Not in the movie, no. I did find that to be pretty poorly done. In the director's commentaries, as the were describing creating the monster, its supposed to be something that lives at the bottom of the deepest parts of the ocean, and was washed up/lost and ended up in the harbor. Its a baby of its kind (kinda hard to imagine that we'd miss seeing an adult!), scared/lost/lonely/confused, and freaks out when it hits that cargo ship, thus going postal and eating New York. Woulda been nice to have a news-clip in there somewhere explaining that...