Sunday 7 February 2016

Animal Behaviour at Loch Ness

The recent talk about giant eels at Loch Ness brought to mind a couple of old clippings I had intended to post.


A SWIMMING WHAT?

The first is taken from the Whitby Gazette dated the 28th September 1906. As I began to read, I was beginning to think we had a 1906 Nessie report on our hands, but read on.



Writing to the Scotsman, a correspondent at Drumnadrochit, says: — Two anglers from the hotel, fishing on Loch Ness, observed something swimming rapidly along the surface and making for the nearest point of the western shore. The surface was quite calm at the time, and the "object" showed a long and pronounced wake behind it. On rowing towards it, and when within a few yards, they were much surprised to see a very lively snake suddenly dart about six inches of head and body erect out of the water.

The creature showed no sign of alarm or desire to escape; but, with bold and menacing aspect, rather turned towards the boat, as if ready for attack. A stroke of the boatman's oar stopped its course, but, soon after being taken into the boat, it showed such energetic and unmistakable signs of reviving that it was promptly bandied overboard. The length, as it lay stretched on board, was estimated at a little over twenty inches: and that it was really an adder was verified by an examination of a preserved adder's skin. 

It is well known that adders take readily to the water, and swim across our mountain streams without hesitation, but to cross Loch Ness, as this creature was obviously attempting to do, is quite a different matter, for, at this point, near Urquhart Castle. the shortest distance across is a mile and half-a-furlong. When first seen, the adder was about a hundred yards from the western shore.

Not quite a Nessie, and people don't tend to mistake 20 inch animals for 20 foot animals. As it turned out, a video had appeared on the BBC news website showing this type of behaviour. The only mystery for me was the implication that this snake was close to finishing a one mile swim. Is that possible? I don't know.





However, one feature of this story caught my attention in relation to the giant eel theory. It was the statement:

... they were much surprised to see a very lively snake suddenly dart about six inches of head and body erect out of the water.

I assumed that a serpent like creature in water would find such a task difficult, but this does not seem to be the case.  Showing six inches out of twenty of its overall length scales up to a classic six foot neck out of a twenty foot body, except in the case of a giant eel, it is not a "proper" neck.

Does the scaling up in terms of maintaining positive buoyancy stack up? Does the difference between eel and adder physiology preclude even a twenty inch eel doing this? Of course, adders have lungs and eels have swimbladders. Which gives the greater positive buoyancy? That eels can achieve positive buoyancy is a given since they can get from their usual benthic dwelling to the surface and even onto land.

A cursory look around Google Images showed nothing of an eel raised in the erect fashion of our adder story. This has always been an argument against giant eel. That long, thin neck with its supine ability described by witnesses at Loch Ness goes counter to the thick set nature of the eel.


PIKE HUNTING

Moving onto another inhabitant of Loch Ness, this was printed in the 3rd January 1857 edition of the Warder and Dublin Weekly Mail, having been lifted from the Inverness Advertiser.




VORACITY OF THE PIKE.—The voracity of this fish is well known to all persons anywise acquainted with fresh water fishing. A most remarkable instance of it occurred lately near the western extremity of Loch Ness, where a brood of young ducks, thirteen in number, were gobbled up in a single day. In the same locality a few young turkeys went to the lake-side to drink, but immediately on their arrival at the water's edge, two or three of their number were snapped under water by this most incorrigible destroyer.— Inverness Advertiser.

This clipping also came to mind when someone on the Internet shot off a caricature of my idea that the Loch Ness creatures could predate land creatures. It seems that another denizen of the loch has already learnt this trick and put it to good use. After all, what pike could resist a meal of duck or turkey?

Of course, we assume they were pike and not more mysterious residents of the loch ... My idea of larger creatures doing the same to creatures bigger than ducks or turkeys does not seem so far fetched after all.




29 comments:

  1. I think we can safely put to rest the giant eel theory. An eel wouldn't explain the articulating, or distinguishable and distinct head to neck juncture reported by some eyewitnesses.

    I wasn't aware that pike can be such nasty and vicious little bastards.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YptpM7dv3lg

    They'll eat just about anything!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGqf-WyYTUc


    And can even be cannibalistic.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXuyal4WQL8


    Maybe one of the reasons no Nessie carcass has ever been recovered is that they are cannibals!

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    1. Safely put it to bed?

      On the contrary, I think it's one of the better theories out there.

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    2. Nessie is not a giant eel for me, but I can see why people like it because it is a known species which ticks a lot of boxes and known species do grow to Nessie size ranges.

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    3. Rp McMurphy: Yes, it would be if your other choices left are a giant Salamander, a giant long-neck Seal, a giant long-neck Turtle, a giant Sturgeon, a giant long- neck amphibious fish, a giant Tullimonstrum and lastly the impossible Plesiosaur.

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    4. Exactly GB, which is why I think it's one of the better theories. I'm not saying it's the answer, and I'm not saying it's the theory I'd subscribe to, but it makes more sense than most.

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    5. I forgot to mention a giant catfish, since that was also in the news as a candidate a few months back. It's also a big no for me.

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  2. i've seen snakes swimming across/along rivers with their heads etc held above the water as if looking where they're going they almost glide across the surface but when i've witnessed eels at the surface they seem to be vertical with heads at the surface but not above the water & their tails towards the bottom & as john says the head/neck doesn't fit with what people are seeing. but i've also seen them on damp wet evenings on land heading towards land locked ponds, thats why i find the gordon holmes video very interesting & have always edged towards the giant eel theory even though that leaves many unanswered questions.

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  3. John, there are in fact eels where the first third of their bodies have a taper to it, which gives them the appearance of having elongated necks. Because of this they're called neck or longneck eels. Although I'm on the fence about the LNM, what I think could be behind the mystery as well as the hair/horse eels of Irish and Scottish lore is a giant derivative of the longneck eels - but a type where the neck section of the body has evolved into a true neck in the sense that it is capable of independent flexture from the rest of the body. In response to this adaptation the pectoral fins have moved further down the body. Lastly, as these eels get bigger they get thicker in the midsection. And the dorsal fins could account for the mane-like structures sometimes reported, and could also conceiveably account for the multi-humps if the fin is flopped over in places. If there are large unknown animals behind the lake monster legends of Ireland and Scotland I think something along the lines of what I've described will turn out to be the reality that underlies the legends.

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    1. Sounds like you're describing the evolved "thick-bodied eel" proposed by Mackal. It's possible, I suppose, but it would have to be one of such proportions as to be a true monster of an eel.

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    2. Not exactly John. Professor Mackal's Nessie eel was simply a much enlarged (20-25 feet), thick-bellied version of a conventional eel. My idea is that, in addition to the enlarged size and belly thickening, the hypothetical eel has an elongated, tapered neck region and relocated pectoral fins. Under my scenario these eels are primarily deep-dwelling ocean creatures that occasionally get into the loughs and lochs of Ireland and Scotland - but they are not native to those environments. They come and go as size permits, and a few may stay in the loch and live out their life spans, but I also think there are periods when none of these eels are in the loch.

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  4. Great to see these reports of things at Loch Ness before the 1930 's.

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  5. I recall years ago reading a book on the LNM. The story told of divers working on some construction at the Loch, when underwater viewed very large ells, some divers refused to dive again.

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    1. As I recall, the story revolved around the divers than went down to find the body of Mrs Hambro, the banker's wife who drowned. They allegedly came up quickly after seeing large eels swimming aorund their legs.

      I can't remember where I read that, but at the time I couldn't verify it from any contemporary source.

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    2. After further head scratching, I'm thinking the event concerned the Foyers Hydro-Electric scheme.

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    3. When it was first built for the aluminium works, which I guess was over a century ago?

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    4. I think the story being referred to is the supposed large eel discovered in the turbines of the hydro plant?

      It's one of those Loch Ness anecdotes that has been often repeated, but for which I don't think there's a definitive source the story can be traced to.

      Unless someone knows different of course.

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  6. We know a lot about Eels. I dont think they are a candidate for the loch ness monster. The same goes for catfish. I think we are looking at something we dont really know a lot about.

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  7. Giant eels have long been on the contender list for Nessie. But, as already mentioned, my idea isn't just a big eel, but an offshoot with some morphological modifications.

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    1. Well you may just be right Paddy. As I have mentioned before, if not an eel, then a creature very eel-like and a big one.

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    2. Yes i agree John. Nessie could be Eel- like. I believe that there is a lot of undiscovered fish out there in the oceans. ( The tsunami was proof of this). There is a good chance of an Eel -like fish we have not discovered. The frilled shark resembles a big Eel in some photo's. Just maybe the frilled shark has a larger relative we have not found yet, and it would certainly fit many a nessie discription.

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    3. But if we are to do the eyewitness testimony justice then this eel or eel-like creature must have an elongated neck. Which isn't really a big deal as the neck or longneck eels I wrote about previously are practically there. To propose that something similar has developed a true neck isn't really a big stretch from an evolutionary point of view. In nature, successful body plans are reproduced in different types of animals due to convergence evolution. For example Dolphins (mammal), sharks (fish) and the extinct Icthyosaur (reptile) all have torpedo shaped bodies, dorsal and pectoral fins. Plesiosaurs of course had elongated necks as do turtles, and at least one type of extinct seal had an unusually long neck. So why not an eel offshoot?

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    4. I'm glad some of us Nessie believers can come to some consensus on what we think these creatures may be. Most of the time, aside from believing there is something there, we are taken to task for not thinking scientifically and believing there are prehistoric plesiosaurs still existing in our modern world. I think it still is possible for unknown creatures to be discovered. There is nothing within science to say it is impossible. OK, maybe plesiosaurs. :-)

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    5. I agree that the front portion of the body of a thick bodied Eel for example could look like a longish head and neck due to the thickening of the body in the middle. The same could go for a frilled shark and maybe some kind of relative to the species.

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    6. There are known fish with a strange forward neck-like structure...

      http://creepyanimals.com/2009/10/unapologetically-creepy-long-nosed-chimaera/

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    7. Yes Olrik, wasnt that one of the fish washed up in the tsunami ? In certain photo's it does in fact look like a lot of nessie descriptions.

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    8. Yes Olrik, wasnt that one of the fish washed up in the tsunami ? In certain photo's it does in fact look like a lot of nessie descriptions.

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    9. Yes, the Long-Nosed Chimaera has been found washed up on shore after storms but usually lives in the deep ocean. I'm not implying that this exact species is what Nessie is, but just that it is possible for a giant eel or another type of unknown fish or amphibian to have a shape like this...

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2510271/Extremely-rare-deep-sea-fish-venomous-spine-tail-like-whip-long-bizarre-snout-discovered-Canadian-arctic.html

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    10. Yes proof that there are fish out there that resemble what people say they see in loch ness. And i bet there are plenty more fish that are undiscovered.

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  8. The Weather Channel's "Natural Born Monsters" series recently had the episode "The Australian Sea Serpent" where their hypothesis is that local sea serpent sightings have been the result of a population of Tiger snakes breeding on a Chappell Island that have grown to a large size and learned how to swim in the ocean. They didn't find any real big ones (plenty of stories from locals) but they showed a smaller one swimming and it props its head up quite high out of the water like a stereotype sea serpent. Snakes that live in fresh water are found all over the world and perhaps unknown species and/or known species that have grown to unusual sizes are responsible for some cryptid sightings...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEKkf7-wdeQ

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