The term “cryptid” refers to animals yet to be discovered from the pseudoscience of Cryptozoology . Many of these cryptids, according to testimonies and legends, look like large reptiles . Reason why many have been speculatively explained as dinosaurs or other Mesozoic reptiles that, unlike their extinct companions, survived. And the most famous of them is, without a doubt, Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster.
In modern times, people have wanted to relate the figure of Nessie to the marine reptiles of the plesiosaur group, trying to fit the description of this legendary animal with this group of extinct reptiles. And the first thing is that these aquatic reptiles are not dinosaurs. The plesiosaurs are a group of reptiles that belongs to the sauropterygians , of which the placodonts or notosaurs are also members. Plesiosaurs appear in the early Jurassic or possibly late Triassic and lasted until the end of the Cretaceous extinction, in which most dinosaurs also became extinct. They were generally characterized by a short tail, a long neck and a small head provided with sharp teeth with which to feed on fish and marine invertebrates. However, one group of plesiosaurs, the pliosaurs, evolved into forms with short, stocky necks and large heads. Of course, all plesiosaurs had all 4 limbs turned into fins.
Well, legends and sightings of the Loch Ness monster go back centuries. In the seventh century religious text “ The Life of Saint Columba ” it is related how one of the miracles of this saint was to save a person who was about to be devoured by a creature in the lake . Stories and war stories fueled by this legend continued through the centuries. But in all this time, there is never any talk of a prehistoric reptile until a sighting by two tourists in 1933. The tourists’ description is the first that can fit a plesiosaur or even a sauropod dinosaur, as they mention its neck. length.
During the following decades, photographs appeared that purported to prove the existence of this beast, but all of them were explained either as natural phenomena that did not require a plesiosaur, or as frauds. One of them -in which rhomboid fins seemed to be observed- came to be taken seriously, to the point that it was used by the British naturalist Peter Scott to scientifically name Nessie in 1975 as ” Nessiteras rhombopteryx ” in the same journal Nature . . Those were different times, and finally the photos turned out to be images of the sediments at the bottom of the lake and some optical illusion.
The truth is that there are many reasons that make the existence of a plesiosaur in Loch Ness highly unlikely. First of all, 66 million years have passed since we have a fossil record of these animals. Had they survived, we would have found some plesiosaur fossils throughout the entire Cenozoic .
On the other hand, the existence of a single animal is unfeasible, we would have to speak of populations . First, because animals have a habit of being mortal. And in the case of talking about populations, for them to last millions of years, they need to reproduce and for healthy and viable generations to follow one another. In this sense, a population of large animals restricted to a valley or a lake is not viable in the long term. At the genetic level in small populations there are problems arising from inbreeding or consanguinity . If a population of animals is reduced, it also has a small variability, which makes it more sensitive to environmental changes and, on the other hand, causes recessive genes to tend to be expressed that can have negative effects.
As if this were not enough, plesiosaurs, as land animals, need to breathe air with their lungs. So the scenario of constantly being submerged to escape stares is complicated.
Speaking of the Scottish loch itself, Loch Ness is of glacial origin, and therefore recent in geological terms . Plesiosaurs had already been dead for more than 60 million years when the Plio-Pleistocene glaciations began.
Many of the monster’s sightings are probably confusions with other animals and even objects, such as drifting logs or the release of gases generated during the decomposition of organic matter at the bottom of the lake.
Too bad, we will not deny it. We all love a good story or legend, and our minds want to believe that these creatures may have somehow survived, but the truth is that it is highly unlikely. Not to say impossible.
In recent times, what was being sold as “a new project that is going to look for Nessie through her genetic fingerprint” jumped into the news. But what is really going to be done is a genetic inventory, an analysis of the so-called environmental DNA of the lake’s ecosystem. Thanks to the sequencing of environmental DNA , it will be possible to detect all the species of living beings that leave their genetic imprint on the soil or water. And in case of detecting a genome that does not fit with previously known species, a new species will have been discovered. But before we get excited, the chances are that if new DNA is found, it will be from unknown species or subspecies of invertebrates or microorganisms.
And, once again, we love a good legend.
References:
Loxton, D.; Prothero, D. 2015. Abominable Science! Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids. Columbia University Press.
Gascó, F. 2021. That was not in my dinosaur history book . Guadalmazán.
Binns, R.; Bell, R. J. 1984. The Loch Ness mystery solved. Star Books.
