Instead of a monster in Lake Loch Ness, a giant eel could inhabit

I don’t really want to disappoint those who believe inthe reality of Nessie (the monster allegedly living in Loch Ness in Scotland is so often called), however, of all the existing versions of who still lives in the depths of Loch Ness, this one sounds most believable. Of course, with 100% certainty, scientists cannot say that Nessie is an eel, however, they have good reason to think so. So, most likely, Nessie will be nothing more than a repetition of the story about the face on Mars. Remember this one? They just didn’t talk about him, but later it turned out that the famous face is nothing more than the work of the Martian wind, water and wild human imagination.

Artists depicted the Loch Ness Monster in different ways

How did the myth of the Loch Ness monster come about?

You won’t believe it, but for the first time about the monster of the lakeLoch Ness in 565 reported an Irish missionary. Myths, as you know, the earth is full, so that the mysterious monster continued to be seen in the waters of the Scottish lake and beyond. And this is not surprising - imagine that you are walking along a lake, it gets dark on the street and suddenly you hear a splash of water, look into the distance and take for a monster an ordinary stick that fell into the water. Perhaps you yourself walking in the forest in the evening, took a stump for some kind of monster. Let's discuss if someone saw anything unusual in the dark in our Telegram chat.

Here's how it all began: Scientists began searching for the DNA of the “Loch Ness monster”

In the 1930s, interest in Nessie grew more than ever. Some lucky ones managed to photograph the monster, and newspapers willingly took photos of eyewitnesses. The most famous photograph is a grainy photo of 1934, which shows the dark outline of a creature with a long neck, swinging on the surface of the water. It got to the point that there were eyewitnesses that Nessie ran across the road. Not surprisingly, many photos of the Loch Ness monster turned out to be fake.

Fake Loch Ness monster taken in 1934 by Colonel Robert Wilson

By the way, today many see Nessie. But scientists finally have something to present to them. Researchers from New Zealand wanted to study in detail all the inhabitants of the Scottish lake from plants to fish and coastal animals. During the study, experts collected traces of DNA contained in Loch Ness. And the detection and identification of DNA, as you know, can tell scientists which organisms live in a particular environment.

The real inhabitants of Loch Ness

250 samples were collected by scientists in different partsLoch Ness. After that, the experts carefully studied the composition of the detected DNA. Alas, as if you and I, and perhaps the scientists themselves did not want to believe that Nessie once existed, the examination showed that large animals were never found in the lake. But some experts believed that Nessie could well be a dinosaur or a large fish, such as a white sturgeon. However, the only large inhabitant of Loch Ness could be a rather large eel.

The study found more than 500million individual organisms and 3,000 species. According to Neil Gemmill of the University of Otago in New Zealand, who led the study, no matching DNA sequences for sharks, catfish, or sturgeons were found in Loch Ness Lake. This excludes the presence of large, exotic fish in the lake.

Nessie, are you this? (Before you eel and quite large)

Experts have discovered DNA matches of variousspecies found on land, which can be seen in the vicinity of Loch Ness, including badgers, deer, rabbits and various birds. Sheep, cattle, and dogs also appear in the study records along with humans. This suggests that the sampling was carried out very carefully, as it revealed the DNA of species that rarely come into contact with water. You must admit that if a monster of gigantic proportions lived in the lake, scientists would have clearly discovered its DNA there.

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And then we got to the most interesting -the most likely candidate for the role of Nessie is the giant eel. The fact is that eel DNA was found in almost every sample of water collected in different parts of the lake. However, a large amount of eel DNA does not mean that the eel is the same monster of Lake Loch Ness. If we had DNA samples of a real monster and could be compared with what scientists from New Zealand found, there would be no question of what kind of beast Nessie would have arisen. But the lack of unusual DNA in the lake suggests that if someone large swam in it, it could well be a giant eel.

Is there a Loch Ness monster?

Well, we sort of figured out the DNA. But if Nessie does not exist, where do these countless monster messages come from? The answer is likely to be a psychological phenomenon called "expectant attention." This happens when people are waiting for something or want to see, as a result of which they are more likely to misinterpret visual signals. In other words, they wish for the real.

According to a social survey conducted in Scotland in 2018, 24% of the inhabitants of this wonderful country believe that Nessie exists.

And yet, with confidence, declare that Nessiedoesn’t exist or that the monster was a giant eel, scientists cannot say. Loch Ness Lake is a favorite place for many tourists who come there hoping to see the famous Nessie with just one eye. So, most likely, we will hear about him more than once.