The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster Preface To quote the great cryptozoologist Tim Dinsdale, there can be few people in the English- speaking world today who have never heard of the fabled ‘Loch Ness monster’. For the best part of a century, tourists and locals around the freshwater lake known as Loch Ness have claimed to observe such a creature in some form or another. Dozens of independent witnesses have claimed to witness long, sinuous shapes at the surface of the water, abnormal creatures roaming the shores, beasts out of time that suddenly vanish without a trace. This unusual creature, the Loch Ness Monster, has become the central pillar for tourism in Loch Ness, the source of great amounts of tourism revenue. Over the years many theories about the creature's appearance and origins have come into play, and so a question must be put forward: what could exist in Loch Ness? The aim of this essay is not to debunk or prove the existence of the Loch Ness monster, but to hypothesize, based on the available data, what it may be if it does exist. Almost every listed account of the monster will be used to extrapolate a possible identity to allow the greatest spectrum of hypotheses, using twenty-six accounts of the creature. Contents Preface ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 1 Figures .................................................................................................................................................................................................2 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................................2 A History of Sightings ...................................................................................................................................................................3 The Scientific View .......................................................................................................................................................................... 17 The Cryptozoological View ............................................................................................................................................................. 18 Methodology ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 18 Analysis ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 21 Proposed ranking system ........................................................................................................................................................... 21 The plesiosaurian hypothesis .................................................................................................................................................... 21 The amphibian hypothesis .........................................................................................................................................................23 The fish hypothesis .................................................................................................................................................................... 24 The Tullimonstrum-descendant hypothesis ............................................................................................................................ 25 The turtle hypothesis .................................................................................................................................................................. 25 The mollusc hypothesis ............................................................................................................................................................. 26 The pinniped hypothesis ............................................................................................................................................................ 27 Discussion ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 29 The particulars of classification ............................................................................................................................................... 30 Population sizes ........................................................................................................................................................................... 31 Evolutionary mechanisms ..........................................................................................................................................................32 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................................................................................33 Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................................................................33 1 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster Figures Figure 1 Sketch of the alleged creature witnessed by Arthur Grant ................................................ 7 Figure 2 The photograph of an inscrutable creature, taken by Hugh Gray .................................... 7 Figure 3 The "Surgeon Photograph" of the Loch Ness Monster, proven to be a hoax ..................8 Figure 4 The second photograph taken by H.L. Cockerell, that which is most often reproduced ............................................................................................................................................................... 11 Figure 5 The "Elephanteuthis nnidnidi" reported by Anthony Shields. ........................................ 14 Figure 6 Skeletal reconstruction of Elasmosaurus platyurus by Edward Drinker Cope, rendered following his realization that he had initially restored the head on its tail. While the flexible neck is inaccurate, the flat back and clearly non-rhomboid flippers are not................................ 21 Figure 7 1914 life reconstruction of Archelon ischyros, believed by Henry Bauer to be a relative of the Loch Ness Monster. by Samuel Wendell Williston ...............................................................26 Figure 8 Grew and Parsons' "long-necked seal, or sea-calf", depicted alongside the harbour seal and an unknown "tortoise-headed seal" ..........................................................................................28 Introduction Situated roughly 8 miles (12.87 km) southwest of Inverness, the 23-mile-long (37 km) freshwater loch known as Loch Ness is alleged to have originated roughly 30,000 years ago during a glaciation period in Earth's history when Europe was covered in ice. At that time, the part of Scotland where Loch Ness is situated was supposedly covered by glaciers that extended down to the Moray Firth; when these glaciers began to retreat, roughly 10,000 years ago, the loch entered its present configuration (Nessie.co.uk, n.d.). Now attaining a maximum depth of 240 m (787 ft), it is believed to have a greater volume of water than all of the lakes in England and Wales combined (Gazetteer for Scotland, n.d.). In the intervening years, Loch Ness has developed a considerable number of intriguing superstitions, anecdotes and mythology concerning it that include reports of unexplained phenomena in the vicinity of the loch. Most famous among these is a large, aquatic animal that supposedly resides within its depths, the Loch Ness Monster. So pronounced is this ‘monster’ in local lore that it has become well known the world over, doubtless significantly contributing to Loch Ness’ tourist industry; in 2018, it was estimated that the legend contributed approximately £41 million to the Scottish economy yearly (Nadelle, 2022). Roughly 1,141 alleged reports have been made by tourists and locals alike over the years, claiming to have seen a large animal near the surface of the water or on the shore. Despite the abundance of sightings and the evidence some of them provide, few scientific bodies have ever proven any evidence to support such claims besides that which can be considered wholly subjective or even circumstantial. Unfortunately, anecdote is almost all one has to go by when referring to the Loch Ness monster and other such creatures, with other evidence and data being scant but not wholly unheard of. Fortunately, though, there is rather a lot of anecdote, and what evidence exists is valuable. Many researchers feel that the Loch Ness Monster is wholly fictional, based on misinterpretations of data, mistaken identity, and hoaxes perpetrated by men who would seek 2 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster to attract the attention and fame that more often than not accompany any major phenomenon reported to be a preternatural manifestation. Some individuals over the years have been so sure of the monster’s existence that they assigned a binomen to it, “Nessiteras rhombopteryx”. While the name as defined by Sir Peter Scott and Robert Rines (Scott & Rines, 1975) strongly indicates that the name was intentionally assigned to a hoax, being a proposed anagram of “Monster hoax by Sir Peter S” (Fairbairn, 1975), the name appears to have stuck. A History of Sightings Saint Columba Purported sightings of the Loch Ness monster date back to the sixth century, with one anecdote being featured in The Life of Saint Columba, by monk Adamnán of Iona. In a certain part of the book, Adamnán recounted a particular account of an event which supposedly occurred during Saint Columba’s ‘sojourning’ in the ‘land of the Picts’, in which the saint encounters a group of people burying a man who had been attacked by an aquatic creature, only to be attacked himself. The account is as follows: “… he sees some of the inhabitants burying an unfortunate fellow whom, as those who were burying him related, a little while before some aquatic monster seized and savagely bit while he was swimming […] and hearing and obeying the command of the holy and illustrious man, Lugne Mocumin, without delay takes off his clothes, except his tunic, and casts himself" into the water. But the monster, which was lying in the river bed, and whose appetite was rather whetted for more prey than sated with what it already had, perceiving the surface of the water disturbed by the swimmer, suddenly comes up and moves towards the man as he swam in mid stream, and with a great roar rushes on him with open mouth, while all who were there, barbarians as well as Brethren, were greatly terror-struck. The blessed man seeing it, after making the Salutary Sign of the Cross in the empty air with his holy hand upraised, and invoking the Name of God, commanded the ferocious monster, saying: “Go thou no further, nor touch the man; go back at once.” Then, on hearing this word of the Saint, the monster was terrified, and fled away again more quickly than if it had been dragged off by ropes, though it had approached Lugne as he swam so closely that between man and monster there was no more than the length of one punt pole.” (Adomnán) While claimed by many to be evidence that the Loch Ness Monster has been present in the loch since at least the sixth century, connections have been made between this anecdotal account involving Saint Columba and numerous other mediaeval hagiographies, which frequently involve water monsters (Binns, 1984). According to Charles Thomas, if the creature depicted was a real one, it may perhaps be a wayward bearded seal or even a walrus (Thomas, 1988). However, in the view of Jacqueline Borsje, the account is better viewed from a literary point of view (Borsje, 1994), as it is clearly intended to depict a miracle. Ultimately, it is perhaps best to treat the Adamnán report as a fictitious account, meant to convey a sense of ‘awe and wonder’. Ultimately, it seems likely that the Saint Columba report is wholly unrelated to the Loch Ness monster in the first place, and that the old myths of kelpies and water-horses—to 3 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster which the Saint Columba account seems more relevant—are only weakly, if at all connected to more recent "media-augmented" accounts (Bro, O'Leary-Davidson, & Gareis, 2018). Campbell Following the Adamnán account, there is a gap of almost 1,000 years between reports of anything even superficially resembling a monster in Loch Ness. In or around the year of 1527, a man by the name of Duncan Campbell reported a particularly brutal encounter with a creature: “This terrible beast—issuing out of the water early one morning about mid summer, he did easily and without any force or straining of himself overthrow huge oaks with his tail and therewith killed outright three men that hunted him with three strokes of his tail, the rest of them saving themselves in trees thereabouts, whilst the aforesaid monster returned to the loch.” (Dinsdale, 1961) Tim Dinsdale, a foremost party in the study of the monster, noted that “the are, once more, features in it consistent with modern reports obtained from reliable sources”. If one assumes that the Saint Columba account is indeed wholly allegorical or fictitious, then the Campbell account may be the first encounter with the Loch Ness monster. In spite of this, it would seem that the description of the creature is too vague to be incorporated into the analysis, and the description of a long tail, which is at odds with several other reports, makes the account somewhat dubious. 19th century miscellanea Roughly 350 years after the Campbell report, further sightings of a creature in the Loch were made public. In his book Loch Ness Monster, Dinsdale noted one 1870 record of a creature, from the Chronicle of Fortingall, which states: “There was ane monstrous fish seen in Lochfyne, having great in the head thereof, and at times waed stand aboon the water as high as the mast of a ship; and the said had upon the head thereof wa twa croons.” (Dinsdale, 1961) However, Dinsdale makes sure to bring up the contemporary interest in such creatures, stating that “at this time in Scottish history the legend of the fabled ‘water horse’ was strong in several distinct Highland lochs”. In either 1871 or 1872, an individual by the name of D Mackenzie allegedly saw an object, resembling a log or a small, upturned boat, “wriggling and churning up the water” (Mackal, 1976). Supposedly, despite the clear intrigue in what he had witnessed, Mackenzie opted not to report the sighting until 1934, after he sent a letter to Rupert Gould as popular interest in the monster began to increase (Gould, 1934). A subsequent report by Alexander Macdonald of Abriachan describes “a large stubby-legged animal”, emerging from the surface of the loch, propelling itself to within fifty yards of the shoreline, before finally disappearing. Macdonald reported the sighting to water bailiff Alex Campbell, and the report was subsequently covered by Gould (1934). 4 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster Forbes At some point in February of 1919, Jock Forbes and his father were riding in a cart approximately two miles north of Inverfarigaig. Abruptly, their pony stopped and started to pull back, apparently startled by something. With that something emerged from the trees, roughly twenty yards ahead, slowly crossing the road and disappearing into the shallow bank of the Loch. Forbes’ father muttered something in Gaelic, and said no more about it (Watson, 2015). Fordyce What may be one of the strangest reports of the Loch Ness Monster came in the form of a June 1990 report by Lieutenant McP Fordyce, who relayed quite possibly the most bizarre sighting of any cryptozoological entity that has ever been laid bare. Fordyce’s encounter supposedly took place in 1932, and was reported in the Scots Magazine. While it would be a time- consuming endeavour indeed to track down the initial The Scots report, it appears that a version of the story is to be found on the internet, and it is perhaps one of the strangest, most utterly paradoxical accounts ever published: “… Travelling at about 25 mph in this wooded section, we were startled to see an enormous animal coming out of the woods on our left and making its way over the road about 150 yards ahead of us towards the loch. It had the gait of an elephant, but looked like a cross between a very large horse and a camel, with a hump on its back and a small head on a long neck. I stopped the car and followed the creature on foot for a short distance. From the rear it looked grey and shaggy. Its long, thin neck gave it the appearance of an elephant with its trunk raised. Unfortunately. I had left my camera in the car, but in any case I quickly thought discretion the better part of valour and returned to the vehicle ...” Where to begin with this report? It is so radically different from the rest, a statistical outlier at its finest, that to compare it with other sightings of the Loch Ness Monster seems preposterous. As noted by Mike Dash in a comment on Darren Naish's article, the fifty-eight- year gap between the account and the report leaves plenty of time for Fordyce's memory of the incident to be impaired. The account as a whole seems so inconsistent and strange that attempting to reconcile it with the observations provided by others, no matter how strange or distinctive they may have been, becomes nothing more than folly. Mackay One year after the Fordyce report, Alex Campbell published a report on the creature. On the 15th of April, 1933, university graduate Aldie Mackay and her husband, businessman John Mackay, witnessed a “tremendous upheaval on the loch”, which had previously been “as calm as the proverbial mill-pond”. The most significant portion of the report, though, is as follows: “The creature disported itself, rolling and plunging for fully a minute, its body resembling that of a whale, and the water cascading and churning like a simmering cauldron. Soon, however, it disappeared in a boiling mass of foam. Both onlookers confessed that there 5 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster was something uncanny about the whole thing, for they realised that here was no ordinary denizen of the depths, because, apart from its enormous size, the beast, in taking the final plunge, sent out waves that were big enough to have been caused by a passing steamer.” (Campbell A. , 1933) Two postulated identities for the creature were briefly discussed by Campbell: that of a type of porpoise, and that of a seal. Logically, Campbell immediately discounted porpoises as a possible explanation, noting that “it would be utterly impossible for them to [enter Loch Ness]”. In regards to seals, Campbell noted that though they have on rare occasions been seen in the River Ness, their presence in Loch Ness has never once been definitively established”. However, the latter statement can be discounted, since Gordon Williamson reported that between 1984 and 1985, a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) inhabited Loch Ness; this was only the first confirmed report, though, as Williamson noted that reports from fishermen indicated that seals appeared in Loch Ness every two years or so (Williamson, 1988). If this is truly the case, then the notion that the Mackay report was one of a seal cannot be discounted with certainty. Spicer A second Loch Ness sighting was published soon after the April 15 report. On the 22nd of July, a man by the name of George Spicer and his wife observed “a most extraordinary form of animal” crossing the road in front of their car between the villages of Dores and Inverfarigaig. In their report, they allege to have seen a strange creature indeed. “[It was] the nearest approach to a dragon or pre-historic animal that I have ever seen in my life … a long neck, which moved up and down in the manner of a scenic railway … [it] was fairly big, with a high back, but if there were any feet they must have been of the web kind, and as for a tail I cannot say, as it moved so rapidly, and when we got to the spot it had probably disappeared into the loch.” (Inverness Courier, 1933) On the 4th of August, the Inverness Courier published a piece on the sighting (Inverness Courier, 1933), which immediately garnered significant attention throughout the region, and quickly became widespread. The term “Loch Ness Monster”, first used on the 9th of June, quickly became a term used almost universally for the monster. It can be said, then, that the Spicer report is what truly publicized the creature, jettisoning it into the public consciousness for good. Over the years, as noted by Darren Naish, the Spicer report was embellished in various regards. The creature witnessed was originally reported as being 1.83–2.43 m (6–8 ft), but subsequent reports exaggerated its size to 7.62 m (25 ft), or even 9.14 (30 ft), far in excess of the initial sighting (Binns, 1984); (Campbell S. , 1986). Gray On November 12th, Hugh Gray of the British Aluminum Company observed “a great upheaval of water, and then a tremendous disturbance and splashing, caused by some huge animal thrashing about”. Gray initially claimed that he saw roughly forty feet of the animal, which had “a thick rounded back, which what appeared to be a powerful tail”. The creature 6 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster supposedly remained in evidence for a minute or two before submerging, but not before Gray had taken some photographs. Though light had somewhat spoiled them, a Kodak representative confirmed that the negative had not been at all tampered with. When questioned closely by F IGURE 1 THE PHOTOGRAPH OF AN INSCRUTABLE CREATURE , TAKEN BY H UGH G RAY Dinsdale, Gray claimed that “[he] cannot give any definite opinion of size, except that it was very great—it was a dark greyish colour, the skin was glistening and appeared smooth”. However, despite Gray’s apparent certainty about the creature’s identity, analysis of the photo revealed that it was very difficult to work out what it was. Ronald Binns suggested that the timing of the report seemed oddly suspicious, suggesting that Gray had taken the photograph on the 30th of November, immediately after a report by Rupert Gould suggested that the Loch Ness monster was a landlocked sea serpent (Gould, 1934). Maurice Burton came into possession of two slides, contact positives from the initial negative, and suggested that the photograph depicted an otter “rolling at the surface in characteristic fashion” (Burton, 1982). In a bizarre turn of events, Frank W. Holliday claimed that Gray’s photograph proved his hypothesis that all sea serpent sightings could be attributed to a single species of giant invertebrate, which he dubbed Orms, descended from Tullimonstrum (Holliday, 1968). Most recently, though, Darren Naish has suggested that the creature depicted was a whooper swan with its head beneath the surface (Naish, 2016). Roland Watson attempted to dismiss this idea, citing Naish’s use of a mute swan for reference as opposed to a whooper swan, but ultimately the argument falls flat on its face. Grant On the 5th of January 1934, within six months of this initial report, veterinary student Arthur Grant reported that he had almost hit a creature with his bicycle while approaching Abriachan, near the north-eastern end of the Loch. At F IGURE 2 SKETCH OF THE ALLEGED CREATURE WITNESSED BY ARTHUR GRANT 7 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster around 1 AM, Grant claimed to have encountered a creature with a small head and a long neck, which saw him and immediately vanished into the loch. Grant described it as “a cross between a seal and a plesiosaur”, producing a sketch of the creature. Zoologist Maurice Burton suggested that it was an otter seen under poor light conditions (Burton, 1961; Burton, 1982), and Darren Naish has suggested that it is either an otter or a seal (Naish, 2016). Wilson In April of the same year as the Grant sighting, the most famous Loch Ness Monster report was published by the Daily Mail. Known for a photograph supposedly taken by a gynaecologist, Robert Kenneth Wilson, it is ultimately the most well-known sighting in cryptozoology, besides perhaps that depicted in the Patterson footage. Supposedly Wilson saw the creature and took four photographs; two were unusable, and one allegedly depicted the ‘animal’ diving, leaving just one. This photograph would quickly become sensationalized, and was quickly circulated as proof of a monster. However, over the years, this photograph has been disproven, its subject a toy submarine created by Christian Spurling, son-in-law of Marmaduke Wetherell (UnMuseum, n.d.). The photograph was sold to the Daily Mail after insurance agent Maurice Chambers, co- conspirator of the hoax, sold the photographs to the Daily Mail; the hoax was perpetrated because Wetherell had been humiliated after accidentally reporting on hoaxed ‘Nessie’ footprints. As for the second photograph of the ‘creature’ reported, Spurling “… thought it might have been a piece of wood they were trying to out as a monster, but [was] not sure” (Ness Information Service Newsletter., 1991). To conclude, the Surgeon photograph was a hoax, concocted by a bored and resentful editor who had been disgraced F IGURE 3 THE "S URGEON PHOTOGRAPH " OF THE L OCH NESS after reporting on the same subject. M ONSTER, PROVEN TO BE A HOAX Munro On the 5th of June 1934, Margaret Munro, maid of a Mr and Mrs Pimley from Kilchumein lodge, at the western end of the loch, happened to look out of the window in the direction of Borlum bay. At a distance of around 200 yards, she reported seeing “the biggest animal she had ever seen in her life”, clear in the water. This was perhaps the first truly detailed description of a more modern Loch Ness monster. “[It had a] giraffe-like neck and absurdly small head, out of all proportions to the great dark grey body, skin like an elephant and two very short fore-legs or flippers. The animal kept 8 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster turning itself in the sunshine and at times arched its back into one or more humps. Eventually it lowered its head, quietly entered the water and disappeared.” (Dinsdale, 1961) According to Dinsdale’s account of the sighting, Munro had only recently been hired by her employers, and—not realizing the “profound significance” of what she saw—refrained from waking them. In due course, the Pimleys were told, examined the beach, and found several impressions, including “a branch that had been pressed into the gravel” (Dinsdale, 1961). Ultimately, following this brief incident, the Pimleys appear to have had no further encounters with the creature. Mountain et al After being inspired to do so by Rupert Gould’s The Loch Ness Monster and Others, Sir Edward Mountain financed a search for the monster. Twenty men with binoculars and cameras positioned themselves around the lock for several weeks, without fail, from 9 am to 6 pm, beginning on the 13th of July, 1934. 21 photographs were taken, none of which were considered conclusive. The supervisor of the operation, James Fraser, remained by the loch after the rest had left, filming something in the loch on the 15th of September. Zoologists concluded that the film Fraser captured, which is now lost (Binns, 1984), was probably a grey seal. McRae In 1935, a retired physician by the name of Farquhar McRae (Watson, 2015) observed a creature floating at the surface of Loch Ness, apparently either asleep or simply resting. The footage depicts a creature with a long neck, pointed head, small “horn-like sense organs” (Holliday, 1968) atop its skull and three humps. Further sequences of the footage supposedly exist, but are unknown. It is only due to the efforts of Frank Holliday that this footage is known at all, as it was initially stored away by McRae, who suspected that he wouldn’t be believed. 1930s–1950s miscellanea By the mid-1930s, the intrigue surrounding the Loch Ness Monster had died down. However, 1938, four years after the Surgeon footage, a South African tourist by the name of G.E. Taylor reported a sighting of something in the loch. The footage was obtained by Maurice Burton, who briefly discussed it in his book, The Elusive Monster, concluding it was little more than a non-living object floating in the loch (Burton, 1961). Taylor’s creature was described thus: “Its body was large and rounded, tapering down to the neck which dipped under the water, becoming visible about eight inches away, rising in an arc to about six inches above the water before dipping again.” Later that year, the chief constable of Inverness-shire, William Fraser, wrote a letter claiming that the monster existed, and expressed his concern about the hunting party that had arrived to capture the creature (News Corp Australia, 2010). In 1943, CB Farrel of the Royal 9 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster Observer Corps observed a creature through his binoculars. He made special note of the eyes, large and prominent, and how on the back of the creature’s neck he could see a strange ‘fin’. The creature lowered its head like a swan, apparently feeding, before it finally disappeared without even a ripple (Dinsdale, 1961). In 1951, Lachlan Stewart, a woodsman working for the Forestry Commission, observed “three triangular humps with water showing between each”, and then “a small head and long neck”. The creature, with a great commotion, swam off and disappeared into the loch about 300 yards off-shore (Dinsdale, 1961). In 1952, Andrew McAfee claimed to see “three dark humps”, though the Natural History Museum in London (then the British Museum of Natural History) dismissed them as shadows, an assessment which McAfee himself agreed with. Another such brief report came sixteen years later, (Legend of Nessie, n.d.) when on the 2nd of December, 1954, a drifter from Peterhead known as Rival III reported anomalous sonar readings indicative of a large object keeping pace with the vessel, at a depth of 146 m (479 ft). The object kept pace with Rival III for around half a mile, before finally disappearing. A graphical representation of the object differed from that of a shoal of fish, which was for obvious reasons more than familiar to the crew. When the equipment was checked independently by its makers, it was found to be in perfect working order (Dinsdale, 1961). MacNab On the 29th of July, 1955, Peter MacNab reported an observation of a large, moving shape in the water, providing what is perhaps one of the most well-known photographs of the Loch Ness monster. MacNab’s account of the incident was published in a 1974 book by Nicholas Witchell, Loch Ness Story: “I was returning from a holiday in the north with my son and pulled the car up on the road just above Urquhart Castle. It was a calm, warm hazy afternoon. I was all ready to take a shot of Urquhart Castle when my attention was held by a movement in the calm water over to the left. Naturally I thought of the 'Monster' and hurriedly changed over the standard lens of my Exacta (127) camera to a six-inch telephoto. As I was doing so a quick glance showed that some black or dark enormous water creature was cruising on the surface. Without a tripod and in a great hurry I took the shot. I also took a very quick shot with another camera, a fixed-focus Kodak, before the creature submerged. My son was busy under the bonnet of the car at the time and when he looked in response to my shouts there were just ripples on the water. Several cars and a bus stopped but they could see nothing and listened to my description with patent disbelief.” (Witchell, 1974) MacNab took three more years to publish the photographs of the incident, due to the ridicule he had received upon showing them to close friends. When the account of Hugh Cockerell was published by the Weekly Scotsman on the 16th of October, 1958, MacNab was emboldened to come forward, presenting his photograph to the world. Strangely, though, two versions of this photograph exist: that presented by Roy Mackal, and that presented by 10 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster Constance Whyte. These two photographs display obvious discrepancies, such as the direction of light and the presence/absence of a tree in the background (Loch Ness Mystery, 2012). Taking note of the differences between the version he received and Whyte’s version, Mackal deemed it “unacceptable as evidence”, an assessment which I myself am forced to agree with for the time being. Cockrell Leading up to the incident that provoked MacNab to publish his own account, Herman Louis “Gus” Cockrell began what was initially a light-hearted search for the monster. According to his son, Peter, “This began partly as a publicity stunt for the Solway Fishery and partly ‘…just for the hell of it’ but as time passed it became much more serious and he put a great deal of mental and physical effort into the project over a number of years”. As time went on, Cockrell became more and more engaged with the project, garnering more publicity as his efforts progressed. Press reports of Cockrell’s efforts even seemed to imply that he intended to use explosives, leading to concern among parliamentarians. Cockrell’s search for the creature would come to a head in or around October of 1958, when he published the last in a series of accounts that chronicled his activities. This final account is an outlier, being the only one in which he reports an observation of a creature: “Something appeared - or I noticed it for the first time - about 50 yards away on my port bow. It seemed to be swimming very steadily and converging on me. It looked like a very large flat head four or five feet long and wide. About three feet astern of this, I noticed another thin line. All very low in the water just awash. I was convinced it was the FIGURE 4 THE SECOND PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY H.L. COCKERELL, THAT WHICH IS head and back of a very large MOST OFTEN REPRODUCED creature. It looked slightly whiskery and misshapen, I simply could not believe it. I was not a bit amused. With a considerable effort of will I swung in to intercept and to my horror it appeared to sheer towards me with ponderous power. I hesitated. There was no one anywhere near on that great sheet of water to witness a retreat but it was obviously too late to run. Curiously enough I found this a great relief. My heart began to beat normally and my muscles suddenly felt in good trim. I took a shot with my camera in case I got too close for my focus, and went in. The creature headed slightly away, my morale revived completely. I had another shot and closed in 11 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster to pass along it as I didn't want to be thrown into the air by a sudden rising hump or two. There was a light squall out of the glen behind Invermoriston, and the object appeared to sink.” (Cockrell, 1958) When Cockrell approached the spot where the object had disappeared, he found little more than “a long stick about an inch thick”. Cockrell returned home with the firm belief that the 'monster' he had seen was little more than a stick. To his obvious and understandable surprise, though, when the film was finally developed he was met by something that clearly was not a stick. The photographs were quickly published, and Cockrell’s sighting would spur Peter MacNab to come forward with his own account. Dinsdale Perhaps one of the most influential men in the study of the Loch Ness monster was Tim Dinsdale, a former aeronautical engineer that picked up a keen interest in sightings of the beast. On the 16th of April, 1960, he ventured to Loch Ness in search of the creature, spending several fruitless days waiting for something of note to occur. On the fourth day, Dinsdale reported hearing “a tremendous thunderclap of noise, which echoed back and forth between the walls of rock, in rolling peals of thunder; grumbling and muttering, far off into the distance”. On the fifth day of his search, Dinsdale observed “a violent disturbance—a churning ring of rough water, centring around what appeared to be two long black shadows, or shapes, rising and falling in the water!”, though, by the time he had gotten to the optimum spot to record the sighting, it had vanished. But then, on the final day of his search, Dinsdale recorded his most impressive sighting by far. “At a point approximately halfway down the road to the hotel, looking out at the water I saw an object on the surface about two-thirds of the way across the loch. By now, after so many hours of intensive searching, I was completely familiar with the effect that distance had on the scale of the local fishing boats … The first thing that struck me immediately about the object was that although it appeared to be slightly shorter than a fishing-boat, at the same distance it stood too high out of the water; and further more, with the sun shining on it brightly it had a curious reddish brown hue about it which could be distinctly seen with the naked eye. […] The object was perfectly clear and now quite large. Although when I had first seen it, it lay sideways on, during the few seconds I had taken with the binoculars it seemed to have turned away from me. It lay motionless on the water, a long oval shape, a distinct mahogany colour. For some reason it reminded me of the back of an African buffalo—it had fullness and girth and stood well above the water, and although I could see it from end to end there was no sign of a dorsal fin. And then. Abruptly. It began to move. I saw ripples break away from the further end, and I knew at once I was looking at the extraordinary humped back of some huge living creature!” (Dinsdale, 1961) 12 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster Dinsdale was able to observe the creature for quite some time, taking between 20 and 30 ft of film, but as the creature began to move away he decided on a sudden gamble, driving his car to the shore west of lower Foyers in the hopes of getting nearly a thousand feet closer. Unfortunately the creature had long since disappeared, but to Dinsdale, he had all that he needed, for he knew that “without any lingering shadow of a doubt [he] had at last succeeded” (Dinsdale, 1961). The footage recorded by Dinsdale can be watched here, though several magnified frames are found in his book, Loch Ness Monster. While some have attempted to dismiss the footage as a boat, Dinsdale himself emphasized the different wake pattern. McCullough In 1972, on the 21st of November, 14-year-old Borrowstounness schoolboy Michael McCullough claimed to have come within fifteen yards of a strange creature in the loch. The report, published in an issue of the Livingston Journal and Gazette published six days after the fact, is as follows: “Michael McCullough, son of a well-known Bo'ness practioner[sic] Dr Michael McCullough of Rosemount, Dean Road, was walking along the shores of Loch Ness with three friends when the legendary "Nessie" appeared. The monster surfaced "not much more than ten yards away" then swam across Borlum Bay before submerging again about three minutes later. […] The monster cruised away at a speed of between five and ten miles an hour leaving a one-foot high wake behind it, they say it was dark slate in colour and very shiny. There were three separate parts to the creature which moved through the water like a caterpillar. They estimated the monster to be about 20 feet long with several flipper-like appendages which it appeared to use as a method of propulsion.” (LJaG, 1972) The creature witnessed by McCollough and his friends, with its motions that were “like a caterpillar”, sounds in some respects like a pinniped of some sort. There is very little criticism or even mention of this particular report in the literature, with the most detailed article one can easily find being that published by Roland Watson in 2013 (Watson, 2013). With that in mind, little can be said, though there is just enough information for it to be incorporated into the analysis later on. Shiels On the 21st of May, 1977, Anthony “Doc” Shiels was visiting Urquhart Castle—the same location where Peter MacNab had his sighting—when he suddenly witnessed a creature in the water. Snapping two photographs of the creature, it disappeared after between four and six seconds, without any other witnesses seeing it. At the time, the Shiels photo was unskeptically touted as solid evidence of the Loch Ness Monster’s existence, an alternative for the then- debunked Surgeon photo. However, one must take into account that Shiels’ credentials are 13 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster rather unorthodox. A self-professed psychic, he published a series of books on magic, and—in the most amusing turn of events this author has ever had to write down—supposedly tried to ‘raise’ sea monsters from the ocean using a coven of nude witches. Upon making his ‘findings’ public in an entry in the Fortean Times, Shiels decided on a taxonomic identity for this creature. For whatever reason, he proposed that the creature he had witnessed was in fact a gargantuan cephalopod, providing it with the binomen of “Dinoteuthis proboscideus”, which the journal referred to as being “like something out of a Lovecraftian nightmare” (Shiels, 1984). Interestingly, “D. proboscideus” is not a novel F IGURE 5 THE "E LEPHANTEUTHIS NNIDNIDI " REPORTED BY name, but one initially assigned to an A NTHONY SHIELDS . anomalous, large cephalopod, quite probably a deceased giant squid, that washed ashore on the Irish coast in 1863 (More, 1875), which had a distended structure compared to a proboscis; “D. proboscideus” later being reclassified as a giant squid (Architeuthis dux) (MolluscaBase, 2022). Realizing his mistake, Shiels gave it the outlandish name of “Elephanteuthis nnidnidi”, a name which of course has strong ties to the more spiritual aspects of his lifestyle (Shuker, 2015). Ultimately, though, as one may guess, the Shiels photographs are hoaxes. In an interview, he revealed that “the white blob was a floating can of Guinness, his favourite drink, and he has also made reference to the fact that it seems hardly coincidental that the word Guinness has ‘Ness’ in its name” (Naish, 2020). And when the proposed transparency of the creature was brought up, Shiels apparently claimed that it may have been “the ghost of Nessie”. Rines et al In 1972, a group of researchers from the Academy of Applied Sciences, in a project spearheaded by Robert H Rines, conducted a search for the Loch Ness monster. They planned to use sonar to examine the depths of the loch, taking precautions such as the avoidance of murky water full of large pieces of debris. A submersible camera with a floodlight was deployed, with Rines intending to turn it on as soon as the sonar picked something up. On the 8th of August, Rines’ Raytheon DE-725C sonar unit identified at least one moving target, somewhere between 6–9 m (20–30 ft) in length. Raytheon specialists suggested that the data indicated a 3 m (10 ft) protuberance visible in the SONAR readings, which Roy Mackal later suggested was “a highly flexible laterally flattened tail” (Mackal, 1976). At the same time as the sonar readings, the floodlit camera took a pair of photographs, depicting what appeared to be a rhomboid flipper. The flipper was photographed in different 14 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster positions, indicating movement. According to Charles Wyckoff, a team member of the expedition, the photos were retouched to superimpose the flipper for visibility (Townsend, 2001). In the eyes of some, these two photographs were sufficient evidence for a new species to be named. Naturalist Sir Peter Scott, in a paper co-authored by Rines, assigned the creature the name “Nessiteras rhombopteryx”, (Scott & Rines, 1975) which in Greek would translate to “Ness monster with a diamond-shaped fin”. However, Scottish politician Nicholas Fairbairn noted that the name is a perfect anagram for "Monster hoax by Sir Peter S” (Fairbairn, 1975). Countering this, Rines pointed out that the letters could also spell “yes, both pix are monsters— R”. Whatever the case, in 1975, further sonar contact was made. This time the objects were estimated to be roughly 9 m (30 ft), the upper estimate previously provided. The strobe camera photographed two large animals, the clearest supposedly possessing a long, flexible appendage on one end of its body. Some interpreted this as a neck, suggesting the creatures were plesiosaurs—marine reptiles believed to have become extinct during the Mesozoic—but others do not believe this is the case. A second search by Rines appeared to show the front half of a large, plesiosaur-like animal (Rines & Wyckoff, Search for the Loch Ness Monster, 1976), but skeptics have argued that the object is little more than a log (Harmsworth, 2010). An image supposedly depicting a horned “gargoyle head” is consistent with a log recorded during Operation Deepscan in 1987. In 2001, Rines and his colleagues sent a remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) to the depths of Loch Ness, after observing “a powerful V-shaped wake” at the beginning of their expedition. At a depth of roughly 101.5 m (333 feet), a photograph was taken of an object “strongly suggestive of a decaying ‘animal’ carcass … near the mouth of Urquhart Bay”. The specimen in question is relatively indistinct, though does at least superficially resemble a carcass in the advanced stages of decomposition. More intriguingly, a rocky “canyon” off the Horseshoe Scree part of the loch appears to bear orange, gelatinous “mats” of some unknown organism; attempts at scooping up samples seemed initially successful but they disintegrated upon the ascent. Rines et al did note, though, that their numerous sonar sweeps of the loch recovered nothing out of the ordinary (Rines, 2001). By 2008, Rines had concluded that the creature was probably extinct, unable to adapt to temperature changes resulting from global warming (The Daily Record, 2008). Holmes On the 26th of May, 2007, 55-year-old laboratory technician Gordon Holmes witnessed a creature in Loch Ness, and recorded footage of it. He described it as “this jet black thing, about 14 m (46 ft) long, moving fairly fast in the water”. The footage, available here, appears to depict a large, black shape just beneath the surface. According to Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness 2000 Centre in Drumnadrochit, it is among “the best footage [he had] ever seen”. Nevertheless, in a 2007 interview, Shine suggested that the footage depicted an otter, a seal, or a water bird (stv News North Tonight, 2007). 15 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster Atkinson In yet another unusual sonar reading, on the 24th of August, 2011, boat captain Marcus Atkinson observed an object on his sonar that appeared to follow his boat for roughly two minutes. The object was around 1.5 m (4.9 ft) wide, and stayed at a depth of roughly 23 m (75 ft). Simon Boxall, a scientist from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, said that the image depicts zooplankton and an algal bloom (Love, 2012). Edwards On the 3rd of August, 2012, skipper George Edwards reported that he had encountered the Loch Ness Monster, providing a photograph taken on the 2nd of November, 2011. He claimed to have searched for the monster for 26 years, spending roughly 60 hours per week on the loch, rather bluntly called Nessie Hunter IV, taking tourists on rides across the lake. Edwards described the creature as being “kind of like a manatee, but not a mammal. When people see three humps, they’re probably just seeing three separate monsters”. However, Edwards’ claims have since come under fire by researchers. Steve Feltham suggested that the object observed was a fibreglass hump, one used in a documentary Edwards was involved in (Watson, Follow up to the George Edwards photo, 2012). Another of Edwards’ claims, that he had uncovered a deep region of Loch Ness, was challenged by Dick Raynor (who referred to this as the “Edwards Deep”) who found various inconsistencies in these assertions, claiming that Edwards had told him that the 1986 photo of the Loch’s depths was faked. Eventually, he admitted to faking the 2011 photograph (Munro, 2015), but insisted that the one taken in 1986 was genuine (Gross, 2013). Elder While visiting Loch Ness on the 27th of August, 2013, tourist David Elder recorded and posted a five-minute-long video of a “mysterious [bow] wave, supposedly produced by a 4.5 m (15 ft) “solid black object under the water” (Jauregui, 2013). Some who have observed the photograph claim that there is clearly a dark object beneath the water, though many skeptics have proposed that the wave may have been triggered by a gust of wind, and that there is nothing but shadow from the bow wave (News.com.au, 2013); I am inclined to agree with the latter. Lost Evidence In 1938, a retired bank manager by the name of James Currie captured footage of a moving object in Loch Ness. The thing possessed three humps, had skin that was a greyish- brown colour, and had a triangular head. Currie proceeded to store the footage until it would be taken more seriously, in circumstances suspiciously similar to the McRae film; Roland Watson concluded that it is actually the same footage, but under a different name. Throughout the 1960s, a group known as the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau conducted an assortment of studies in and around the loch. Allegedly, footage of something in the loch was observed, consisting primarily of wakes, but the film has since been lost. 16 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster The Scientific View Over years, many individuals have come to differing conclusions regarding the taxonomic affinities of the Loch Ness monster, if it exists at all. Aside from outright skepticism, prominent thinkers in this field have embraced explanations as varied as sightings of animals other than those typically associated with the area, giant eels, and even descendants of marine reptiles that endured the K-Pg boundary event 66 million years ago. Despite the diversity of theories put forth, certain candidates are suggested more often, or with more convincing evidence, than others. The mainstream scientific view regarding the Loch Ness monster, though, is that it is little more than a hoax, or various cases of mistaken identity, or both combined. Even Sir David Attenborough, though a close friend of the late Sir Peter Scott, and an individual who was formerly hopeful that such a creature existed (French, 2011), has gone on record to declare that “of course the Nessie story is a hoax” (Blackstock, 2019). There are several lines of evidence that support the absence, not the presence, of a creature in the loch. Firstly and most notably, a landmark project in 2018 and 2019, involving researchers from the universities of Copenhagen, the Highlands and Islands, Hull and Otago, sampled eDNA (environmental DNA) found in the loch’s waters. In total, 11 species of fish, 3 amphibians, 22 birds and 19 mammals were identified, the bulk of which being known to live around Loch Ness (Loch Ness Hunters, 2019). Bacteria most associated with saltwater were also found in the loch, which are currently under investigation. There was, however, no evidence of a large, unidentified animal found in the water. However, the authors do note that eDNA signals dissipate within days or weeks, so “there remains the possibility that something is present that we did not detect”. Alternatively, they note that “[perhaps] our metabarcoding method could not detect ‘Nessie’ because the sequence could not be matched with anything in the sequence databases” (Loch Ness Hunters, 2019). Furthermore, the likelihood of such a large species inhabiting an isolated body of water such as Loch Ness seems quite slim. A distinct hurdle is the amount of food available. Watson (2012) noted that there is no precise knowledge about the sizes of prey populations, though provided a rough guesstimate: 17–24 t of arctic char, 50 t of eels, 80 t of salmon, and 20 t of sea trout. While Watson does express his view that “there is enough food in Loch Ness to viably sustain a number of large and unknown creatures”, the quantity provided—which is itself based on numerous untestable assertions—provides roughly 19 animals with enough food to survive, meaning a total of 34 tonnes of Loch Ness monster biomass. Conversely, a 1973 paper (Sheldon & Kerr, 1972) proposed a population size of 10 large animals, a figure supported by a formal reply (Scheider & Wallis, 1973). In 1980, though, Ian Franklin and Michael Soulé conceived the "50/500 rule", stating that a minimum population size of 50 was necessary to prevent inbreeding, and a minimum of 500 individuals was needed to reduce genetic drift, and when inbreeding is ignored, subsequent studies still found a minimum viable population of between 500–1000 (Lehmkuhl, 1984; Thomas, 1990). 17 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster In brief, the evidence in favour of the Loch Ness monster’s existence is lacking, and there is far more data against an unknown creature in the loch’s depths than in favour of it. But the purpose of this essay is not to refute the existence of a monster, but to extrapolate what sort of animal it may be. To do so, one must veer away from the findings of mainstream science and examine the findings of the other camp studying creatures such as the Loch Ness monster: cryptozoologists. The Cryptozoological View The cryptozoological view of the Loch Ness monster must, by necessity, be demarcated from the mainstream scientific view. The methodology used by these two parties is often radically different, and this has lent cryptozoology the title of “pseudoscience” over the years. In the mind of any given theorist, data collection can be a subjective process where personal beliefs influence what may end up being recorded. This can lead to considerable differences in results, whether between groups using similar equipment, locations or techniques. Nevertheless, cryptozoology and mainstream zoology overlap greatly enough in their scope and approach to have them categorized together here, and various theories have been put forward—arguably the more interesting ones—that stem from cryptozoology alone In the field of cryptozoology, many individuals have attempted to determine exactly what sort of animal the Loch Ness monster might be, yielding some interesting results. These will be reviewed in a couple of sections’ time. Methodology The many differences between eyewitness reports of the Loch Ness monster inherently obfuscate our ability to discuss specific details of how or why such a creature may exist or have done so until fairly recently. That outliers such as the bizarre Fordyce account exist further muddies the water. As such, much analysis falls upon unsubstantiated stories, anecdotes or pixellated footage. In a court of law or a scientific paper, however, absolute proof is demanded, requiring an in-depth investigation into each fact cited, presented as evidence, and considered carefully. To conduct such an inquiry, reviewers must ask themselves if such statements pass a basic litmus test—do they provide evidence in favour of a given explanation? What would prompt eyewitnesses to falsify evidence? But in a field based on the hypothetical as much as cryptozoology is, one cannot exclude evidence without good reason. Unless there is strong evidence of falsification or mistaken identity, as in the Surgeon and Fordyce reports respectively, to exclude any accounts without further discussion seems utterly indefensible. As a researcher in a wholly independent capacity, my own feelings about accounts involving the Loch Ness monster can best be described as confusion. That reports are so diverse is certainly problematic for one who endeavours to reduce descriptions down to something a bit more parsable. Nor can one blindly accept every report. The individual differences between witnesses undoubtedly play into this phenomenon too, given their inherent biases towards believing things that confirm pre-conceived ideas, while providing 18 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster diminishing detail where it goes against them. Other issues may further obfuscate matters even further: a frightened eyewitness may exaggerate reports, if unintentionally, and if the gap between report and recollection is sufficient, one's memory may be blurred. Such mistakes in recounting stories inevitably harms the research process, hindering thorough investigation. All one can do is attempt to figure out the truth of the matter based on what little information is available, by picking up the pieces and reviewing at least some of the innumerable reports of a monster in Loch Ness. For the following analysis, the twenty-six Loch Ness monster sightings described in the section “A History of Sightings” were divided into an assortment of different sections, ranging from “hoax” to “description consistent w/ other sightings”. One fell into the category of “likely fictitious”, six fell into the category of “insufficient description”, one was a “probable hoax”, two were “hoaxes”, one had an identity proposed in the initial report, three were probable “misidentifications”, two are based on lost footage, two had “descriptions inconsistent w/ other sightings”, and one was “some data insufficient/irrelevant”. The remainder of the reports, totalling roughly 28.8% of accounts discussed here, were considered usable enough and valid enough to be included in the dataset for the analysis. These cases provided sufficient information for inclusion, but in most instances did not lend enough weight to one interpretation over another. Instead, the overwhelming majority of reports comprised general descriptions which varied wildly between eyewitnesses and were incompatible with each other, with no definitive conclusion to be drawn from individual reports. The table presented on the next page showcases the sightings that are and are not used in the analysis. Many must be excluded, because they are either hoaxes or possess insufficient data for thorough analysis. Most reports of the monster are merely shapes near or beneath the surface, or wakes left by an unidentified object, which are obviously not descriptive enough to conclude whether anything unusual has taken place. This is, of course, only a small fraction of the ~1,141 sightings that have been reported over the years, though to comb through each one would inevitably be a monumentous undertaking indeed, so only these particular ones will be focused upon. Eyewitness testimonies frequently contain minute details regarding key aspects of the aquatic creatures allegedly sighted in the loch that overlap, as does footage and photography. And so, in order to apply the Principle of Parsimony to such conflicting evidence, overlapping traits needed to be considered. The accounts that either lack these traits or have entirely different ones will be disregarded to prevent unnecessary contradictions. More homogeneous reports will be addressed in the following analysis, as it is easier to make comparisons between them than it would be to compare, say, the Spicer account to the Fordyce account. That said, different accounts will also often present seemingly contradictive data, hence only the attributes most relevant to establishing compatibility with available data will be discussed in depth. To note what aspects of these reports were left unconsidered because they are mutually exclusive with another account's features is not to question their believability, but rather highlights how people perceive a vast amount of information without consciously 19 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster TABLE 1 REPORTS OF THE LOCH NESS MONSTER USED IN THIS STUDY Sighting Status Reason Saint Columba Excluded Likely fictitious 500s Campbell Excluded Insufficient description 1527 Mackenzie Excluded Insufficient description 1870 MacDonald Included Description consistent w/ other 1871 sightings Forbes Included Description consistent w/ other 1919 sightings Fordyce Excluded Description inconsistent w/ 1932 other sightings Mackay Included Identity formally proposed 1933 Spicer Included Description consistent w/ other 1933 sightings Gray Excluded Misidentification? 1933 Grant Included Description consistent w/ other 1934 sightings Wilson Excluded Probable hoax 1934 Munro Included Description consistent w/ other 1934 sightings Mountain et al Excluded Footage lost 1934 McRae Excluded Footage lost? 1935 Taylor Excluded Insufficient description 1938 Farrel Excluded Description inconsistent w/ 1943 other sightings Rival III Excluded Insufficient description 1954 MacNab Excluded Inconsistent data 1955 Cockrell Excluded Insufficient description 1955 Dinsdale Included Description consistent w/ other 1960 sightings McCullough Included Description consistent w/ other 1972 sightings Shiels Excluded Hoax 1977 Rines et al. Variable Some data 1972–2001 insufficient/irrelevant Holmes Excluded Misidentification? 2007 Atkinson Excluded Misidentification? 2011 Edwards Excluded Hoax 2012 Elder Excluded Insufficient description 2013 processing it; one individual may take note of details another does not, or mistake a known attribute for something else entirely. A notable caveat is that over-complicated and 20 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster remarkable hypotheses are frequently stricken, as complexity causes more holes in the facade than in less complex, more parsimonious solutions. The principle of Sherlock's Axiom ("when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth") as informally proposed by Roland Watson is frankly illogical, for there cannot be several hypotheses that are equally correct without very particular circumstances, and thus cannot be applied here. Analysis Proposed ranking system Before performing any detailed analysis of the various hypotheses regarding the Loch Ness monster’s identity, it is perhaps best to construct a system of some sort for ranking each idea’s validity. The ranking will be based on five different criteria, and will be aimed at determining how much credibility a proposed solution should be granted. The factors are laid out below, followed by a basic summation. Each criterion will allocate a certain number of "points" in favour of a hypothesis' validity. For instance, if a notion meets every criterion, it would be awarded 100 points, meaning it would be regarded as the most likely of all. On the other hand, even if a hypothesis passes only three of the five, it is still going to receive 60 points and be taken seriously due to the sheer level of support in its favour. The criteria that will be used for this system are as follows: i. Does the hypothesis not require one to make noteworthy unfounded assertions? ii. Does the hypothesis not require a candidate to display unknown anatomy among its clade? iii. Does the hypothesis explain the lack of sightings in certain conditions? iv. Does the hypothesis avoid oversimplification and stereotypical/outdated notions? Criteria that are met are indicated after a summary of the hypothesis in bold, while those that are not met are indicated in italics; those that only somewhat fulfil a requirement may be indicated in bold italics, and are awarded only 10 points each. The plesiosaurian hypothesis It is perhaps appropriate to begin this discussion with the hypothesis most championed by mainstream media: suggesting that the Loch Ness monster is a plesiosaurian of some F IGURE 6 SKELETAL RECONSTRUCTION OF E LASMOSAURUS PLATYURUS BY E DWARD DRINKER COPE , RENDERED FOLLOWING HIS REALIZATION THAT HE HAD INITIALLY RESTORED THE HEAD ON ITS TAIL . W HILE THE FLEXIBLE NECK IS INACCURATE , THE FLAT BACK AND CLEARLY NON -RHOMBOID FLIPPERS ARE NOT . 21 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster description. Comparisons between plesiosaurians and the creature referred to as ‘Nessie’ have been drawn for decades, most notably by Dinsdale (1961), who specifically noted perceived similarities between it and Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus. The notion that the Loch Ness monster is a plesiosaurian is undeniably an evocative one, implying the existence of a ghost lineage that lasted 66 million years without formal recognition. This interpretation can actually be traced back to the work of Binns (1933), who noted “a striking resemblance to the supposedly extinct plesiosaur”. While the most popular for obvious reasons—a cursory glance of several photographs and sketches does show a creature which superficially resembles a plesiosaur in some regards—more recent information on plesiosaur anatomy can be used to wholly refute this notion. Several accounts of the Loch Ness monster provide anatomical details that are simply not present in plesiosaurians. For instance, unlike what is commonly depicted, plesiosaur backs were relatively flat. They did not possess the large ‘hump’ present in many sightings, and contra the Munro report, their torsos were far too inflexible to bend and form distinct humps. Additionally, contra the Grant, Mackenzie, Munro, and Spicer reports, plesiosaurs were incapable of venturing onto land; semi-aquatic animals tend to have jointed limbs to permit such locomotion, as opposed to derived flippers (Mazouchova, Umbanhowar, & Goldman, 2013), while their scapulae would be too reduced to prevent their necks from dragging on the ground (Witton, 2019). Notably, plesiosaur necks were very dorsoventrally inflexible, with the most motion being lateral (Nagesan, Henderson, & Anderson, 2018), precluding them from achieving a more swan-like neck posture. An additional and noteworthy issue arises from the accounts of the Loch Ness monster which portray a pair of small bumps, either “horn-like sense organs” (Holliday, 1968) or “breathing holes” allowing it to breathe without breaking the surface (Rines & Wyckoff, 1976). Actual plesiosaurs, though, lacked these altogether, and there is no evidence that their nostrils differed externally. Internally, though, their structure appears to have been optimized for aquatic olfaction (Cruickshank, Small, & Taylor, 1991) In recent times, numerous major news outlets have claimed that the discovery of freshwater plesiosaurs in Egypt somehow validates the notion that the Loch Ness monster exists, apparently a result of blatant quote-mining (Wenz, 2022). Such specimens have already been known for years, with leptocleidids being noted for their propensity to enter brackish environments (Cruickshank, A Lower Cretaceous pliosauroid from South Africa, 1997; Kear & Barrett, 2011). Even so, even without direct fossil evidence the idea that plesiosaurs could enter fresh water is hardly a surprising one, as they are air-breathers, and therefore have no need to worry about the amount of salt absorbed into their blood from the water; this is how saltwater crocodiles can live in the ocean. That at least some plesiosaurians could enter fresh water has not been overlooked since its discovery, and yet more evidence for this has no bearing on the possibility of the Loch Ness monster being a plesiosaurian. Of some note, though, is the fact that various deep-diving plesiosaurian taxa are known to have existed. The big-eyed Norwegian Ophthalmothule cryostea, for instance, has been 22 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster suggested to be either a diver or a nocturnal predator (Roberts, Druckenmiller, Cordonnier, Delsett, & Hurum, 2020), while the utterly bizarre Russian taxon Abyssosaurus nataliae displays more obvious diving traits, such as pachyostosis to reduce buoyancy and increase stability, large eyes, and paedomorphy—in which an animal loses ontogenetic stages, resembling its young more closely (Berezin, 2019). That A. nataliae was paedomorphic is not irrelevant, though, since animals with paedomorphy frequently exhibit slower, more sedentary lifestyles. The sperm whale Physeter macrocephalus, for instance, is paedomorphic to an extent, and can hang in the water column for long periods due to its slower metabolism (Berezin, 2019). If the deep-diving, hump-backed Loch Ness monster was indeed a plesiosaurian, one would expect it to resemble a freshwater version of Abyssosaurus nataliae. It, however, does not. That the creature is so different suggests that it is not a plesiosaurian at all, though one must admit that there is a certain allure to the idea, hence how it has remained so prevalent in the media. Criteria: i, ii, iii, iv (0 points awarded) The amphibian hypothesis The amphibian hypothesis for the Loch Ness monster’s origins is an unorthodox one, but in light of plesiosaurians presumably having been extinct for the past sixty-six million years, it appears to be a likelier one. This suggestion was initially put forward by Gould (1934), and a “monstrous newt”, specifically, was proposed (Dinsdale, 1961). While information on this idea appears to be scant on the internet, it is quite probably among the likeliest, being ranked by Roy Mackal as the most likely hypothesis put forward F IGURE 7 SKELETAL RECONSTRUCTION OF E OGYRINUS ATTHEYI (=PHOLIDERPETON ATTHEYI ) (Mackal, 1976). The Loch Ness monster being an amphibian may, to some degree, explain its purported semi- terrestrial tendencies. However, there are still inconsistencies with this idea: there are no saltwater amphibians aside from a few salt-tolerant and brackish-dwelling species, notably Bufo viridis Rana pipiens and Xenopus laevis; the crab-eating frog, though, supposedly has tadpoles that can survive in seawater. Since the only obvious way into the loch is through the River Ness, the ancestor of the giant amphibian proposed by Gould would have to be a salt- tolerant species of newt, of which none are currently known to exist. But the “monstrous newt” interpretation of Mackal’s suggestion is a gross oversimplification of the data. Having exhausted most other candidates, Mackal had actually taken a very unconventional approach, instead restoring the forelimb of an embolomere (a clade of stem-tetrapods) based on the 1972 image taken by Rines of a “flipper”. Having 23 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster bestowed upon his creature several attributes that embolomeres did not possess, based on the skeleton of Eogyrinus attheyi (= Pholiderpeton attheyi) reproduced here, Mackal concluded that the Loch Ness monster may have been an embolomere taxon after all. Perhaps, as suggested by Darren Naish, Mackal’s unorthodox identification of the creature as an embolomere was an attempt at providing a more specific and intriguing identity than the newt hypothesis, which had actually been proposed beforehand (Naish, 2020). Ultimately, the embolomere idea is far less likely than the giant newt idea, because it relies on the assumption that a clade of giant amphibians persisted for that length of time. Criteria: i, ii, iii, iv (37.5 points awarded) The fish hypothesis For various reasons, notably the findings of the eDNA analysis, the fish hypothesis is outwardly the most plausible. Following said analysis, the authors of the study concluded that most sightings can be attributed not to a wels catfish, or to a sturgeon, or to a stray Greenland shark as proposed in 2013 (Wade, 2013), but that it is instead a large European eel (Loch Ness Hunters, 2019). There is a precedent in cryptozoology for large eels, far larger than the size postulated for the Loch Ness animal: the “super-eel” proposed by Heuvelmans was suggested to reach far larger sizes (Heuvelmans, 1965). Richard Freeman of the Centre for Fortean Zoology believes the Loch Ness monster to part of a group of eels known as ‘eunuch eels’ (McKenzie, 2013). In these eunuch eels, a mutation occurs that renders them sterile. Instead of migrating to the Sargasso Sea to breed, eunuch eels remain in the waters of their birth, steadily growing; it is not known how big these animals can get (McKenzie, 2013), leaving them a plausible candidate for reports of the Loch Ness monster. The infographic produced by the team behind the eDNA analysis notes that it is extremely unlikely that eels could attain such great sizes in the loch, as that has never been recorded, though it is not totally impossible (Loch Ness Hunters, 2019)—and this apparently fails to take eunuch eels into consideration. They do, however, note that “wakes, standing waves and logs are the basis of most [sightings]”, and that “infrequent visitors such as seals and possibly sturgeons may account for some”. Additionally, eels—chiefly elvers—are capable of terrestrial locomotion to an extent, slithering across land to get to other bodies of water, as seen in this footage. This may account for certain sightings of the monster on land, and indeed, in 1975 Sir David Attenborough himself expressed this view (Attenborough, 1975). Following the eDNA analysis, an independent study by Nathaniel Brislin re-analysed the photographs taken by Rines and several other eyewitnesses over the years (Crash-Course Cryptozoology, 2019). 1Brislin noted various attributes shared between the Brislin creature and European eels, notably a narrow head with an underbite and distinctive white jaw tip, and even the posterior narial protrusions claimed by some to have been present in the “classic” Loch Ness monster sightings. Not all European eels possess these protrusions, nor are they 1 Credit to ChrisY from the Cryptozoology Discord for making me aware of this. 24 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster reported in all Loch Ness reports. Though conducted in a wholly independent capacity, with the exclusion of the eDNA analysis, it can be said that the ongoing Brislin study has provided more direct evidence for the eel hypothesis than almost any other study (Crash-Course Cryptozoology, 2019). Criteria: i, ii, iii, iv (87.5 points awarded) The Tullimonstrum-descendant hypothesis In 1968, Frank W. Holliday put forward a suggestion that he claimed could explain all sightings of strange aquatic cryptids. Based on the Gray photograph of the Loch Ness monster, he put forward the hypothesis that the Loch Ness monster is descended from the now-extinct prehistoric animal called Tullimonstrum gregarium (Holliday, 1968). T. gregarium, whose bizarre anatomy precludes it from being classed as anything beyond Animalia incertae sedis (Sallan, et al., 2017; McCoy, et al., 2020), had a cigar-shaped body, with a tail fin, two eyes on stalks, and an elongate proboscis tipped with what resembles a mouth. Such shape, according to Holliday, accounts for most sightings of mysterious creatures in underwater environments: their proboscides would account for the strange head and neck observed, while their relatively oval-shaped bodies explain the body shape of the cryptids. However, many details of T. gregarium that Holliday relied on are simply incongruous with what we know of the animal. For instance, Holliday alleges that Tullimonstrum possessed a set of small appendages along its side, supposedly explaining a set of structures that are, again, supposedly visible in the Gray photograph. The fossil evidence shows this to be incorrect, and instead of these appendages, T. gregarium possessed a series of conspicuous gill- holes like those seen on a lamprey. Overall, the anatomy of T. gregarium is wholly inconsistent with any reports of the Loch Ness monster, and thus is it not a suitable explanation for the Loch Ness monster, dragons, or the plethora of other creatures Holliday attempted to explain away with it (Holliday, 1968). Criteria: i, ii, iv, v (12.5 points awarded) The turtle hypothesis This hypothesis is arguably the newest to receive any significant study. In a 2020 essay, Henry H Bauer proposed that the Loch Ness monster was a species of aberrant sea turtle of some description. Specifically, he suggested that it was a relative, whether close or distant, of the Campanian taxon Archelon ischyros (Bauer, 2020), a protostegid considered the largest turtle that has ever existed, using the postulated connection between A. ischyros and the leatherback sea-turtle Dermochelys coriacia to explain aspects of its biology such as proposed homeothermy. Even prior to Bauer’s paper, though, this connection had been rendered moot, with protostegids now being considered an entirely unrelated branch of chelonians to D. coriacia (Joyce, 2007; Anquetin, 2011; Gentry & Ebersole, 2018). Additionally, as acknowledged by Bauer himself, no species of sea turtle possesses the same long neck reported by eyewitnesses claiming to have seen the Loch Ness monster, though the snake-necked turtle, Chelodina spp., bears a long neck (Bauer, 2020). However, that C. spp. is a member of the 25 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster Chelidae, and is thus only distantly related to sea turtles, means that comparisons between the two should be discounted. There is, after all, no reason to assume that a sea turtle would develop a long neck. Despite such differences, though, the turtle hypothesis does have its merits. As noted by Bauer (2020), F IGURE 8 1914 LIFE RECONSTRUCTION OF A RCHELON ISCHYROS , BELIEVED BY certain species of turtle are capable of HENRY BAUER TO BE A RELATIVE OF THE LOCH NESS MONSTER. BY SAMUEL W ENDELL WILLISTON enteral breathing, in which gas exchange occurs in the rearmost portion of the alimentary canal (Dunson, 1960), saving time surfacing. Various other vertebrates have developed this characteristic, such as pond loaches (McMahon & Burggren, 1987) and even mammals (Okabe, et al., 2021). While data suggesting that sea turtles are capable of enteral breathing seems to be scarce, if nonexistent, if does not seem totally implausible that one could develop such an attribute. Viviparity, as proposed by Bauer, is also not totally out of the question: in hot environments, the tortoise Chersina angulate has been known to switch to facultative viviparity (Kuchling & Hofmeyr, 2022), so it is entirely possible that a sea turtle could eventually abandon oviparous reproduction and switch to live birthing. Additionally, various species of sea turtle are capable of diving to greater depths than any other reptile species. Leatherback turtles can dive to more than 1219.2 m (4,000 ft) (Spotila, 2004), while loggerheads can dive to roughly 198.12 m (650 ft) (Spotila, 2004). They can conserve oxygen for between 4 and 7 hours by significantly slowing their heart rates (Bennett, 2018), and hibernating individuals may allegedly stay underwater, by virtue of both their breathing rate and their enteric breathing, for several months (Bauer, 2020). Criteria: i, ii, iii, iv (75 points awarded) The mollusc hypothesis As it is difficult to access Anthony Shiels’ Fortean Times article describing this hypothesis, Karl Shuker’s writings on this hypothesis shall be used as framework. Shiels’ interpretation of the Loch Ness monster alleges to explain various aspects of its anatomy. Supposedly, the head of his “Elephanteuthis nnidnidi” is actually an elongate proboscis, used for prey capture. “E. nnidnidi” possesses a series of inflatable air sacs on its dorsum for buoyancy, which would explain the variable shape and number of humps reported for the Loch Ness monster. Making extrapolations based on the “Pictish beast” of various ancient symbol stones, Shiels concluded that “E. nnidnidi” must have borne a set of long, curling arms and a set of much smaller tentacles, as well as a muscular, bilobed tail (Shuker, 1999). 26 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster However, there are various issues with the hypothesis as proposed by Shiels, the most notable of which being mentioned by Shuker: there are no freshwater cephalopods on record. As noted by Shuker, “for one to evolve would require drastic tissue modifications relating to osmoregulatory ability”. Freshwater animals have salty blood relative to the water around them, and without some method of controlling equalization, the natural process of diffusion would make salt concentrations between the animal and the surrounding salt the same, flooding the animal's system with fresh water. While many animals have developed ways of getting around this, such as the sodium pump of freshwater fishes, cephalopods do not appear to have done so. (Norman, 2013). Had Shiels not hinted at his creature being a hoax on at least some occasions, it still seems unlikely that the concept of “Elephanteuthis nnidnidi” being the true identity of the Loch Ness monster could be considered entirely plausible. Too many inconsistencies exist that make its existence incredibly unlikely, but more so than the plesiosaur and embolomere hypotheses. Criteria: i, ii, iii, iv (12.5 points awarded) The pinniped hypothesis Among certain circles, there exists an alternative hypothesis, less focused upon by the mainstream but very much taken seriously: that the Loch Ness monster is, one form or another, a sort of long-necked pinniped. This idea actually dates back to 1934, when the New York Times published an article on the creature declaring it little more than “a large gray seal which has strayed from its natural habitat” (MacAuley, 1934). Indeed, Williamson (1988) noted that such individuals have been reported in the loch every few years, though the account he published was the first to be verified. The notion of the creature being some other sort of pinniped, though, has also been brought up every once in a while, and surprising evidence exists to support the idea. In 1681, botanist Nehemiah Grew published Musaeum Regalis Societatis, a catalogue of curiosities reported around the time. One of the many specimens Grew reported on was a preserved skin from a young pinniped, describing it thusly: “I find him no where distinctly mention'd. He is much slenderer than either of the former [two other pinnipeds documented by him earlier – see below]. But that wherein he principally differs, is the length of his Neck. For from his Nose-end to his fore-Feet, and from thence to his Tail, are the same measure. As also in that instead of fore-Feet, he hath rather Finns [sic]; not having any Claws thereon, as have the other kinds.” (Grew, 1681) The creature was dubbed the “long-necked seal” by Grew, and was subsequently mentioned in a paper by marine seals published by James Parsons in 1751. In Parsons’ description, which expands on the initial description of Grew, he described the creature as follows: “He is much slenderer than either of the former; but that, wherein he principally differs, is the length of his neck; for from his nose-end to his fore-feet, and from thence to his 27 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster tail, are the same measure; as also in that, instead of his fore-feet, he hath rather fins; not having any claws thereon, as have the other kinds. The head and neck of this species are exactly like those of an otter…That before described [the long-necked seal], was 7 feet and an half in length; and, being very young, had scarce any teeth at all.” (Parsons, 1751) In an illustration of the creature, reproduced on the next page, the long-necked seal is depicted alongside the harbour seal (Phoca vitulina), and an unknown creature referred to as the “tortoise-headed seal”, which remains an enigma. The details of the reports are very similar, though interestingly Parsons claims that the long-necked seal could be found “on the shores of divers[e] countries” (Parsons, 1751; Shuker, 2015). Unfortunately, the specimen appears to have been lost, and is the only known skin of a long-necked seal. Later, though, Dutch zoologist Anthonie Oudemans FIGURE 9 GREW AND P ARSONS ' "LONG-NECKED SEAL, OR SEA -CALF", DEPICTED ALONGSIDE THE HARBOUR SEAL AND AN UNKNOWN "TORTOISE -HEADED SEAL " investigated numerous reports of sea serpents from across the globe, coming to a noteworthy conclusion: that an enormous species of seal with cosmopolitan distribution and an elongate neck, (Oudemans, 1892; Shuker, 2015), assigning the epithet of “Megophias megophias”. Subsequently, in his work attempting to categorise sea serpent observations, Bernard Heuvelmans assigned such creatures the binomen of “Megalotaria longicollis” (Heuvelmans, 1965). Generally, the pinniped identity is favoured among cryptozoological circles, with various researchers endorsing it (Oudemans, 1892; Heuvelmans, 1965; Coleman & Huyghe, 2003), and the idea would appear to be supported by various accounts by people claiming to witness the Loch Ness monster. The Spicer report, for instance, describes the creature moving relatively fast on land (Inverness Courier, 1933); the leopard seal from Antarctica can allegedly move at up to 25 mph (40 km/h) on land, and it is hardly implausible that another pinniped could attain such speeds. The Grant report, assuming the creature observed was not an otter, was an encounter with a large animal that quickly departed into the water. The Munro report depicted an animal which “kept turning itself in the sunshine and at times arched its back into one or more humps”, which may be interpreted as resembling the way pinnipeds on land arch their backs when they stretch, and “skin like an elephant” is known from elephant seals and walruses. The McCullough report describes the creature “moving through the water like a caterpillar”. The “highly flexible laterally flattened tail” reported by Mackal (1976) could be interpreted as the reduced hind flippers of a seal or other pinniped, which are also highly flexible. 28 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster Additionally, such “long-necked seals” have also been reported in the open ocean. On the20th of July, 1965, in the Bahamas, the crew of the DSRV Alvin observed a strange, almost plesiosaurian creature roughly 1,524 m (5,000 ft) below the surface. The creature was described by Marvin McCamis of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the incident in which it was seen was described as follows: “We were down about 5000 feet and then I went down into a crevasse about 300 feet deeper under a slight outcrop. We went deeper because the cable we were following spanned the crevasse. It was right there that I spotted it. The first thing I noticed was the movement. I thought we were moving along the cable and checked for drift but found that the sub was stationary and that it was the object that was moving. It then occurred to me that perhaps it was a utility pole, especially because of its thick shape. I swung the sub in an arc to get a better view along the cable or pole or whatever it was, when I was astonished to see a thick body with flippers, a long neck, a snakelike head with two eyes looking right at us. It looked like a big lizard with flippers - it had two sets of them. Then it swam upwards with its back turned before we could get the cameras angled. They were set to photograph 15 to 25 feet in front of the submarine and the thing had already swum out of the camera angle but was still around. I didn't like the way things were happening, so I came up. I couldn't believe what I was seeing but I didn't want to hang around.” (Berlitz, 1977) Some believe that the creature observed by McCamis and his colleague, Bill Rainnie, was some sort of pinniped. That pinnipeds can be found at such depths is not out of the question: elephant seals have been known to dive even deeper, attaining a maximum depth of roughly 2,388 m (7,835 ft), rivalled only by beaked whales (Morell, 2014; Schorr, Falcone, Moretti, & Andrews, 2014). That another species of pinniped could develop such adaptations to deep-diving is not unreasonable, and perhaps the long neck of the DSRV Alvin creature and that of the Loch Ness creature could hint at some connection between the two. The importance of the fossil record in unravelling the Loch Ness enigma, though, cannot be overstated. Indeed, an extinct genus of seal, Acrophoca longirostris, has been described from several specimens found in Chile and Peru. Among pinnipeds, A. longirostris was notable for possessing an elongated skull and neck, and swimming was apparently powered predominantly by the back flippers (Berta, 2012). With this in mind, it and the long- necked seal skin lend credence to the idea that some sort of long-necked seal may still exist, or at least may have done so until very recently. Criteria: i, ii, iii, iv (87.5 points awarded) Discussion Of the seven hypotheses detailed here, one—the plesiosaurian hypothesis—received a total of zero points. Of the remainder, one—the Tullimonstrum-descendant hypothesis— received 12.5 points, one—the cephalopod hypothesis—received forty points, one—the amphibian hypothesis—received fifty points, one—the turtle hypothesis—received eighty, and 29 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster finally two—the fish and pinniped hypotheses—received ninety. With likelihoods of such equality, it might be reasonable to assume that many sightings of the Loch Ness monster can be attributed to one or the other. According to our current knowledge, the popular plesiosaurian hypothesis can be wholly discounted based on various factors, much to the relief of those seeking to work out how a plesiosaurian monster would work. While it may initially come as a surprise that the Tullimonstrum hypothesis is scored as being more likely, it must be noted that T. gregarium at least somewhat accounts for a few attributes of the monster (a flexible “neck” and a more rounded dorsum). The cephalopod hypothesis is likelier still, with the bizarre anatomy proposed by Shiels accounting for quite a lot of the creature’s attributes. The turtle hypothesis requires nothing more than for a sea turtle to possess modified anatomy unknown in its family, and is far more plausible than ghost lineages or Lazarus taxa. The last two hypotheses appear to be the likeliest, though as an inherent skeptic, I must admit to preferring the former hypothesis, as unscientific as it may be to consciously do so. The particulars of classification If the pinniped hypothesis is the correct one, though, the implications for such a taxon’s behavioural and morphological traits are intriguing at the very least. If one is to assume that such a taxon would be a wholly new genus, one may well conclude that it is either related to, descended from or convergently evolved with Acrophoca. The preconception that the Loch Ness animal would be descended from Acrophoca, though, is not without glaring issues. Pinnipeds generally prefer to remain around coastal areas, typically around the continental shelf, and there are vast swathes of the ocean where no individuals are found (Kovacs, et al., 2012). For A. longirostris to have made its way to Loch Ness, it would have to travel along the west South American coastline, enter the Southern Ocean, and then make its way through waters where no pinniped taxa have been reported, eventually crossing the Atlantic Ocean and finally making its way along the River Ness into a freshly formed loch. If the species had somehow achieved this, it and its descendants would have had to endure various rapid-fire dietary changes, encountered predators they never would have encountered before, and establish ecological niches for themselves. This does, of course, seem rather fanciful. It is incredibly unlikely that Acrophoca longirostris would be ancestral to a pinniped Loch Ness monster. With the above in mind, it is a good idea to take a better look at the pinnipeds found in and around the British Isles. There are two species considered native to the UK: the harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) and the grey seal (Halichoerus grypus). The latter is far larger, with bulls attaining a maximum length of 3.3 m (10.83 ft), as opposed to the 1.85 m (6.1 ft) of harbour seals. Grey seals have a less curved profile than harbour seals, being generally longer in appearance. Among vagrant species that seldom visit the British Isles, a possible candidate may be the hooded seal (Cystophora cristata), whose males possess a large inflatable nose that could conceivably be interpreted as a hump even when deflated, while also distorting the facial 30 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster profile of the animal. As few accounts describe the Loch Ness species’ head in any detail it is impossible to say, and it is always possible that an unknown taxon began its lineage, though among known species the grey seal, with its elongate body and large size, seems the best fit. The supposed flipper among the photographs taken by Rines et al is rhomboid in shape, with what Naish refers to as "a (seemingly) floppy leading edge" (Naish, 2020). This led author Adrian Shine to conclude that the owner of the flipper relied on tail-based propulsion, rather than the flipper-based propulsion one would expect from a hypothetical plesiosaurian, or that the creature moved slowly along the bottom of the loch (Shine, 1989). Applying this information to a pinniped, one might assume that the animal’s flippers had become greatly reduced in response to a slow-moving, relatively sedentary lifestyle. Conflicting with this information, though, is the fact that the other group of large, slow-moving aquatic mammals, the sirenians, possess small, round flippers, not those observed in the Rines photograph. Indeed, Shine (1989) stated that the object observed in that image more closely resembles a fish, so the organism observed may not be the same as the “true” Loch Ness species. If one is to conclude, as suggested above, that the organism observed in the Rines et al photographs is not the same creature as the Loch Ness monster, the binomen of Nessiteras rhombopteryx must be relegated to whatever is depicted there. Assuming this is correct, the animal requires a new binomen. That N. rhombopteryx is the only proposed epithet I am aware of means that a wholly original one must be proposed. To that end, I propose the name Nerototherium campourus gen. et sp. nov., from the Greek thirío tou neroú ("water beast") and kampoúris (hump-back), resulting in the full name translating to "hump-backed water beast", a reference to the sightings which report strange humps on the creature's back. The name N. campourus applies to whatever identity is proposed, assuming a new genus needs to be erected, whether it be pinniped or eel. Population sizes Assuming a pinniped identity for the Nerototherium campourus, one may come to wholly new conclusions about how many individuals may exist. The following will assume that the Loch Ness monster is only slightly larger than the grey seal, with a length of approximately 3.66 m (12 m), as indicated by the Forbes report (Watson, 2015), and an extrapolated weight of ~332 kg (731.93 lbs). Without reliable data on the energetics of the species, one must make comparisons based on grey seals, which can eat between 4–6% of their body weight in one day (NOAA, 2022). Assuming an available food biomass of 102 tonnes, the daily feed of one N. campourus would make a dent of approximately 0.0195%, as adults would need to ingest up to 19.92 kg (43.92 lbs) of fish per day. For a single N. campourus to ingest the entire fish stock at such a rate would take a considerably long time: it would take one year to ingest 7,270.8 kg (16,029.37 lbs) of fish, and ~16.5 years to ingest the entire fish stock. Given that the fishes in Loch Ness do breed, though, this population is being constantly replenished, and so there is more than enough food to support a single individual. Conversely, if one assumes an identity 31 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster for N. campourus that places it close to the European eel, Anguilla anguilla, taking the Freeman length estimate of 9 m, one can input the following formula 𝑊𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑒𝑙 ((𝐿𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑓 𝑢𝑛𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑙 ÷ 𝐿𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑒𝑙)3 ) Doing so yields the following answer: 5((9 ÷ 2)3 ) = 455.625 Multiplying the figure of 455.625 by 50 results in a total biomass of ~22.78 tonnes, meaning a population of fifty mature individuals related/belonging to Anguilla sp. could exist safely within plausible limits.2 Therein, however, lies the rub. It simply is not feasible to support a population of N. campourus in Loch Ness with just one individual assuming a mammalian identity; outside of laboratory conditions, mammals cannot and do not reproduce asexually. At the very least, two or more transient individuals, migrating from the ocean to the loch via the River Ness with great frequency, would be required to maintain such a presence. Sheldon & Kerr (1972) and Scheider & Wallis (1973) both provided population estimates of ~10–20 or thereabouts, which for a transient species that spends very little time actually within the loch seems plausible. A permanent population, though, would quite possibly exhaust its food supply in as little as 1.65 years, leaving Loch Ness—whose fish population does not replenish itself often enough to combat any such ecological pressures—an effective wasteland until it could be recolonized. The N. campourus within would be forced to either migrate or, if somehow restricted solely to the loch, face total extinction. That such an event has not happened indicates a far lower population density of seals. Evolutionary mechanisms At first glance, the notion of the Nerototherium campourus being most closely related to the grey seal may seem strange. That a creature with such a long neck and distinctive anatomy could be related to such a taxon would initially seem improbable. There are, however, many ways in which N. campourus could develop such characteristics, For instance, there is terminal addition, which can be simply defined as the addition of new stages to the latter part of an organism’s life cycle. Terminal addition has been observed in embryonic birds, incidentally providing a further connection between them and dinosaurs (Griffin, et al., 2022), and appears to have been the backbone of early bilaterian evolution (Jacobs, Hughes, Fitz- Gibbon, & Winchell, 2005). If N. campourus evolved via terminal addition, its young may possess relatively similar attributes to the young of grey seals—albeit “stretched out”—while looking rather quite different as an adult. Various characteristics may arise through ontogeny, including the pair of bulbous lumps supposedly present on adults’ heads that are conspicuously absent from the long-necked seal skin reported by Grew and Parsons. Such apparent traits that lead directly into adult morphology might include heterochronies, whereby a trait or series of 2 Credit to ChrisY from the Cryptozoology Discord for doing the number-crunching I could not. 32 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster events arise occurs at a different stage in development, thus resulting in taxa that exhibit features arising at an earlier or later date than what would otherwise be expected. Conclusion The many ideas about the Loch Ness monster’s identity proposed over the years by dedicated workers in an independent capacity have been rather remarkable and important contributions to the field of cryptozoology. As science progresses, and new data surface or old data are overturned, enthusiasts may continue their attempts to parse all the findings presented here into even more cohesive models of what the entity is and is not. Some ideas hold great promise for becoming credible if one assumes the creature does exist, most notably the fish idea and the pinniped idea. The idea presented here is that the Loch Ness monster is a seal, closely related to the grey seal, which has either relatives or conspecifics in areas as far as the Bahamas. A limited amount of prey means that it likely migrates in and out of the Loch, and thus much of this species' population must surely exist in the open ocean. Does this explain any other lake monster sightings? Does it provide clues about why Nessie has never been caught in the loch? Perhaps, but who knows? We can do no more than speculate, but one thing can be said for certain: real or not, the Loch Ness monster is one of the most intriguing and most widely known cryptids of all time, and researchers may well argue about the likelihood of its existence for decades to come. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the owner of the YouTube channel Truth is Scarier than Fiction, who was kind enough to provide various accounts I had overlooked and pertinent information, as well as ChrisY for looking through several drafts and providing further info, as well as the entirety of the Cryptozoology Discord server for providing such a welcoming community for an independent researcher such as myself. I would also like to extend my thanks to Tyler Greenfield, for making the Cryptozoology Database—a major tool in my research—public. Among other individuals, Darren Naish, Roland Watson, and Tim Dinsdale are of particular significance in my studies, and receive my thanks. 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