitched to the mummified tail of a … ...