"There is still a lot of uncertainty in our work..."

Scientists think they might have figured out what the Loch Ness Monster is - a giant eel. Or rather, several giant eels that may have been living in the lake and simply grown to extreme sizes over time. Delightful. Sky News reports that researchers took 250 water samples from the Scottish Highlands lake and analysed over 500 million DNA sequences. They discovered that whatever was living in the lake wasn't a Jurassic-age reptile, or a catfish or shark, as had been previously suggested by scientists. Rather, it appears as though Nessie could actually be a selection of giant eels that people have been spotting in the lake. Professor Neil Gemmell, of the University of Otago in New Zealand, said that the eel theory is a "plausible" one, due to the amount of related DNA they found in the lake. "There is a very significant amount of eel DNA," he said. "Eels are very plentiful in Loch Ness." "Our data doesn't reveal their size, but the sheer quantity of the material says that we can't discount the possibility that there may be giant eels in Loch Ness." Gemmell added that some of the eels may have grown to an "extreme size" over the years, making it possible for people to misidentify them as an unknown, sometimes mythical, creature. However, the professor added that the team's research was not conclusive and that there are still a lot of question marks around the creatures that live in the lake. "For the people who still want to believe in monsters, there is still a lot of uncertainty in our work," he said. "The absence of evidence isn't necessarily evidence of absence." The myth of the Loch Ness Monster has thrilled cryptid fanatics since the early 1900s, although some sightings are said to go back as far as the sixth century. The most famous photo of the alleged monster was taken by Colonel Robert Kenneth Wilson in the 1930s. It was later revealed to be a hoax.