The Loch Ness DNA Project

One of the most famous and beloved cryptids in all the world is Scotland's Loch Ness Monster. Reports describe a large, long-necked beast like a plesiosaur, yet Nessie has remained curiously elusive to scientific searches. Multiple sonar scans of the loch have come up blank. The legend of the Loch Ness Monster dates back about 1500 years, but it wasn’t until the first reported sightings and infamous “Doctor’s photo” in the 1930s that it began to capture people’s imagination. The Loch Ness monster, or Nessie, has been strangely elusive ever since, and the photo from back then was revealed to have been a toy submarine. Rumors of a strange creature lurking in the murky waters of Loch Ness continue to abound. Recently an international team of scientists led by Dr. Neil Gemmell from the University of Otago in New Zealand has just revealed the first results from an eDNA analysis of the waters of Loch Ness. ​ The results of the Loch Ness survey come after scientists took hundreds of samples of water from Loch Ness and nearby lochs. DNA from each sample was captured, extracted and sequenced. This gave the team 500 million sequences that when compared against global DNA databases show a comprehensive picture of life present in the Loch – the bacteria, the fish, and everything else in between. They may be startling for some and expected for others. Some people may be upset at what the results reveal and some may be saying “I told you so!” But no matter what side you’re on, you have to admit that this was something that really needed to be done and it looks like that we finally have an end to the mystery of what the Loch Ness Monster actually is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices