Nessie unlikely to be a giant eel, says scientist

IN CRYPTOZOOLOGY – the study of animals which have not yet been proven to exist – there is no bigger mystery than the Loch Ness Monster.

Studies have found no solid evidence that Loch Ness is the home of a giant prehistoric marine reptile.

Now Floe Foxon, a US data scientist, has found that the idea that Nessie is a giant eel is “vanishingly unlikely”.

Mr Foxon looked at data on eel catches to estimate how many you would need, statistically, to get one of sufficient size to be confused with a large Mesozoic reptile.

In 2019, Prof Neil Gemmell, a geneticist from the University of Otago in New Zealand, trawled Loch Ness and found no evidence of plesiosaur DNA.

However, he found lots of eel DNA, and posited that there may be giant eels in Loch Ness which might be behind the Nessie sightings. Unfortunately, DNA gives no indication of size.

Mr Foxon’s analysis, though, revealed that the likelihood of finding a metrelong eel in Loch Ness is one in 50,000.

“For a six-metre eel, the probability is practically next to zero,” he added.

“So, although there are a great many eels in the Loch, they don’t get very big. Not monstrously big, anyway.”