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John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC

I live for the moments when common sense wins over wild speculation, and this is one of those moments.




Loch Ness monster could be a giant eel, researcher claims

By Chris Ciaccia

After months of speculation surrounding a study into whether the Loch Ness monster was real, the researcher behind it has claimed it could be a giant eel and not a giant plesiosaur from a long-lost era.
Speaking at a press conference early Thursday morning, New Zealand researcher Neil Gemmell gave his "plausible" explanation for what people may have seen in the past, but added that it is most certainly not a dinosaur.
"We can't find any evidence of a creature that's remotely related to that in our environmental-DNA sequence data," Gemmell said, according to the BBC. "So, sorry, I don't think the plesiosaur idea holds up based on the data that we have obtained."
"There is a very significant amount of eel DNA," Gemmell, a geneticist from New Zealand's University of Otago, added. "Eels are very plentiful in Loch Ness, with eel DNA found at pretty much every location sampled – there are a lot of them. So, are they giant eels? Well, our data doesn't reveal their size, but the sheer quantity of the material says that we can't discount the possibility that there may be giant eels in Loch Ness."


He continued: "Therefore we can't discount the possibility that what people see and believe is the Loch Ness monster might be a giant eel."
European eels can grow up to 5 feet, according to the USGS. They have a diet that consists of insect larvae, mollusks, worms and crustaceans. They're also able to "survive near freezing temperatures" and are seen as "remarkably mobile," capable of moving over dams, weirs and even land, adding credence to Gemmell's findings.


British-born American poet W.H. Auden (born Wystan Hugh Auden)