Scientist rules out giant eels as explanation for Loch Ness Monster legend

The Loch Ness Monster – if such a beastie does exist – is certainly not a giant eel. This is the conclusion of a researcher from the US, who used previous estimates of Nessie’s size to predict the probability of encountering a large eel on the same scale. The idea that Nessie might be an eel was first proposed in 1976, following a study of the sizes of the fish in Loch Ness that revealed a skewed distribution hinting that larger specimens than caught might also exist in the murky waters. Eels, it was noted, were consistent with many descriptions of the monster, sporting a long neck, pectoral fins, extreme flexibility and dark colouration. A study of environmental DNA published in 2019 added fuel to this fire, with geneticist Neil Gemmel suggesting a large eel could explain the abundance of eel DNA his team detected. The new study, however, would appear to blow this hypothesis out of the proverbial water. The Loch Ness Monster – if such a beastie does exist – is certainly not a giant eel (Image: Getty Images) Sightings of a monster in and around Loch Ness have a long history that goes back as early as the sixth century AD, with the abbot Adamnán of Iona relaying a second-hand account of a man who was attacked and killed by a ‘water beast’ in the River Ness. Public interest in the legend became widespread following a reported sighting in the July of 1933 of a ‘most extraordinary form of animal’, 25 feet long, crossing a road. The famous hoax of the ‘surgeon’s photograph’ was published in the Daily Mail the next year, cementing the notion of Nessie being long-necked, like an ancient plesiosaur. Assorted searches of the depths of the 23-mile-long loch using everything from sonar and hydrophones to submersibles and trawling nets have failed to provide any significant evidence to suggest the monster is real. Nevertheless, the myth endures. Pictured: the ‘Surgeon’s Photograph’ of 1934, later revealed to have been a hoax (Image: Getty Images) The new study was undertaken by data analyst Floe Foxon of the Folk Zoology Society of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania . She said: ‘In this new work […] a much needed level of scientific rigour and data are brought to a topic that is otherwise as slippery as an eel. ‘Contrary to popular conception, the intersection between folklore and zoology is amenable to scientific analysis and has the potential to provide valuable insights into anthrozoological phenomena.’ (Anthrozoology is a scientific area of study that focuses on the interactions between humans and other animals.) The notion that Nessie might be an eel (like that pictured) date back to the seventies (Image: Getty Images) In her work, Ms Foxon used catch data on eels in Loch Ness and other freshwater bodies in Europe to calculate the likelihood of sighting an eel on the proposed 20-foot scale of Nessie. She determined that the odds of encountering a 3.3 feet-long eel in Loch Ness is around 1-in-50,000. This, Ms Foxon explained, ‘is reasonable given the loch’s fish stock and suggests some sightings of smaller unknown animals may be accounted for by large eels. ‘However, these analyses suggest that larger eels upward of 6 metres are highly improbable; therefore, ‘super’ eels are an unlikely explanation for eyewitness reports of the very largest alleged animals at Loch Ness.’ Top: Lengths of eels captured in Loch Ness (l) and Belgium (r). Bottom: eel length probabilities (Image: Foxon et al. / JMIRx Bio) The odds of encountering a 3.3 feet-long eel in Loch Ness is around 1-in-50,000 (Image: Derek W Evans / Foxon et al. / JMIRx Bio) In fact, Ms Foxon noted, the fastest growth rates of eels in the not-too-distant River Dee as reported by Marine Scotland Science is 1.4 inches per year, Even if the creatures were to grow at that speed for their entire lives without stopping – which they do not – it would take an eel some 200 years to reach Nessie’s alleged size. Ms Foxon said: ‘One European eel reportedly (unverified) lived to the grand age of 155 years.’ However, she added, ‘that specimen did not grow to a remarkable size because eel growth is nonlinear, slowing in older ages.’ There are other reasons to discount eels as an explanation for supposed Nessie sightings, Ms Foxon added. She explained: ‘The ‘breaching’ behaviour attributed to unknown Loch Ness animals – swimming upward and out of the water – is not a behaviour that is characteristic of eels during migration or otherwise. ‘Such behaviour would represent unnecessary energy expenditure in a cold environment with relatively little food.’ The full findings of the study were published in the journal JMIRx Bio .