Loch-Ness monster

The Loch Ness monster is an alleged animal, identified neither as to family or species, but claimed to inhabit Scotland's Loch Ness. The Loch-Ness monster is one of the best-known animals studied by cryptozoology. Popular belief and interest in the animal have waxed and waned over the years since the animal came to the world's attention in 1933. Evidence of its existence is largely anecdotal, with minimal, and much disputed photographic material and sonar readings: there has not been any physical evidence (skeletal remains. capture of a live animal, definitive tissue samples or spoor) uncovered as of 2008. Local people, and later many around the world, have affectionately referred to the animal by the diminutive Nessie (Scottish Gaelic: "Niseag") since the 1950s.

The term "monster" was reportedly coined on May 2nd, 1933 by Alex Campbell, the water bailiff for Loch Ness and a part-time journalist, in a report in the Inverness Courier. On August 4th 1933, the Courier published as a full news item the claim of a London man named George Spicer that, a few weeks earlier, while motoring around the Loch, he and his wife had the "nearest approach to a dragon or pre-historic animal reporting a similar encounter while on a night drive. These stories soon reached the national press, and afterward the international, which talked to a "monster fish", "sea serpent" or "dragon", eventually settling on "Loch Ness monster". On December 6th, 1933 the first photograph (taken by Hugh Gray) was published, and the creature received official recognition from the Secretary of State claims of land or water sightings, either on the writer's part or on the parts of family, acquaintances or stories they remembered being told. In 1934, interest was further sparked by what is known as "The Surgeon's Photograph". In the same year R.T. Gould published a book, the first of many which describe the author's personal investigation and collected record of additional reports pre-dating the Summer of 1933. Subsequent investigations by other agents over the ensuing decades added additional material which was eventually woven into a continuum of sightings dating from the 6th century A.D. to the present, which appeared to present a strong case for the existence of a large, possibly unknown and certainly unidentified animal or family of animals living in Loch Ness.

Many explanations have been postulated over the years to explain the claims for the existence of a Loch Ness monster; from unknown species of large animals to the mystic or paranormal, misidentification or known animals, inanimate objects or effects, or hoaxes many of these have been discussed. In 1933, th suggestion was made that the monster "bears a striking resemblance to the supposedly extinct plesiosaur". a long-necked aquatic reptile that is thought to have become extinct during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event. This is a popular and plausible explanation, though there have been arguments that have been put against it; the plesiosaur was probably a cold-blooded reptile requiring warm tropical waters, while the average temperature of Loch Ness is only about 24 .F. Even if the plesiosaurs were warm-blooded they would require a food supply beyond that of Loch Ness to maintain the level of activity necessary of warm-blooded animals. In October 2006, the New Scientist Magazine headlined an article "Why the Loch Ness monster is no plesiosaur" because Leslie Noe of the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge reported, "The osteology of the neck makes it absolutely certain the plesiosaur could not lift its head up swan-like out of the water". However, this does not rule out of the majority of reports where a head and neck was not seen. Also the lock is only about 10,000 years old, dating to the end of the last ice age. Prior to that date, the loch was frozen solid for about 20,000 years. Thus it has not remained in the loch for millions of years.

Thus proponents such as Tim Dinsdale, Peter Scott and Roy Mackal postulate a marine creature which has become trapped and has evolved either from a plesiosaur or to the shape of a plesiosaur by convergent evolution.