Loch Ness Monster Is Most Likely a Giant Eel!

Scientists claim to have finally found a “ plausible theory ” for sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. She’s not an aquatic reptile left over from the Jurassic era or a circus elephant that got in the water to bathe with her trunk aloft. If Nessie ever existed at all, she was  most likely a giant eel , according to a new scientific survey of the loch.

Starting with an  Irish missionary’s report  of a monster in the River Ness in 565AD, repeated sightings in the modern era have kept Scotland’s greatest myth alive. The most famous of which is a grainy photo from 1934 which appears to show the shadowy outline of a long-necked creature, bobbing on the water’s surface.

The hoaxed photo of the Loch Ness monster taken in 1934 by Colonel Robert Wilson.  Robert Kenneth Wilson/Wikipedia

Until now, such glimpses were all people had to go on. But a new technique allows scientists to sample all the life contained within Loch Ness by  gathering environmental DNA , or e-DNA as it’s known. This is genetic material that’s present in the cells of organisms and shed into their surrounding environment. Finding and identifying e-DNA can tell scientists what organisms are living in a habitat without them having to observe or capture them.

Speaking from Drumnadrochit , a village on the loch’s western shore, scientists announced the results of their e-DNA survey of Loch Ness. The team took well over 200 one litre samples of water from throughout the loch – including the surface and deep water – and compared them with 36 samples from five “monster-free” lochs nearby. Their census provides a list of all the species that call Loch Ness home – from bacteria to plants and animals.

What did they find?

The study detected over 500m individual organisms and 3,000 species. According to  Neil Gemmill  of University of Otago in New Zealand, who led the study, there are no DNA sequence matches for shark, catfish, or sturgeon. That rules out a large exotic fish in the loch.

There are DNA matches for various land-living species that you would expect to see around Loch Ness, including badgers, deer, rabbits, voles, and different birds. Sheep, cattle and dogs appear on the record alongside humans too. This suggests that the sampling is pretty good at picking up species that would only rarely visit the water – so it should be able to detect a monster living permanently in the loch.

The most popular representation of Nessie is as a  plesiosaur – an ancient long-necked marine reptile that died out alongside the dinosaurs in the last great mass extinction 65m years ago.

The most popular theory of Nessie – that she is a plesiosaur that somehow survived the mass extinction of the dinosaurs – may finally have been put to rest.  Mark Witton , Author provided

Scottish geologist Hugh Miller discovered the first British plesiosaur bones on the Scottish Isle of Eigg in 1844. But according to Gemmill, there’s “not a single reptile in our vertebrate data, and nothing that sat in the expected place that a plesiosaur [DNA] sequence might be predicted to lie – somewhere between birds and crocodilians”.

The most likely candidate for Nessie which has surfaced in media reporting of the research is a giant eel. This appears to be based simply on the fact eel DNA  was detected at “ pretty much every location sampled ” in Loch Ness.

Plenty of eel DNA doesn’t confirm Nessie is a giant eel – only that there are lots of eels. Scientists don’t have monster DNA to compare with anything they found in the loch and so no one can say for sure if there is or isn’t a monster there. But the absence of anything unusual in the DNA record of Loch Ness suggests there’s nothing to get excited about – and that includes a giant eel.

Giant eels can reach up to 3 meters (9 ft 10 in) in length and have a maximum weight of roughly 110 kg (240 lb). Credit: Estefania / Adobe Stock

What next for Nessie?

If Nessie doesn’t exist, why do eyewitness accounts of the Loch Ness Monster persist? The answer is likely to be a psychological phenomenon called “expectant attention”. This happens when people who expect or want to see something are more likely to  misinterpret visual cues  as the thing which they expect or want to see.

This likely also happens with recently extinct animals. The last known  tasmanian tiger  died in 1936 and exhaustive scientific surveys have failed to turn up any evidence they are still out there. Even so, people often still report seeing them.

Still, Gemmell acknowledges there is uncertainty. Seals and otter – two species known to appear in the loch at least occasionally – weren’t detected, while 20% of the DNA collected was “unexplained”. That’s normal for an e-DNA study, but it does leaves room for a monster.

With scientists set to reveal a “plausible theory” about the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, here is your reminder that one in seven Brits (14%) believe Nessie exists, with the figure rising to 24% among Scots.

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Source: https://www.ancient-origins.net/news/loch-ness-monster-0012556