Scientists Find Fossils, Now Believe Loch Ness Monster 'May Exist'

Adherents of the Loch Ness monster have long believed that the hero of Scottish folklore could be a prehistoric reptile with a small head and long neck, similar to a plesiosaur. However, cynics argued that plesiosaurs could not live in Loch Ness because they needed salt water. Now scientists have come to the conclusion that the monster may well exist. Writes about it Independent.

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The speculation came after researchers discovered fossils of small plesiosaurs — the long-necked marine reptiles of the dinosaur era — in a 100-million-year-old river system that is now the Sahara desert in Morocco. This suggests that they could live in fresh water.

The findings of University of Bath scientists, published in the journal Cretaceous Research, suggest that plesiosaurs were adapted to fresh water and may even have lived their lives like today's river dolphins.

Among the fossils are bones and teeth of three-meter adults and a paw bone of a one-and-a-half-meter cub.

They hint that these creatures commonly lived and ate in fresh water, along with frogs, crocodiles, turtles, fish, and the huge aquatic dinosaur Spinosaurus.

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David Martill, co-author of the article, said: “It strikes me that in an ancient Moroccan river there were so many predators living next to each other. It wasn't a place to swim."

Plesiosaurus teeth appear to be heavily worn, similar to Spinosaurus, suggesting that they ate the same armored fish that lived in the river rather than being casual visitors.

Dr. Longrich, author of the paper, acknowledged: “We don't really know why plesiosaurs live in fresh water. It's a little debatable, but who said that since we paleontologists always called them "marine reptiles", they had to live in the sea? Many sea creatures lived in fresh water."

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The first complete plesiosaur skeleton was first found in Lyme Regis, Dorset, in 1823 by Mary Anning, a fossil hunter. The creature had a small head, a long neck, and four long fins.

According to a press release from the University of Bath, the new discovery showed that the Loch Ness Monster "may very likely exist."

The informational message said: “Plesiosaurs lived not only in the seas, but also in fresh water. The fossil record also shows that the last plesiosaurs finally died out at the same time as the dinosaurs, 66 million years ago.”

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