It’s happened many times that an idea of how our world came to be the way it is arose just because someone thought it made sense. Ideas without any evidence are often proved wrong later, but once a theory is widespread, it’s hard to take it back. Nineteenth-century lawyer and zoologist Philip Sclater published important work about the animals found in the different regions of the earth. But he was puzzled by lemurs, fossils of which were found in both Madagascar and in India. How does one explain that? Well, there must have been a land bridge at some time in the past. Sclater proposed that there was once a continent in the Indian Ocean he called Lemuria. That sunken continent (sometimes transferred to the pacific Ocean under the name Mu) captured the imagination of all sorts of people, and led to legends, fictional stories, and at least one religion that survives today.
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The existence of Lemuria (called Kumari Kandam in Tamil) was disproven by plate tectonics later on. And in a final twist, the lemurs found in India were explained away as well. Read about the rise and fall of the continent of Lemuria at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Pradeep.doodh)
Source: neatorama