Scientist says it's possible the Loch Ness monster is a giant eel

The Loch Ness monster, a photo now believed to be a hoax

(Image credit: Keystone / Getty Images)

published 6 September 2019

The idea of the Loch Ness monster has long intrigued people, with sightings of the mysterious creature dating back centuries.

To better understand the Scottish lake's biodiversity, researchers went to Loch Ness last year and took hundreds of samples of the water. In a news conference Thursday, Neil Gemmell from New Zealand's University of Otago revealed that the samples showed "large amounts of eel DNA in Loch Ness." Most of the species are tiny, he said, but it's entirely plausible that there are giant eels inhabiting the water, and those could be mistaken for a sea monster.

There are lots of theories about what the Loch Ness monster might be, from a catfish to an ancient plesiosaur, but Gemmell said there is "absolutely no evidence of any reptilian sequences in our samples." He can't explain the monster sightings, but he's not willing to entirely dismiss them, either. "A lack of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence," he said. "There may well be a monster in Loch Ness. We didn't find it."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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