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

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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