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by Daniel Parkinson · Published June 10, 2010 · Last modified September 28, 2018
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Re: Creatures in scotland
I think there is very little evidence to support the existence of sea monsters (for want of a better description) in any Scottish loch, and what evidence there is seems to be annecdotal. There are many lochs with traditions of being the home of a monster, but these should probably be considered folklore. I personally believe a lot of sightings are probably down to mistaken identity or some other kind of misperception.
Until somebody actually comes up with a live or dead creature I will not be convinced I fear, however, that does not make any reported sighting useless and stories of loch monsters are part of Scottish culture, so it is very important that we record them to preserve these traditions.
Re: Creatures in scotland
ive got to say i am in love with the idea ofsea monsters. although what you say does make sense. however ther are a few things that still make this a mystery for meand not folklore. such as not so long ago they found underwater caves in loch ness that lead to the sea. and nearly every loch a monster has been spotted is connected to loch ness. a bit of fanasty maybe but we cant rule anything out as other countrys havea monster to. is something using underwater caves to travel.
Re: Creatures in scotland
I would love for sea monsters to be real, but the existence of underwater caves and passages does not really support their existence, it is just a possible excuse as to why we have not found them yet.
If these creatures are anything like the marine dinosaurs that roamed the oceans they would be top of the food chain and unless they are immortal, they must be breeding and there must be more than one of them. Given their numbers, the fact they would have nothing to fear in the natural world and the amount of food they must need, they will be active n a daily basis. I find it very hard to believe that if they exist, we have not got good evidence especially given satellite and sonar capabilities and the amount of ocean going traffic we have in this day and age.
Re: Creatures in scotland
The Loch Morar monster (or Morag, as it’s affectionately known) is often called "Scotland’s second best known water monster" immediately after the world-famous Nessie. According to Ronan Coghlan it has been sighted about fifty times since the first documented sighting in 1895 (actually a man named James Macdonald claimed to have seen a kelpie in the loch in 1887).
In 1969 Morag allegedly struck a boat piloted by Duncan McDonell and William Simpson and was driven off with an oar. Simpson shot at it with a hunting rifle, apparently missing but frightening it off. It was about 25 ft long, brown and with a snakelike head.
Of course such a description doesn’t match any known animal but recalls VERY closely a livid painting of Nessie I saw as child in which the creature was slipping back in the loch with a lamb in its jaws.
While Nessie supporters have underwater and sonar recordings as proof, Morag supporters have fared much worse since no serious effort has ever been done to gather evidence or attempt to catch the creature.
Re: Creatures in scotland
Hmmm…
It’s a tough one. I don’t know of any good solid evidence on Morag, however, I can think of some on her more famous counterpart. None of it is a slam dunk, as they say, though.
The problme is two fold: One, the ocean can harbor animals over a hundred feet long, easy, that we never see. (ex. Giant Squid) One of the current theories is that since there have been sightings on land, that they’re actually migrating to the Loch to breed, and then returning to the ocean. This would explain why there is a remarkable consistancy aroudn the world. And why there are so few sightings.
The second problem is photoshop. It’s getting to the point that even experts are being baffled by well exicuted hoaxes. Phtographic evidence isn’t what it used to be.
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Re: Creatures in scotland
Baronlveagh i think you have a really good point. Maybe thats why there are so few sightings. Maybe they use lochs to breed. They would feel protected there, because no real predator lives here. But where has the sightings on land took place?
With loch morar really interests me because there is no acess road round the loch, so why has it claim prize to be scotlands second known monster?
I still think there has to me a maze of network tunnels connecting different lochs. which would explain all the different sightings.
Re: Creatures in scotland
I don’t recall the details myself. I do remember reading some in Mackel’s book on Loch Ness, as well as some recounted in the late 1970’s National Geographic artical. There was one or two in the River Ness, as well.
IIRC one scared the crap out of a cottage dweller near the River Ness one night.
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Re: Creatures in scotland
After many years pondering the question I became convinced of the "multicausal" explanation for the Loch Ness monster.
Hoaxes (some crude, other well thought), motorboat wakes, mirages, waterbirds, floating logs and seals (both the Harbor and Gray seal have been documented in the Loch) have all contributed to the myth. Add on top a superb scenery, the thrill of monster hunting in a friendly place with any imaginable confort and an extremely well orchestrated media machine and you have it.
Unfortunately we haven’t got as many elements for Loch Morar but I strongly suspect we may look at Loch Ness for hints.
The thought of a viable population of large water creatures in a body of water like Loch Morar poses so many problems that I don’t even know where to start…
Re: Creatures in scotland
Hmm…
Except that if it’s something migratory, it might not eat there at all.
The thing I find strange is that the explainations of why it isn’t a large animal are occasionally more elaborate then the explainations of how a large animal might survive (a survey of fish populations in the Loch revealed a surpisingly high number of arctic char below a certain depth.). One of my favorites was an expert claiming that it was a line of 30 or more(!) otters, that happened to climb a log in such a way that one end rose out fo the water while they pushed it along.
Occam’s Razor suggests the simplest answer is most often the correct one. In this case, it seems more likely that there is simply a unknown animal (my pet theory is a species of eel) in the very deep lake that we have not catalogued yet. It is a great deal simpler then a large number of elaborate illusions that happen to all look lik some sort of animal. (I’ll leave deliberate hoaxes aside, as the sheer number of sightings, which stretches into the tens of thousands, are probably not hoaxes. It would have taken an army of practifcal jokers centuries to set up all of these, so at least some legitimate sightings of an unknown creature do exist)
Unfortunetly, Loch Ness’s high peat concentrations make the traditional scientific way to determine if there is something there, ie, send divers or mini subs, is largly precluded by the soup-like water conditions. Other means have produced mixed results, with plenty of accusations of fraud to go around.
Amusingly, to me, the same techniques used by Rhimes in 1972 to take the ‘fin’ images were used to capture some of the few images we have of living giant squid, which are considered to be unimpeachable fact.
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Re: Creatures in scotland
One of the issues with Loch Morar is that the salmon population was pretty much exterminated by overfishing by the ’70s. You would assume that one would be caught or at very least spotted so many times as to give a consistent identikit.
For example the aquatic variety of the Australian Bunyip has such a consistent identikit as to allow us to identify it as a stray sea lion/fur seal. The fact that a few were caught in the River Murray, hundreds of miles from the sea, simply confirmed this suspicion.(And when of them was shot at and examined it was found to have a freshly eaten platypus in its stomach!).
Sadly there isn’t a consistent description for Morag.
A very large fish could be an interesting candidate, though from here to saying that it’s a completely unknown species it’s a bit rash. Most European lakes have extremely large specimen of well known fish: pike, carp, lake trout, sturgeon etc which contributed to the freshwater monster tradition.
A recent "Internet fad" is trying to explain most freshwater monsters with "eunuch eels" (not joking, just ask the chaps at the CFZ, they coined the term). According to folklore these are sterile eels which become resident to a given body of water and grow to quite prodigious sizes.
However while sterile eels which do not migrate to the Sargasso Sea are well known to science (and can achieve quite incredible lifespans) they do not appear to grow any larger than "regular" eels. The largest European eel documented was 133cm long (a little over 4 ft) and weighed 6.6 kg (14.5 lb). Even assuming for witness exageration it’s a far cry from the monster 20 ft reports surfacing on the Internet.
Re: Creatures in scotland
[quote=Mauro]
A recent "Internet fad" is trying to explain most freshwater monsters with "eunuch eels" (not joking, just ask the chaps at the CFZ, they coined the term). According to folklore these are sterile eels which become resident to a given body of water and grow to quite prodigious sizes.
However while sterile eels which do not migrate to the Sargasso Sea are well known to science (and can achieve quite incredible lifespans) they do not appear to grow any larger than "regular" eels. The largest European eel documented was 133cm long (a little over 4 ft) and weighed 6.6 kg (14.5 lb). Even assuming for witness exageration it’s a far cry from the monster 20 ft reports surfacing on the Internet. [/quote]
How about a migratory species related to the conger? They can reach 10 feet, easily, so one twice that might not be out of the question.
Can’t say I’ve heard of the internet fad, I’ll have to look into it.
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Re: Creatures in scotland
There are a few problems with Congridae eels.
First is that they are an exclusively saltwater family, spending their entire life cycle at sea.
Second is the fact that dimensions are often exagerated: 10ft is a record length, ordinary specimen are much smaller than that.
Third is their behavior: their swimming pattern doesn’t remember in the least the one attributed to freshwater monsters.
Mind that even Bernard Heuvelmans fell for a giant eel as a good candidate for some types of water monster: back in the ’50s a Danish research vessel captured an enormous leptocephalus (technical term for a larval eel) at abyssal depth. This fish was 6 ft long and by applying growth models of known eels it was inferred it could have reached 100 ft easily. As always our knowledge of abyssal creatures is sketchy to say the least but after four decades it was finally declared to be a Notcanthus eel which completes its growth while still in the larval stage.
Re: Creatures in scotland
I recall one guy on another CZ forum proposing that it could be some sort of giant gastropod, feeding off the detritus on the bottom, only sometimes surfacing for some reason or another. Hmm… Giant loch slugs. Certainly more plausible than plesiosaurs.
I just tend to attribute it to memories of tales of kelpies and each uisges. I’d so love for them to exist, as with sea monsters (mind you they sort of do… just not in the paranormal sense that we know of). It can’t just be us Urisks that still cling on!
There is another critter I wish there was more on, and they are thankfully on this site: the Yird Pig from Banffshire. They sound suitably Lovecraftian!
Re: Creatures in scotland
Eh… giant grastropods have an entire difffernent set of problems. Most of them survive by eating tremendous amounts, and I really don’t see the Loch having THAT much detrius unless there are some sort of freshwater whales in the loch that the scots have been keeping under thier hats for all this time…
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Re: Creatures in scotland
Well…. funny you should mention that 😉
Re: Creatures in scotland
I read one time about some scientists in the Sargasso Sea…where eels go to breed…finding a immature eel that was six feet long. This has made me wonder if the lake monsters are freak of nature eels..they grow big than die.
I know in America there are male salmon that stay tiny all their lives and never leave fresh water. Maybe there is a reverse situation here. These freaks of nature follow their breathern home…can travel through shallow water and then grow to big to escape.
This is just a thought and nothing I’m willing to fight over 😉 Of course I would love to find a live pleisiosaur…..
Re: Creatures in scotland
I still think folklore is the most likely source for the Scottish lake monsters rather than a living, breathing eel or dinosaur.
Re: Creatures in scotland
you are probably correct…but I’m one of those people that’s willing to ponder just about anything…except UFOs and ancient astronauts. Can’t stand that crowd.
Re: Creatures in scotland
[quote=Ian Topham] I still think folklore is the most likely source for the Scottish lake monsters rather than a living, breathing eel or dinosaur.[/quote] Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima
Possibly, but then, we also find that some legends and folklore are based on fact. You never know which is which.
Re: Creatures in scotland
[quote=BaronIveaghPossibly, but then, we also find that some legends and folklore are based on fact. You never know which is which.
[/quote]
I have a friend who says "Take legends seriously, just not literally". Always sounded like good advice.
Re: Creatures in scotland
Agreed. After all, Troy was a myth, until it was a dig site.
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