Legendary aquatic creature with the upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish.
Mermaids are said to live mostly in the water, although sometimes they are known to come out of the water and sit on the large rocks above the sea. It was thought that they would make boats crash with their siren-like calls.
Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide including the Near East, Europe, Asia and Africa. The first stories appeared in ancient Assyria, in which the goddess Atargatis transformed herself into a mermaid out of shame for accidentally killing her human lover.
In 2012, the television channel Animal Planet cured a show claiming to show evidence that mermaids are real.
