Cryptozoology in 1986, he wrote, "Gennaro carried out comparative histological examination of the tissue, and concluded that it most resembled contemporary octopus tissue. While these results were highly suggestive, further biochemical work was required for an unambiguous identification of the tissue." Mackal tested samples of the St. Augustine carcass for different amino acids and compared the results with the known amino acid composition of the tissues of a spotted dolphin, a beluga, a giant squid, and two species of octopus. {| class="wikitable" |+Comparative amino acid compositions of several species |- ! sample !! 1M !! 2M !! 3M !! 4M !! 5M !! 6M |- |aspartic acid||10.5||5.9||10.5||11.7||10.3||10.5 |- |threonine||4.6||2.5||4.9||5.4||4.8||4.6 |- |serine||7.1||3.9||6.0||5.8||5.5||8.0 |- |glutamic acid||17.7||8.8||14.2||16.6||12.6||16.7 |- |hydroxyproline||not made||not made||not made||not made||not made||not made |- |proline||4.7||16.8||6.3||4.7||6.5||4.3 |- |glycine||10.6||34.6||19.2||11.5||20.0||14.2 |- |alanine||7.5||13.4||8.6||9.5||8.6||7.6 |- |valine||6.6||2.4||4.8||5.5||5.3||6.4 |- |methionine||2.2||0.4||1.9||2.2||1.9||2.1 |- |isoleucine||5.1||1.2||4.9||5.9||5.4||4.6 |- |leucine||10.7||2.9||7.8||10.0||8.1||10.4 |- |tyrosine||1.2||0.0||0.7||0.6||0.5||1.4 |- |phenylalanine||3.1||1.5||2.6||3.0||3.2||3.5 |- |histidine||0.3||0.0||+||+||0.2||+ |- |lysine||1.6||0.0||1.0||0.9||0.8||0.5 |- |arginine||6.4||5.8||6.6||6.7||6.5||5.2 |- |hydroxylysine||0.0||0.0||0.0||0.0||0.0||0.0 |- |} +: less than 0.1% Identification of the samples: 1M: Stenella plagiodon (dolphin) 2M: Octopus giganteus (monster of Florida) 3M, 4M, 5M: arm, mantle and fin of Architeuthis dux (giant squid) 6M: Delphinapterus leucas (beluga or white whale) {| class="wikitable" |+Comparative Cu and Fe compositions of several species |- ! sample !! Weight (mg) !! Cu (ppm) !! Fe (ppm) !! Cu/Fe |- |1M||12.8||300||1600||0.19 |- |2M||29.1||60||200||0.30 |- |4M||5.6||240||560||0.43 |- |6M||10.5||330||470||0.70 |- |} Identification of the samples: 1M: Stenella plagiodon (dolphin) 2M: Octopus giganteus (monster of Florida) 4M: mantle of Architeuthis dux (giant squid) 6M: Delphinapterus leucas (beluga or white whale) He published his findings in Cryptozoology: On the basis of Gennaro's histological studies and the present amino acid and Cu and Fe analyses, I conclude that, to the extent the preserved O. giganteus tissue is representative of the carcass washed ashore at St. Augustine, Florida, in November 1896, it was essentially a huge mass of collagenous protein. Certainly, the tissue was not blubber. I interpret these results as consistent with, and supportive of, Webb and Verrill's identification of the carcass as that of a gigantic cephalopod, probably an octopus, not referable to any known species. 1995 analysis Samples of the St. Augustine carcass were again examined in 1995. They were subjected to electron microscopy and biochemical analysis in what was the most thorough examination of the preserved material to date. The results of the analyses, published in the Biological Bulletin, disputed the earlier findings of Gennaro and Mackal. These are shown