Animal Planet Special MERMAIDS: THE BODY FOUND Closes MONSTER WEEK, 5/27

Related: Animal Planet, Monster Week

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Once upon a time, there lived a little mermaid in an underwater kingdom. She ventured to surface, longing to communicate with people on land... .

This is a fairytale told and retold to children everywhere; it's a beloved story about a legendary creature that's described in the mythologies of nearly every human culture in history. People across all continents who've had no communications with other societies have described the same half-man, half-fish anomaly - they've spoken about the same mythic animal.

What if there's a kernel of truth that lives beneath the legend of the mythic mermaid? Now, in MERMAIDS: THE BODY FOUND, premiering Sunday, May 27, from 9-11 PM ET/PT, Animal Planet brings viewers into the world where the legend is real. The film blends real-life events and phenomena with the story of two scientists who testify they found The Remains of a never-before-identified sea creature. Spectacular CGI animates a world where mermaids really do swim below the water's surface, cooperatively hunt with dolphins and may continue to survive in an intricate society where they stay hidden in fear of their Earth-bound relatives.

As the crescendo to MONSTER WEEK, a weeklong network programming stunt airing from May 21 to May 28, MERMAIDS: THE BODY FOUND is a story about evolutionary possibility grounded in a radical scientific theory - the Aquatic Ape Theory, which claims that humans had an aquatic stage in our evolutionary past. While coastal flooding millions of years ago turned some of our ancestors inland, is it possible that one group of our ancestors didn't retreat from water but rather went in deeper? Could they have ventured farther into sea out of necessity and to find food? The Aquatic Ape Theory makes it possible to believe that while we evolved into terrestrial humans, our aquatic relatives turned into something strangely similar to the fabled mermaid. As evidence that humans once evolved into aquatic creatures, the Aquatic Ape Theory cites some of the striking differences between man and other primates and the many features we share with marine mammals, including the following:

· Webbing between fingers (Other primates don't have this.)

· Subcutaneous fat (insulating from cold water)

· Control over breath (Humans can hold breath up to 20 minutes, longer than any other terrestrial animal.)

· Loss of body hair (Hair creates drag in water.)

· Instinctive ability to swim (Human babies are able to do this.)

· A highly developed brain, which depends on nutrients provided by seafood

MERMAIDS: THE BODY FOUND makes a strong case for the existence of the mermaid, a creature with a surprisingly human evolutionary history, whose ancestral branch splits off from a shared human root. The film is science fiction, using science as a springboard into imagination and centering the story on the following real-world events:

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