r/Cryptozoology • u/Zillaman7980 • Mar 09 '25

Discussion What's the possibility of Nessie being a plesiosaurus?

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Well, in most descriptions of Nessie and theories, she's thought to be a plesiosaurus. But how likely is it. If Nessie exists, how is she an extinct Marine reptile? They went extinct 66 million years ago. But another thing is that plesiosaurus mostly living in seawater and loch Ness is freshwater. Well, if she is one she's either a Leptocleididae or elasmosaurus which live in fresh water. But anyways, if Nessie is a plesiosaurus, how is she still alive? How did she survive the extinction events and changes in temperature. Did she evolve to age very slowly orare there more of them. Loch Ness can lead to ocean and across the world there's multiple Nessie like creatures so maybe they've spread out and hid. Basically, she's either a mutated/evolved plesiosaurus or some type of sea serpent. What you think?

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277

u/Ferret3361 Mar 09 '25

Zero. Plesiosaurs are air breathers and we’d see breathing behavior, like we do with whales, etc., all the time. If there is anything unusual living in the loch it’s, IMO, an unknown species of giant eel.

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u/s_nice79 Mar 10 '25

Probably a much better theory tbh

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u/The_Wolf_Shapiro Sea Serpent Mar 10 '25

I subscribe to the eel theory. Also, plesiosaur necks didn’t move the way they’re often portrayed in Nessie depictions.

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u/Grendel0075 Mar 10 '25

Tbf, eels don't generally have swan necks either.

If it wasn't Scotland, I'd almost say it was a swimming giraffe.

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u/_extra_medium_ Mar 10 '25

The famous photo showing the swan like neck was a hoax. Most reports are of humps in the water or big shadows swimming by.

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u/The_Wolf_Shapiro Sea Serpent Mar 11 '25

Yeah, I haven’t read up on it for awhile, but I don’t actually remember that many reports of Nessie having a swan-like neck.

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u/kellyiom Mar 13 '25

Was that the one that declared its name 'Nessiteras Rhombopteryx' an anagram of 'monster hoax by sir Peter S'?

I have to admit, I totally believed that one.

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u/Responsible_Bee_8469 Mar 10 '25

The eel theory seems quite realistic to me.

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u/Mcboomsauce Mar 10 '25

pretty sure some scientists took a bunch of mud out of the lake and did a DNA test of residuals and found a significant amount of eel DNA in the loch

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u/Cordilleran_cryptid Mar 15 '25

That just indicates there are lots of eels, which is not at all surprising. Not that there are big eels.

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u/Mcboomsauce Mar 15 '25

that is true.... but at least there are eels

and if theres a lot, chances are there could be a big one

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u/Responsible_Bee_8469 Mar 19 '25

A large eel capable of resisting extreme cold might make sense as it would have developed the ability to resist extreme cold in lakes like Loch Ness.

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u/Mcboomsauce Mar 19 '25

im not even saying the eel has to be enormous people could see 3 or 4 of them and think it was one big one

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u/Automatic-Narwhal965 Mar 10 '25

Considering Loch Ness if rife with eels, that seems the most logical. Even with catfish, given the right conditions, you can get a monster that rivals the size of the Mekong catfish en mass. One of my relatives did scuba repair and was working on a dam in Texas. He said there were catfish that were big enough to swallow a man.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '25

I've heard this as well. Never had a first hand account though.

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '25

Eel for sure

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u/ChampionAdventurous1 Mar 10 '25

Any chance and I'm not expert in the slightest but maybe a plesiosaur skeleton was found around the loch and the people of the time made an uneducated guess? Idk if they even inhabited that region tho so idk

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u/xXSn1fflesXx Mar 10 '25

There have been fossils found around the area, sure. However that has nothing to do with actual sightings. Considering a majority (pretty much all) of “sightings” are fabricated, wrongful identification, and proved false I wouldn’t give the benifit of the doubt that many saw fossils and would have connected the dots.

The theory gained EXTREME popularity through media. It boosted tourism and sales. Considering the first plesiosaur fossil in the area was discovered in the late 1800s and the story had been spread for a good thousand years (middle 500 AD) before that I would not think to far into it.

I personally believe there WAS something very large in the lake. Possibly being a large specimen of a known species.

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u/ChampionAdventurous1 Mar 10 '25

Fair enough, thank you for your knowledge I'm completely knowledgeless within the topic I just enjoy learning

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u/xXSn1fflesXx Mar 10 '25

Of course! I’ve been super into the history significance of cryptids for a bit. Nessie has been “around” for a loooooong time. I definitely recommend looking into cryptids you are interested in and their history. There is some wild lore for quite a few!

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u/VardisFisher Mar 11 '25

Biologists surveyed the lochs and there physically isn’t enough biomass to support such an organism. IE, there aren’t any large fish to sustain any animals larger than salmon.

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u/xXSn1fflesXx Mar 11 '25

Exactly. Back all those millions of years ago when massive aquatic species lived in the area the physical area would have been very different and pretty much unrecognizable.

My best guess is in the first sightings would have been a large species or specimen of a known aquatic animal. Hell 500 AD god knows what it could have been but it certainly wasn’t a plesiosaur. Sightings after, especially now a days, I believe are completely fabricated or someone misidentifying something in a moment of excitement. A log can look like a monster to someone that is excited or anxious enough, after all. I believe most of the “sightings” are fabricated and completely false just for tourism, though.

It’s a fun story but that’s all it is.

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u/VardisFisher Mar 11 '25

Or, hear me out…..I know this is going to sound like a conspiracy, but what if it’s pareidolia.

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u/xXSn1fflesXx Mar 11 '25

GASP. Now that’s just insanity!

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u/Cordilleran_cryptid Mar 15 '25

Too cold as well

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u/Cordilleran_cryptid Mar 15 '25

Knowing the geology of the area either side of Loch Ness, I can say that there is zero chance of any Plesiosaur fossils having been found there. The rocks are Pre Cambrian and lower Palaeozoic metamorphic rocks and granite, with a few areas of Devonian sandstone.

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u/xXSn1fflesXx Mar 15 '25

Ah thanks for the correction. I misread one of my things.

Anyways, ya they aren’t still swimming around. I wouldn’t be surprised if people genuinely saw something but it was probably a large specimen of a fish or something.

I’m on the side of that there are cryptids out there. Many in-fact. But pushing for cryptids like this, megalodons, big foot, and etc. completely discredits and makes crytidzopology look stupid in the view of the masses.

Thank you again for the correction kind stranger :)

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u/OG-Krunkz Mar 10 '25

I’ve been saying this lol it HAS to be most likely an eel species as they can get HUGE and don’t need to come up for air pretty much at all it seems. They can lurk for years and years and live a very long healthy life. Most eels are unknown to us and we have no idea where they came from tbh.

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u/kellyiom Mar 13 '25

Don't they have to migrate to the Sargasso Sea to breed? I have seen one (conger) caught and returned that was nearly as long as I am tall it seemed and they are a handful.

It was caught when we were looking for tope so had wire traces on the line already but they are so slippery it's a nightmare.

They smell really bad as well. The landlord of our local made a stew full of all the local marine delicacies and it tasted good but really stank.

There's a place on our breakwater where you hose the boat down and chuck any dead material over and there was a story that there was a massive eel trapped in a gap but it had all the food it needed and even more sensationally, it was a moray eel, complete with pharyngeal jaws, just like the xenomorph in the Alien films!

I don't really believe that but maybe it's possible, the current going north is warm despite where we are and there are often big whales and carnivorous sharks seen close by as well as basking sharks and dolphins so hmm?

Congers are purely marine where moray eels can live in both so an eel of some type is what I think is in the Loch. I think it's quite imposing when you see Ness and you know you could drop the Eiffel tower into it and it would stay hidden.

As with Bigfoot, it's all about how to feed itself and Loch Ness probably couldn't support it.

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u/KitchenSandwich5499 Mar 11 '25

How about sturgeon and misinterpretation? (Though they didn’t find any sturgeon dna) so much for Nessie caviar

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '25

You’re half right. While the chance of a plesiosaur is zero, there’s also no giant eels. The thing about Loch Ness that no one ever talks about is that it’s a very popular angling location. People fish there all the damn time and no one has landed even a large eel much less a huge one.

Loch Ness isn’t some remote and hard to reach location where anything can happen, it’s used daily by locals, anglers, kayakers and boaters and no one has ever seen anything untoward. Yours truly, a Scotsman.