Professor Neil Gemmell from New Zealand’s University of Otago said that he found a surprisingly high amount of eel DNA in the water of Loch Ness.
The geneticist warned that it is not certain whether this indicates a gigantic eel or simply many little ones.
The DNA project led by Gemmell, which involved scientists from Britain, Denmark, the US, Australia and France, concluded that there was no evidence that the fabled creature was an ancient long-necked reptile.
However, Gemmell said that the existence of a giant eel could be very possible.
“We can’t exclude the possibility that there’s a giant eel in Loch Ness but we don’t know whether these samples we’ve collected are from a giant beast or just an ordinary one, so there’s still this element of ‘we just don’t know,'” the scientist said.
The study also ruled out the presence of large animals such as dinosaurs. Gemmell noted that despite the idea of a giant eel having existed for decades, nobody had ever caught one in the loch. Smaller eels are, however, “very plentiful” in the lake.
Gemmell said that as an “element of doubt” remains, “there’ll still be plenty of people who want to believe” in the Loch Ness monster.
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