tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37164772153810669922024-03-16T03:39:25.796-05:00The Loch Ness Giant SalamanderLoch Ness is credited by many to be the home of an unidentified species of large, yet highly elusive and rarely seen aquatic animals. Every creature on Earth is connected through evolution to every other. There is, in the end, only a limited number of possibilities as to Nessie's place on the family tree. Herein we take one view, proposing that the most parsimonious explanation for the mystery in Loch Ness is that it is home to a rare and as yet unnamed species of Giant Salamander.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3716477215381066992.post-9051269293541020492017-10-06T05:32:00.000-05:002019-02-07T03:23:11.017-06:00New Evidence for Giant Salamanders in Post-Glacial Europe<span style="font-size: small;">Europe during the Miocene and subsequent Pliocene Epochs was replete with more salamanders than the continent has seen before or since -- five families <i>including</i> at least two species of giant aquatic salamanders (<i>Andrias scheuchzeri</i> and <i>Ukrainurus hyposognathus</i>) from the family <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_salamander" target="_blank">Cryptobranchidae</a>. The fossil record also shows multiple, related giant species were also thriving in eastern North America at the same time, having arrived from Europe before the North Atlantic split that followed the Cretaceous, when Scotland was still conjoined to Canada via what later became Iceland and Greenland. (One such American species, <i>Andrias matthewi</i>, grew as large or larger than 7.5 feet -- Naylor 1981).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The Cryptobranchidae family (more pronounceably called the <i>Giant Salamander</i> family) is not only significant for containing the largest amphibians then and now, but also for having a lineage that extends back through the fossil record to an origin in Mongolia during the Jurassic Period. Significantly, this is a family that rode out the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event" target="_blank">K-Pg mass extinction event</a> that infamously eliminated 75% of all species on Earth, including the non-avian dinosaurs.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">But for the Giant Salamanders of both Europe and North America, the party came to an end 2.58 million years ago with the beginning of the ice age and the subsequent glacial periods. The ice sheets drove the </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cryptobranchidae out of Europe. Of course the same was true for most of the fauna, including <i>Homo sapiens</i>. All the animals including ourselves retreated southwards. Britain was abandoned entirely. The <i>last</i> glacial period lasted from 110,000 years ago until just 12,000 years ago, at which point the glaciers retreated, the air warmed, the continents sprung upwards, and the oceans began a steady rise to their current levels. Also at this time, the newly-created Loch Ness appeared for the first time, having been gauged out by the glaciers that were now melting away.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">And species that had sought refuge in warmer climes returned to northern Europe and, following the game, the people returned to places like Britain as well, no doubt aided by the fact the British isles were one big peninsula at the time, connected to mainland Europe by the great land bridge of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland" target="_blank">Doggerland</a>.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sadly though the European </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cryptobranchidae appeared to have been lost. Their fossil record ends where the ice age begins, and no fossils dating within the last 12,000 years have been found to indicate they survived and returned to Europe after the last glaciation. Then again, 12,000 years is an infinitesimal piece of the geological record, and aquatic salamanders do not fossilize easily. The absence of </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cryptobranchidae from this tiny slice of the record cannot alone be taken as proof that European Giant Salamanders became extinct. </span></span>What we do know is that today, the only recognized species of living </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cryptobranchidae are the Chinese Giant Salamander (<i>Andrias davidianus</i>), the Japanese Giant Salamander (<i>Andrias japonicus</i>), and the diminutive 2-foot Hellbender (<i>Crytptobranchus alleganiensis</i>) from the southeastern United States.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">So now to the question: How could a theoretical Loch Ness Giant Salamander, that being the thesis of this blog, even stand a chance unless there was a surviving European Giant Salamander first? Pre-ice age salamanders don't count, because Loch Ness didn't exist until after the last glaciation. Europe today is replete with small newts and salamanders of the modern suborder <i>Salamandroidea</i>, and then there's the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olm" target="_blank">olms</a>, the ancestors of which came racing into Europe before the last glaciation had even finished melting. All of these prove post-glacial Europe is an amenable ecosystem for small, modern salamanders and all manner of other amphibians, but what about those primitive Giant Salamanders that had thrived in Europe before the ice came? I find it a bit surprising that a family that endured the K-Pg mass extinction and flourished another 65 million years couldn't survive a 98,000 year vacation to the nearby Mediterranean, like the rest of the fauna. There could be reasons of course, but Occam's razor leads us to consider a different possibility.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">What if one or more of the European Giant Salamander species <i>did</i> return to their original habitats after the ice age ended, and it's been overlooked?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Surprisingly, I have had the greatest blind luck to stumble onto an answer to this question. Perhaps more surprisingly, the answer lays in an archaeological dig in southeastern Turkey.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe" target="_blank"><b>Göbekli Tepe</b></a> is the most amazing archaeological site you've probably never heard of. </span>Now being excavated from beneath the hill of the same name, it has unexpectedly proven to be the world's oldest megalithic site, as well as the oldest religious site discovered anywhere so far. This immense Stone-Age "cathedral" was constructed by Neolithic hunter-gatherers beginning 10,000 years ago, and added to and used up until 8,000 years ago. These early dates are staggering. No one would have expected a pre-agricultural society to have undertaken such a monumental building project, The excavations and analysis of this site became the life's work of German archaeologist </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Schmidt_%28archaeologist%29" target="_blank">Klaus Schmidt</a>, who unfortunately passed away in 2014.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The site consists of </span><span style="font-size: small;">between 170 and 200 T-shaped monoliths found so far, up to 20' tall and 10-20 tons in weight. In the earliest layer these are arranged in multiple stone circles, but beginning 8800 years ago construction shifted to putting the pillars inside a series of smaller, rectangular rooms. Schmidt interpreted the circles and later rooms to represent separate but adjacent shrines.</span><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Many of the megaliths at </span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Göbekli Tepe</b> are intricately adorned with carved reliefs of animals: lions, foxes, leopards, eagles, vultures, scorpions, spiders and snakes. This is in stark contrast to other examples of late Pleistocene art, which normally depict only the game animals (wild horse, deer, bison) on which the society depended for food. But here for the first time we have depictions of predators, presumably intended as totems to ward off evil.<i><b> </b></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>Of note is that every animal depicted is a real member of the local fauna at the time, not mythological creatures or flights of fancy</b></i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Klaus Schmidt called it all a "Stone-age zoo".</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Now I have to confess I was ignorant of</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b> Göbekli Tepe </b></span>until recently. But archaeology being another of my interests I eventually ran across mention of it, so off I went to Wikipedia <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe" target="_blank">to read all about it</a>, which I did with utter fascination. Then I picked an excavation picture at random, the one you see below:</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY4Jbgctr61BGhbxxXVElv628fCvOI4iXWiHBlhYrgChfgnEAGMnn1FUQIXTljEi9rCqPlxJwxBDSz3dfhdeWirhpojwzN7nMQLhtK59tw0kEt23uSY_FqbcR-RtZB5Q-urvVwTY2XdV1O/s1600/G%25C3%25B6bekli_Tepe_site_%25282%2529_circled.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY4Jbgctr61BGhbxxXVElv628fCvOI4iXWiHBlhYrgChfgnEAGMnn1FUQIXTljEi9rCqPlxJwxBDSz3dfhdeWirhpojwzN7nMQLhtK59tw0kEt23uSY_FqbcR-RtZB5Q-urvVwTY2XdV1O/s640/G%25C3%25B6bekli_Tepe_site_%25282%2529_circled.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Then I picked one of the megaliths <i>at random</i>, the one inside the red circle I've added, to zoom in for a closer look....</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">And this is the remarkable thing I found. I must have stared with my mouth open for 30 seconds while my brain rebooted itself.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggcSR9cylJlnHKOSjs-QKDpcPR9l-5V6xmPlv0ykdFA2ng2wzutRi4O-UiVwotllYSCMGdgx15zNwrBjclYQjMCbHSamRJWleKS3z4esrjjuudwoY8kgbXITy1jRQb3F4n2Lpph2vS31OP/s1600/G%25C3%25B6bekli_Tepe_site_%25282%2529_detail_circled.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="1000" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggcSR9cylJlnHKOSjs-QKDpcPR9l-5V6xmPlv0ykdFA2ng2wzutRi4O-UiVwotllYSCMGdgx15zNwrBjclYQjMCbHSamRJWleKS3z4esrjjuudwoY8kgbXITy1jRQb3F4n2Lpph2vS31OP/s640/G%25C3%25B6bekli_Tepe_site_%25282%2529_detail_circled.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This carving is, with little room for doubt, a very accurate depiction of a Cryptobranchidae salamander. The body proportions of Giant Salamanders are distinct, and all represented here: the extra thick tail (appearing so due to the caudal fin), the rather stubby limbs, and especially the round, near-circular head that, when viewed dorsally, appears larger in diameter than the body is wide. It's an unmistakably unique appearance.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTBwJQ1JRHqyYBW2cNzTIYLHGM4BmSrlFyPMMOgeenOqscFFyEkUYJAvbsivbrYjBDr1RzvtLhOAMrXxwKlqRwrgGg6_fepP7z2VwvstAXcCb8N5ZHUrfBir0D4hWjpJXQ0AGFy-W_7jiI/s1600/G%25C3%25B6bekli_Tepe_site_%25282%2529_detail_circled_zoom.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="424" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTBwJQ1JRHqyYBW2cNzTIYLHGM4BmSrlFyPMMOgeenOqscFFyEkUYJAvbsivbrYjBDr1RzvtLhOAMrXxwKlqRwrgGg6_fepP7z2VwvstAXcCb8N5ZHUrfBir0D4hWjpJXQ0AGFy-W_7jiI/s640/G%25C3%25B6bekli_Tepe_site_%25282%2529_detail_circled_zoom.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">But only real, local fauna are carved in the stones at </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Göbekli Tepe</b>, and these carvings all date between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Which is after the ice age, two to four thousand years after the glaciers had withdrawn.</b></span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">This is the first evidence I am aware of that living Giant Salamanders were spotted in Europe after the last glaciation. It is circumstantial evidence, but very strong circumstantial evidence. The people of </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Göbekli Tepe</b></span></span> had to be seeing living </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cryptobranchidae in their landscape to have carved one, along with all the rest of the respected predators </span>in their environment, and to have done so with such accuracy. Neolithic hunter-gatherers from Turkey could not have visited China or Japan. Nor could they have visited the southeastern United States, where <i>C. </i></span></span><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">alleganiensis</span></span></i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> had survived the ice age in America. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The only explanation can be that at least one species of European Giant Salamander survived the glacial period and returned to Europe afterwards.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Which species was it? </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Andrias scheuchzeri</i>, or <i>Ukrainurus hyposognathus</i>? Or another species we have yet to identify in the European fossil record? Or a combination of all three?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Importantly, there is also no reason to assume the surviving species was limited in range to Turkey -- that's unlikely. A vast network of freshwater rivers and lakes interconnected all of Europe after the ice had melted. In fact, it would have been possible to get from Turkey all the way to Scotland and Ireland at this time, because Doggerland connected Britain to the mainland, and no English Channel existed yet. Loch Ness was becoming stocked with freshwater fish that followed this very path during this period. All of Europe was once again a hospitable environment for amphibians of all sizes.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">There were indeed Giant Salamanders in Europe <i>after</i> Loch Ness had formed. And nothing to keep them out.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGZ0NI1D9SZhka0ja4cP9wXDde8bRpqguV7yM212IdyZG1JM7UkHwgYVm3MCDFwgzcfcxj8K7a47UIxU4aYe7kSctSBMdMtCzdEw79qubszmRh7qBdHH0KuuPaagc9fjacaLyZAe6itHBb/s1600/Crytptobranchus+alleganiensis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="979" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGZ0NI1D9SZhka0ja4cP9wXDde8bRpqguV7yM212IdyZG1JM7UkHwgYVm3MCDFwgzcfcxj8K7a47UIxU4aYe7kSctSBMdMtCzdEw79qubszmRh7qBdHH0KuuPaagc9fjacaLyZAe6itHBb/s640/Crytptobranchus+alleganiensis.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>C. alleganiensis</i> smiling at you<i> </i></span></span></b><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Addendum, February 2019</b></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">In an article located at <a href="http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/10962/">http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/10962/</a> on Chris Woodyard’s Haunted Ohio blog, recently brought to my attention by Steve Patrick Carrington on the Zombie Plesiosaur Society page, you may find the last of the three accounts reported in this article to be rather relevant to all of the above.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">In this <span class=" UFICommentActorAndBody"><span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span>1902 report from Ohio we have what is almost undoubtedly a description of a living 9 or 10
foot member of the Cryptobranchidae family. About the only possible
candidate being the species <i>Andrias matthewi</i>, which was indeed native to
this region of the United States prior to the last glaciations, but presumed extinct
afterwards. Understand that very, very few Westerners were even remotely
aware that the Chinese and Japanese species of Giant Salamanders existed in 1902, but in this region of the US we are quite familiar with the Hellbender </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span class=" UFICommentActorAndBody"><span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">(<i>Crytptobranchus alleganiensis</i>), that being </span></span>the miniature member of the family locally thought of as "river lizards", a comparison made in the 1902 report.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class=" UFICommentActorAndBody"><span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span>The river animal in this Ohio sighting has the small legs, large tail, tiny wide-set eyes, coloration and squatty body proportions that are all highly descriptive
of the Cryptobranchids. Yet the Hellbender only grows to 2 feet, and even the Chinese Giant Salamander tops out officially at 6 feet. But this animal was reported as at least 50% bigger than even that, implying a relict population of </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span class=" UFICommentActorAndBody"><span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span><span style="font-size: small;"><span class=" UFICommentActorAndBody"><span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span><i>Andrias matthewi</i> may have survived the last glaciation in North America.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class=" UFICommentActorAndBody"><span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span><span style="font-size: small;"><span class=" UFICommentActorAndBody"><span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span>If that were so, it certainly lends support to the theory that one or more of the giant European species <i>also</i> survived the last glacial period to repopulate the European waterways, as evidenced by megalithic depiction at </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Göbekli Tepe.</b></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3716477215381066992.post-15278022408236288902014-03-10T04:15:00.000-05:002015-09-08T19:35:11.188-05:00An Niseag vs. Nessie - Folklore vs. ScienceSome time back I had the pleasure of reading Roland Watson's blog article, <a href="http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-folklore-of-niseag.html">The Folklore of An Niseag</a>, which proved to be a highly refreshing read. Of course if you're here reading this, you've probably seen it already! But if not, I highly recommend it. This is like getting a bonus chapter to his excellent book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Water-Horses-Loch-Ness-supernatural/dp/1461178193/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394437644&sr=1-1&keywords=the+water+horses+of+loch+ness">The Water Horses Of Loch Ness</a></i>.<br />
<br />
More importantly for me, it replenishes my ammunition. When I run across fluff news pieces related to Nessie online, I cannot seem to ignore blanket statements such as:<br />
<br />
"In fact, there are no reports of the beast until less than a century ago."<br />
<br />
That's a direct quote from a piece by author Benjamin Radford, ironically entitled "Facts About Nessie", written for livescience.com & located <a href="http://www.livescience.com/26341-loch-ness-monster.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_507200249324435_7780313_705975686113556#fcf8d9549dff84">here (click for article)</a>. It's also dead wrong, and I would cite Watson's book and his aforementioned blog article as the best places to go for proof of that.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately the debate I had with Radford back then (posted in the comments following his article) went nowhere, as he refused to step outside his circular logic: sighting reports cannot exist before 1933 because "Nessie" hadn't been reported by the press yet; therefore alleged sightings prior to 1933 can't be called "Nessie sightings". They must be called <i>kelpie</i> or water horse legends, and as generalized legends they cannot be counted as "reported sightings". And why again? Well, <i>because</i> they are pre-1933 of course! <br />
<br />
Now, I agree legends don't count as eyewitness reports. We mean something quite specific by the word "report". There are, as Watson's new article describes much better than I ever could, traditional and modern branches to what's perceived to be part of the Loch Ness Monster story. Whether a particular <i>account</i> belongs to traditional folklore, or belongs in the record of reported sightings, that's something that <i>must</i> be evaluated on an individual basis. Some accounts will always fall in the grey area, and we'll never have enough data to safely class them one way or another. Those cannot be considered as witness testimony <i>per se</i>. Others will be no brainers: I think we can all agree on which branch to place talking mermaids (legend), as opposed to where we'd put a Greta Finlay account (sighting report). But one thing we can <i>not</i> do is classify our data on a randomly chosen line in the sand, such as the year 1933, because the press says so, and pretend that's scientifically objective.<br />
<br />
Now the funny thing is I gave Benjamin Radford concrete examples of 19th century sightings with names, dates, publications and the emphasis on these being described as <i>animals</i>. Who would call the Alexander MacDonald or Duncan MacDonald sightings too folkloric? (Alexander called what he saw a "great salamander" paddling towards him
with definite front limbs. Duncan was the diver to have the first
underwater encounter, and described a huge animal with a frog-like
head.) They described the animals they encountered as <i>animals</i>, with some specific morphological traits, and <i>long</i> before 1933. And those aren't the only examples. Alas, Radford deemed these generalized Water Horse legends, and therefore inadmissible, because the animals described didn't sound "Nessie" enough!!! Somewhere I must have missed the chapter on traditional Water Horses being described anything like big but recognizable amphibians.<br />
<br />
Gosh darn it. You just can't beat circular logic.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3716477215381066992.post-86847728889668167952013-10-11T06:24:00.001-05:002013-10-11T18:32:57.489-05:00Salamanders, Buoyancy, and Loch NessMy thanks to Christopher Hjelte, a reader of this blog who recently sent me a link to an interesting video about research into <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl">axolotls</a> at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois. Midway though this 2 minute piece, we learn of a very odd and previously undocumented behavior first observed and later filmed by Blackburn students studying these aquatic salamanders. A behavior that might possibly bear some implications for surface sightings of much larger cousins elsewhere!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLwQpU0Ga80&feature=youtube_gdata_player" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRqadTzW2IpUaNOxdVQQhEDlvx0vNg0N5Dla5mRBORY5sS65RjALo3r-0MQV2lTx0Gc11_asWpXMegk7Thlkpx4aSBQPQ-FrfU2Rfxdy306g1CeXo37LBK-mhsQv_5jsRbmRsrlqZUxH8/s640/axolotl_upside_down_floating.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLwQpU0Ga80&feature=youtube_gdata_player">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLwQpU0Ga80&feature=youtube_gdata_player</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Like most obligate-aquatic salamanders (that is, those salamanders with no terrestrial phase to their life cycles) axolotls (<i>Ambystoma mexicanum</i>) have retained their lungs, although as the video points out the utilization of these lungs hasn't seen much prior study. While it's true lungs are the norm for aquatic salamanders, including the giant <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptobranchidae">Cryptobranchidae</a>,<b> </b>all these species primarily breathe through cutaneous respiration, absorbing oxygen from the water through their skins. Furthermore, the really <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny">neotenic</a> forms such as axolotls normally retain their larval gills for life, thus giving them not one, not two, but <i>three</i> methods of respiration. At first that seems like a bit of evolutionary over-kill, so I've trundled a bit down a line of research I'd been away from for awhile.<br />
<br />
While they may never <i>need</i> their lungs for respiration while in water, the Blackburn research shows that axolotls sometimes inhale <i>one</i> gulp of air and hold onto it, apparently for the sole purpose of floating on the surface -- albeit they float upside down! This orientation doesn't seem to bother them (perhaps no one has embarrassed them yet by telling them just how adorable it looks). Their lungs must be located below their center of mass, not that this would matter under other circumstances. But given that they have this ability to float, we can wonder why they choose to do so in the first place.<br />
<br />
And to quote Mr. Hjelte, "Up turned boat, anyone?"<br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #38761d;">"FLOATERS" IN THE LOCH?</b><br />
<br />
This leads back to one of the most important points I made in my previous <a href="http://thelochnessgiantsalamander.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-new-morphology-vs-classic-sightings.html">article</a> on surface sightings, and what they can tell us about the morphology of the Loch Ness Giant Salamander. And this is equally applicable when observing <i>any</i> aquatic animal partially extruded on the water's surface: animals that live in a three-dimensional, "weightless" environment, can and will float and swim in positions that are independent of our terrestrially biased, two-dimensional thinking. Any aquatic animal can float head down and tail up, or at any angle, or list to either side, for any reason that suits it. And in the case of at least one species of small, aquatic Mexican salamander, we now see that even upside-down surface floating is normal!<br />
<br />
So it's behavior as well as morphology that determines what an eyewitness would <i>see</i> at Loch Ness, if any deep-living animal pays a rare visit to the surface. Roy Mackal grappled with the problem of the Nessie's back contour, and the issue of multi-hump and variable hump sightings. Eels at first seemed to be a problem candidate, as they have laterally flattened bodies and swim by sinusoidal flexure (side to side, not up and down). Then he tells the story (in <i>The Monsters Of Loch Ness</i>, 1976, page 150) of having a revelation on this point while observing eels at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium:<br />
<br />
<i>"Eels occasionally swim on their sides, and when doing so at the surface, the series of undulations appear to the observer as vertical by virtue of the fact the animal is on its side. This motion can easily produce a violent splashing of water at the surface and a series of humps above the waterline."</i><br />
<br />
He received corroboration from Maurice Burton, who observed the same side-swimmng eel behavior at the London Zoo. Alas, on my own visits to the Shedd, I've never stayed with the eels long enough to observe such delightful behavior, but then there's just so much to see there.<br />
<br />
This is one example of how a seemingly incompatible morphology, in this case that of eels, can account for an observation, in this case vertical humps, once three-dimensional behavior is taken into account. Or as I stressed in my previous article, the appearance of a long neck on a short-necked animal if it's floating with it's tail elevated above water. Incidentally, on that trip to the Shedd, Mackal observed an eel floating vertically, head down, with it's tail sticking up straight out of the water as well! (For the record, at that time Mackal still favored the variable dorsal contours of a giant amphibian as better accounting for the observational data from Loch Ness, even as he made these points about eels. Salamanders will often float with their backs arched at a fairly acute angle, the degree of which would most readily account for both triangular humps on one hand, and the frequently observed upturned-boat effect on the other.)<br />
<br />
So now, what can we say about this matter of belly-up "floaters" as it relates Nessie? Yes, it's another way to explain the upturned-boat effect, but the dorsal profile the Loch Ness Giant Salamander has that accounted for already. Personally I doubt it occurs, but to say it <i>never</i> occurs would make <i>me</i> guilty of two-dimensional thinking. The animal will float as it pleases regardless of any human opinions. The possibility does offer us a couple tidbits.<br />
<br />
Criticism in the variation of reported details from sighting to sighting and from witness to witness have lead some to conclude there cannot be a real, unrecognized animal behind any of these observations. I actually take exception with that, and would note the consistencies far outweigh inconsistencies. Be that as it may, there has been noted variability in the reports regarding skin color, skin texture, and the lack or presence of a dorsal ridge. The variability of the latter is already accounted for in my working morphology, depending on whether the hump is viewed from front or back. However, if there are witnesses insisting there's a dorsal ridge running the whole length of the spine (I vaguely recall an instance or two where this might be mentioned), then smooth-back sightings would still be explainable by the belly-up floater. I doubt we have to stretch anything that far though. And Dinsdale solved the skin texture problem in terms of viewing conditions and distance long ago, without need to resort to flipping the beast over!<br />
<br />
What is key here is that, as is typical of aquatic salamanders, we should expect Nessie to not only have lungs, but to occasionally use them.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #38761d;">ONCE IN A VERY GREAT WHILE</b><br />
<br />
One obvious but secondary use for those lungs would be respiration when <i>out</i> of the water. One must assume this is a secondary function, because land sightings of the Loch Ness Giant Salamander are so rare as to be almost non-existent. But then, for all known species of aquatic salamanders, leaving the water is also <i>extremely</i> rare, even though we've long known (through dissection) that they certainly have functional lungs. (In fact among all extant amphibians in all four orders, lungs are only <i>absent</i> in one clade of salamanders, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungless_salamander">plethodontids</a>, which are minute and terrestrial, and in two species of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atretochoana">caecilians</a>. Lungs are of course present in frogs, but even the primitive and aquatic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirenidae">sirens</a> have retained functional lungs.)<br />
<br />
To avoid hypoxia, aquatic salamanders do indeed stick their heads out of the water and use their lungs for respiration, a life-saving backup plan should the oxygen content of the water become too low. This however would not be a factor in the cold and highly oxygenated waters of Loch Ness. Although perhaps even in Loch Ness, an amphibian might need to gulp auxiliary oxygen following some unusually aerobic activity -- courtship behavior among salamanders can be extremely demanding.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #38761d;">NOW TAKE A DEEP BREATH...AND HOLD IT</b> <br />
<br />
But the primary use of lungs observed in aquatic salamanders is buoyancy control. Inflated lungs serve as hydrostatic organs and allow for continuous floating at either the surface, or a desired depth, with little or no expenditure of energy. This could not otherwise be achieved because, unlike ray-finned fish, amphibians have no swim bladder.<br />
<br />
What they do have though is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_gravity">specific gravity</a> greater than one (1), which means they sink to the bottom. (Objects with a specific gravity of 1 are neutrally buoyant in water,
those with a specific gravity greater than 1 are denser than water, and so will sink in it, and those with a specific gravity of less than 1 are
less dense than water, and so will float. The number is calculated by dividing mass by volume.)<br />
<br />
So in many cases, the lack of hydrostatic control would prove lethal. Axolotls might not need it as much as other species, as the video above seems to imply they are amateurs at it. Their relatives, the tiger salamanders, depend on it, at least in their larval stage. Tadpoles of the tiger salamander need to float overnight at a specific depth, rather high in the water column, in order to feed on Daphnia, which is all they can eat at that stage. But they have a specific gravity greater than 1, which would leave them either trapped on the bottom or paddling to maintain "altitude" all night, expending more energy than they might take in from feeding. The solution is to swim to the surface, inhale just enough air to lower their specific gravity to exactly 1, then swim to the desired depth where they can float all night, and gorge themselves without burning more calories. Come morning they release the air, and sink to the bottom to hide in safety. Once they become much larger, terrestrial adults, capable of larger prey, they still continue this behavior anyway because they seem to just plain like the Daphnia.<br />
<br />
So it seems the regulation of buoyancy may be the primary reason aquatic salamanders retain their lungs for life, although that ability to breathe surface air does occasionally come in handy under extreme or unusual circumstances. But while in well oxygenated water, they don't need to exhale because they are still getting their oxygen via cutaneous gas exchange. They hold only the air they want to maintain the buoyancy they want, and for as long as they want. Hydrostatic regulation of this sort has been observed in many salamanders, including the Cryptobranchids, and is no doubt utilized by all salamanders. This alone was reason enough for evolution to retain lungs in aquatic salamanders no matter how little else they might use them.<br />
<br />
All of which of course has profound implications for strange things seen in Loch Ness, if the cause were a giant salamander.<br />
<br />
Smooth vertical submersions without a noticeable disturbance of the water would be expected, as that's the normal exit for floating salamanders. And that is the most oft reported exit Nessie has been reported to make. That would most likely be a planned return to the very bottom of the Loch, where these animals spend the majority of their time. One wishing to keep it's air to maintain a specific gravity of 1 (to cruise at a certain depth) would of course have to swim down, which would occasionally result in some splashing.<br />
<br />
Also riding too <i>high</i> in the water, frequently a critique of some reports, and especially of the Hugh Gray photograph, should be less of an issue knowing that a specific level of buoyancy is actually under control of the animal itself. A hump two feet above water may not require as gargantuan an animal as one would think.<br />
<br />
Juveniles, surfacing for the first time might even experience some trouble getting used to their lungs, as they will be taking their first breaths. And they could already be of substantial size at an early age. The axolotls may only have trouble floating right-side up, but other salamanders have been observed <i>rolling</i> on taking in air on their first tries, because only one lung inflates on the first go, listing them over to float sideways, and when they try to compensate with paddling they send themselves into a little spin. (In Nessie's case, "little" might be the wrong word.) Eventually they learn they need to <i>exhale</i>, relax, and try again. The belly-up axolotls at Blackburn College may be forgetting to exhale, stranded on the surface like a kitten stuck up the first tree it's ever climbed and wondering how to get down. Apparently hydrostatic regulation in salamanders takes a little practice to get right! Would that a Loch Ness Giant Salamander were to get stuck on the surface for a nice long sighting, although you might not want to be in a small boat close by while it was rolling, thrashing, and trying to figure things out.<br />
<br />
Of course hydrostatic regulation is a very useful skill. The main supply of fish in Loch Ness are not at the bottom, they are found in the shallower waters, the littoral regions. Incessant swimming to maintain the right depth would be extremely costly to a predator, and salamanders are extremely stingy about spending energy to hunt -- they don't chase, they lurk. This gives Nessie its <i>reason</i> to climb to the surface, taking in just enough air to establish specific gravity 1, so it can swim down and maintain station effortlessly when it wants to feed at the depth of the prey, if that is indeed its preferred method of feeding.<br />
<br />
Notably, inflated lungs would show up on sonar, but unless the animals regularly held onto extra air during a forced dive they would return a much weaker echo. Which means you might get a strong contact one day, but not again for a very long time.<br />
<br />
Much of this will sound very, very familiar to those who have looked at data and sighting reports from Loch Ness. There may be a very good reason for that.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3716477215381066992.post-24940511874625147632013-06-11T23:43:00.001-05:002013-06-12T17:59:43.949-05:00Stop the Science! It's Bad for Business!Known hoaxer George Edwards apparently believes so. Edwards is the long time owner and operator of Loch Ness Cruises, and skipper of the tourist boat <i>Nessie Hunter</i>. He is also infamous for having made a side career out of faking photographic evidence to sell to gullible tourists, and inventing the non-existent geological feature <i>Edwards Deep</i>, named all too aptly after himself.<br />
<br />
Edwards latest hoax was a photo he released in August of 2012 (see the uncropped version below) purporting to be a genuine photo of Nessie's hump in Urquhart Bay taken by himself in November 2011. Full-time Loch Ness researcher <a href="http://www.nessiehunter.co.uk/">Steve Feltham</a> immediately recognized the object as the fiberglass model used in "The Truth Behind the Loch
Ness Monster", filmed at Loch Ness in early 2011. But Edwards' press releases were already out and the fake picture was lamentably splashed all over the news for some time. Subsequently <a href="http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/georgeedwardsclaims.html">Dick Raynor</a> did a full analysis on the photo, proving it was taken on a different date and at a different distance than the Edwards story claimed, and that it measures the same size as the fiberglass model.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHQrKYN8kM85kQNAIgiTVohxwBNUhmb1oYZOPXX-G_34tcVtCX9dWIK73KpRDcyM0aPr-hOuq2IICqtYUK0WL7qrOpzUkXIt5ezdTDnHsQ_ZEm2P1RVLpbJwieUHvb8JTV4vU6wTj7UH4N/s1600/Edwards+Photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHQrKYN8kM85kQNAIgiTVohxwBNUhmb1oYZOPXX-G_34tcVtCX9dWIK73KpRDcyM0aPr-hOuq2IICqtYUK0WL7qrOpzUkXIt5ezdTDnHsQ_ZEm2P1RVLpbJwieUHvb8JTV4vU6wTj7UH4N/s400/Edwards+Photo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
But what's the real harm? After all, a single tour guide selling fake postcard photos and misquoting the depth of the Loch isn't the worst thing in the world, now is it? Especially when he's already recognized as a faker. Surely Science can withstand a tiny bit of blurring between the lines of reality and entertainment. Edwards has to eat like anyone else. Or as <i>Jethro Tull's</i> Ian Anderson once wrote of a gentle old poacher in one of his songs, "<i>Who am I to fast deny the right to take a fish once in awhile?</i>" That sentiment is a healthy one (and all the more magnanimous in this case because Anderson actually was a salmon farmer).<br />
<br />
The trouble is, it doesn't end there.<br />
<br />
On May 30th of this year, Mr. Edwards had the temerity to file a letter of complaint with the Drumnadrochit Chamber of Commerce, particularly attacking the Loch Ness Exhibition Centre, <a href="http://www.lochnessproject.org/">Adrian Shine</a>, and "his cronies", the latter of which appears to be in reference to Tony Harmsworth, but by inference includes all objective researchers such as Feltham and Raynor. Edwards gets personal in a rather unsavory way. But besides all that, the premise of his complaint is that science has damaged the Loch Ness tourist industry. Perhaps he wants the Chamber to put a stop to research? Accept hoaxes as good for the tourist industry? Give them what they "want" and send them away happy? Oh my.<br />
<br />
But wait, it gets worse.<br />
<br />
It response to Edwards, and in his capacity as Editor for the <a href="http://www.drumnadrochit.info/archive2013.html">Drumnadrochit and Glen Urquhart Local Information and Trades Website newsletter</a>, Tony Harmsworth wrote a rebutting editorial to the Edwards letter. Harmsworth deftly answers all of Edwards concerns, including those regarding the health of the tourist industry, even compliments Edwards for his skills as a tour guide, but then quite rightly takes Edwards to task for his fakes and hoaxes and the disservice they do to the tourist industry, the public at large, and the reputation of the local population. It's an outstanding bit of writing, and I highly recommend reading it. The trouble is, you won't find it in the paper. Because the Drumnadrochit Chamber of Commerce decided to side with Edwards, censure Harmsworth's editorial and force its removal from the newsletter, instead running a spot about a business award Edwards had just received. Oh, the irony!<br />
<br />
Subsequent to all of which, Tony Harmsworth understandably resigned his position as Editor. A pretty unthinkable chain of events, but here we are. Shame on George Edwards for his hoaxes, but even more shame on the Drumnadrochit Chamber of Commerce for virtually endorsing them!<br />
<br />
Is it any wonder it's so difficult to get research funding for work at Loch Ness when even the Chamber of Commerce perpetuates the appearance it's all a sham to bring in tourist money?<br />
<br />
I highly recommend reading Tony Harmsworth's suppressed editorial. He makes all the points about this far more eloquently than I could. It, along with the Edwards letter that prompted it, are both available <a href="http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/georgeedwardsclaims.html">here</a> at Dick Raynor's <a href="http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/georgeedwardsclaims.html">Loch Ness Investigation</a> website. Scroll all the way to the bottom for the letters, but by all means enjoy the entire article, and Dick's fine detective work in debunking some of Edwards hoaxes.<br />
<br />
And while you're there, I'd also recommend <a href="http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/8aug72sonar.html">Dick's new article</a>, an in depth analysis of the sonar chart obtained by the Robert Rines 1972 expedition on the night the infamous flipper photos were taken. Dick has a great knack for explaining the ins and outs of sonar interpretation in a way anyone can readily grasp.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3716477215381066992.post-63176205346070383072013-04-12T05:33:00.003-05:002013-04-12T05:48:24.790-05:00The Hunt Is Still On<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I've been sprucing this blog up a bit, and hope readers will find the added features useful.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Note that near the top of the pane on the right, there are three new gadgets: a Search Box, a Translation drop down, and a Follow By E-mail sign-up box. The blog has gotten big enough that I myself have taken advantage of the Search feature.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">As so many of the readers that come here are from non-English speaking countries, I hope the Google Translation feature proves helpful. I can't make any claims for its accuracy, but I know from visiting non-English sites and using it to view them in English, it's prone to some funny mistakes. It also has a bad tendency to mess up the position and spacing of text near images, but hopefully we can live with that.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I've never pointed this out, but in the aquarium widget on the right, you can actually feed the fish. A mouse click drops fish food, and the fish come running. There are ten of them, and the colors are programmable. I'd considered making one black, and daring people to try to spot it, but that seemed a little cruel, albeit wholly appropriate :-) If there's a way to add my own "monster" to the tank, I'll have to do that one day just for fun.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Now you may notice, if you'd already read the previous post, that I've just re-titled it. It's still Part 2 of the post that preceded it, but the "Part 2 of 3" was getting truncated in some views, perhaps leading to confusion there was a new post here at all. That truncation was even giving me trouble on the composition page, as far as opening the correct post for edits and viewing. I'll also give the forthcoming Part 3 it's own distinct title, and the same with any further multi-part articles (although I'm going to try to keep articles short enough for single posts in the future).</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Family matters both good and bad have kept me away from writing, but I should have extensive time for it this summer. The New Morphology vs. Classic Sightings article has been in the works for over a year now, but it will conclude with Part 3, and I will make it shorter than Part 2. I'm very excited to tackle the next logical theme after that, <i>Taxonomy And Origins</i>, a big subject to be sure, but one that must be faced in the development of this blog's thesis. I've gathered my thoughts and data for that task for over a year as well, and it's coming along rather nicely. Also shaping up will be an article on <i>Behavior And Reproduction</i>, as well as (yes, I'm afraid) my own suggested plan for capturing a live type specimen. Please don't hesitate to laugh, I won't be offended -- any plan to catch a one ton, aquatic, nocturnal, bottom-dwelling, sound-sensitive, overly shy amphibian is <i>bound</i> to be hysterical.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The most readership and feedback this blog gets is still for my first article on the Hugh Gray Photo from eight months back. Even after my second article on that subject there are loose ends to be tied up, certainly enough to allow for a third article on that photo someday.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Here it is mid-April and Winter refuses to release its icy grip on Chicago. Perhaps when it finally warms up I'll take my laptop and MiFi box down to the lakefront and see what Lake Michigan, our own giant body of fresh water, inspires. Back in the late 70's, at the height of the frenzy over the Rines photos and the glorious but short era when we spoke in terms of </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Nessiteras
rhombopteryx,</i> there was a half-serious proposal made to "grab up some of them" and start a breeding colony here in Lake Michigan. It was thought it would be good for tourism of course. A glossy, full color, but long defunct publication, <i>Chicago Magazine</i>, did a cover story on it, written totally straight as I recall. I seriously hope I still have my copy somewhere, and if I run across it I'll be sure to share it here. The cover illustration alone is priceless, depicting a leaping plesiosaur with rhomboid flippers stealing a fish off a boater's rod, with the Chicago skyline and its familiar landmarks as backdrop. Those were heady days for anyone interested in Nessie.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It's still as cold as Winter though, here and now. But I imagine soon, in another part of the world the Siberian Salamanders will be waking from their months of suspended animation and burrowing out of the permafrost. Perhaps in another much more westerly part of Europe, a considerably larger salamander is also stirring in the deep silt that lies at the bottom of one Loch Ness, anticipating a run of food in the warming layer above the thermocline. The hunt is still on.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3716477215381066992.post-45960468952316379752013-02-28T19:02:00.001-06:002013-07-26T18:05:53.617-05:00What Surface Sightings Have Told Us About Morphology<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>(This is Part 2 of a 3 part article. <a href="http://thelochnessgiantsalamander.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-new-morphology-vs-classic-sightings.html">To view<span style="color: #38761d;"> </span>Part 1 first, click here</a>)</b></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #38761d;">
<u><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A New Morphology vs Classic Sightings (Part 2 of 3)</b></span></u></div>
</div>
<div style="color: #38761d;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>What Surface Sightings Have Told Us About Morphology</b></span></div>
<div style="color: #38761d;">
</div>
<br />
This
brings us to our most extensive repository of morphological data, our
treasury of eyewitness testimony. Compiling statistics for his 1976
book, Roy Mackal estimated there had been at least 10,000 reported
sightings to that point, but only about 3,000 of these had been recorded
in written form or official reports. From those he extracted 251
reports as the most useful and representative for conducting his own
analysis, and reproduced the details of those sightings in table form.
While somewhat dated by the 36 years that have passed since then, this
is still a remarkably handy resource. <span itemprop="description">Dr.
Charles Paxton of St. Andrews University is currently working on a paper
on Loch Ness sighting statistics, for which he gave a talk at </span>Edinburgh
earlier this year. Reportedly he had also concentrated on 250 sighting
reports (at least so far) for analysis, so perhaps that is a magic
number (or at least a manageable one). In any event we look forward to
his paper.<br />
<br />
One of the few things I bring to the table
when it comes to discussing all this is a minor background in
statistical analysis. It also means I know when I've been bettered, so
to the relief of the reader at this point, I'm not about to attempt to
duplicate, recompile or fling statistics at you. Besides, I've retired
from that line. Sufficient to the current purpose will be my own take
on the <i>consensus</i> of what is contained in historical sightings,
expressed for the most part in relative terms, although some quotations
of the statistical findings of others will be noted at points critical
to the discussion.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Here </span>we have the structural features as reported in surface sightings:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #38761d;">
<b>SIZE (and by inference, MASS and POPULATION)</b></div>
<br />
Length
estimates from sightings range from about 9 to 60 feet, but I would
halve those few high-end reports to only 30 feet on the assumption a few
extreme cases were simply bad estimates, or cases of two animals seen
close together but mistaken for one larger specimen (an occurrence that
seems decidedly less rare the more I've reread the old reports). So a
length of 20 to 25 feet is what has been more
typically reported for surface sightings, and as we'll get too much
later a smaller range of only 15 to 20 feet for land sightings. It's
from here I make the size estimate in my earlier diagram. (I am
entirely ignoring a couple extreme outliers here. At the low end we do
have the June 1937 Smith/Considine sighting of a <i>trio</i> of eel-like
animals, long-necked, four-flippered, dark grey and only 3 feet long
apiece, seen trailing their boat; perhaps baby Nessies, but these sound
more like visiting <i>seals</i> to me. Then there's the occasional
mention of 100 foot multi-humped lines on the Loch we must attribute to
misidentified wakes or standing waves.)<br />
<br />
For
estimating girth, which I'll express as the width and height of the
animal, surface sightings are less than ideal as the majority of the
body remains below the waterline. A very tiny percentage of witnesses
have reported <i>rolling</i>, but were otherwise lamentably short of
providing us anatomical details! Humps reported above the waterline are
often in the range of 2 to 3 feet wide, and standing (when reported) 1
to 2 feet above water. As most of the body mass must still be below the
waterline, these animals must have large mid-bodies indeed, on the
order of 5 to 6 feet thick to account for two-foot high humps floating
above water. I've settled on the notion that they are a bit wider than
they are vertically deep, as illustrated in my earlier diagram which
I'll repeat for convenience just below. Even so these creatures must
have a deep draught; considerable mass has to occur below the waterline
to anchor the long, usually 6 foot protrusion that's occasionally raised
above water, whether you choose to call that protrusion the tail as I
do, or a long neck. While many salamanders have such stout builds, this
is a marked departure from the body shape of the three current and
recognized species of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptobranchidae"><i>Cryptobranchidae</i></a>.
The giant salamanders of China, Japan, and North America are
longitudinally quite flat. But then they need to be to fit their
environment and life cycles, which include hiding under rocks, facing
fast river currents, and swimming upstream in mating season to reach
their spawning ponds. The river dwelling <i>Cryptobranchidae</i> must
present as narrow a cross-section as possible to minimize the energy
expenditure of facing the continuous currents they live in. Permanent
residents of a deep lake, the Loch Ness Giant Salamanders have no need
of such adaptations in structure or behavior, nor do they have to fit
under rocks to remain unseen when they have hundreds of feet of peaty
water to hide under, and many feet of silt on the bottom, as opposed to
mere inches of clear water in the streams where the <i>Cryptobranchidae</i> are found.<br />
<br />
But
while not ventral-dorsally flattened, the abdomen of our creature isn't
exactly cylindrical either based on what we know of the triangularity
of the humps (see below). In my Working Morphology diagram I've
depicted a body shape modeled more on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl"><i>L. axolotls</i></a> than on any of the <i>Cryptobranchidae</i> species. (Axolotls are highly <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny">neotenic</a>
aquatic salamanders, known for reaching reproductive maturity although
morphologically they remain tadpoles throughout life. This indeed
harkens us to some sighting reports, such as that of James Cameron in
1933, who saw a 14 foot long, three humped animal in Loch Ness that
"looked like a huge tadpole".)<br />
<br />
The degree to which
salamander bodies are laterally flattened depends not just on the
species, but the type of water (still or moving) into which they are
born. Larva of the <i>same</i> species develop quite different body plans dependent on whether they are hatched in stream or pond (see <a href="http://fl.biology.usgs.gov/c1258_Dodd/circ1258_37a.gif">diagram here</a>),
with the pond offspring having abdomens of considerably greater
draught, along the proportions I've depicted for the Loch Ness Giant
Salamander. Hopefully without insulting any Highlanders, I would call
Loch Ness more of a pond than a river, albeit a "pond" of immense
proportions.<br />
<br />
Based on my proposed morphology, we're looking at an animal about the size of a female <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca">killer whale, <i>Orcinus orca</i></a>.
The female orca only range from 16 to 23 feet feet in length, but these
whales are built quite robustly, more so than our Loch Ness Giant
Salamander, which I believe would weigh well under the typical 3 to 4
tons of a female orca. Now also to be taken into account is that <i>Orcinus orca</i>
has a very massive skeleton. Giant salamanders have relatively light,
cartilaginous skeletons, and we must expect the same to be true of a
species in Loch Ness. Halving the top mass of a female orca twice (once
for overall build and once for lower bone density) I would estimate
we're looking at large specimens of Nessie reaching no more than one ton, with
typical adults perhaps only three quarters of that.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #274e13;">
(With
a working body mass in mind, it is rather irresistible not to take a
small digression from morphology into population estimates. One of the
most recent estimates of the mass of available prey in Loch Ness was 177
tons calculated by Roland Watson <a href="http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/2012/02/is-there-enough-food-for-nessie_12.html">here</a>. Thomas Mehner in his 2009 paper "<a href="http://www.aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_55/issue_1/0203.pdf"><i>A study of 66 European lakes</i></a>"
found the median predator-to-prey biomass ratio to be 0.321 (ranging
from a low of 0.061 to a high of 1.384), suggesting that the biomass of
piscivorous lake populations is on average one third that of
the mass of available prey. Using this median value, and <i>assuming</i>
a metabolic requirement equivalent to that of these carnivorous fish,
there
is enough food in Loch Ness to support a maximum population of 76
three-quarter-ton predators (177 tons of fish times 0.321, divided by
0.75 tons per predator). <i>Not</i> being taken into
account here is that salamanders can have the lowest metabolisms of any tetrapods (the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_salamander">Siberian salamander</a>
being the most extreme case, as it can have an effective metabolic rate
of virtually zero while being frozen for years at a time). <a href="http://eol.org/pages/319982/overview"><i>Andrias japonicus</i></a>,
the Japanese Giant Salamander, can go for weeks without eating.
Therefore Mehner's median ratio may not be the applicable number here,
in which case the maximum population estimate of 76 is to be taken as
highly conservative. Applying the <i>top</i> ratio Mehner obtained
yields a maximum population as large as 327 three-quarter-ton predators
in Loch
Ness. Assuming this is the correct body mass, the true population of
Loch Ness Giant Salamanders no doubt falls somewhere between these
extreme estimates of 76 and 327 (the average here being 202). The
lowest number may be somewhat problematic for a permanently resident,
healthy, viable breeding group, but again this is based on the
conservative assumption metabolism is as high as Mehner's median value.
If true metabolic data revealed a species with lower feeding
requirements than an average predatory fish, then the lid would be off
the 76 animal maximum. Keep in mind that even if the available prey
estimated above were <i>halved</i>, Mehner's top ratio would still allow for as many as 163 predators of three-quarter-ton size.)</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #38761d;">
<b>HUMPS</b></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgId93fO_11QJNDbe_VvttH7ElJHndDDKmeR6SMu53iDL9Dh7gL0DuoRamxobWVDuhH5jgiwIXiPnq_KX1JpO3AwAT_L461nUgYaNpTquQXTug4oxiEaedBmwDqldjhMKtpazoagxklGXRa/s1600/Morph_D01_1067x800_with_text_AND_borders.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgId93fO_11QJNDbe_VvttH7ElJHndDDKmeR6SMu53iDL9Dh7gL0DuoRamxobWVDuhH5jgiwIXiPnq_KX1JpO3AwAT_L461nUgYaNpTquQXTug4oxiEaedBmwDqldjhMKtpazoagxklGXRa/s400/Morph_D01_1067x800_with_text_AND_borders.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click on diagram for larger image</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Humps are the most frequently sighted and reported
feature. Sometimes stationary, sometimes slow moving, and on rare
occasions reported to be moving at great speed. Short spurts are one
thing, but aquatic animals do not normally move at great speed with
their backs above water for any significant amount of time. This latter
behavior wastes far more energy than swimming below the surface, and
simply put no animal ever does this on a normal basis. One could still
debate however what Nessie herself considers "fast" or "significant
time", as these are relative terms. But humps, if continuously well
above water, and reported to be moving at great speed for extended
periods of time, do not appear likely to have anything to do with
aquatic animals. <br />
<br />
The most classic and oft reported
sightings are of single humps presenting the appearance of an upturned
boat, especially when the hump is viewed end-on. If the animal is
triangular in cross section, as I've depicted in my head-on
illustration, that's easy enough to understand. More consideration must
go into accounting for the fact these up-turned boat sightings come in
two distinct forms: smooth, and ridged. Because
the tail's dorsal fin extends partway up the back, this would result in
a slightly serrated line running up the middle when the hump is viewed
from behind.
But when viewed from the front, this ridge would not be visible and the
hump would present a smooth appearance. This accounts for both ridged
hump and smooth hump sightings.<br />
<br />
But along with our
single hump sightings there are substantial occurrences of multiple
humps, often more than two but rarely more than four. The numbers even
vary over the course of a single sighting and, probably most problematic
of all, pairs of humps have been seen to merge into one single, longer
hump. Do we have a vertically undulating, multi-coiled sea-serpent
after all, or an aquatic Bactrian camel? Actually the independent
horizontal motion in many such sightings, along with the evidence of the
Gray Photo, tell us it's not unusual for the members of our elusive
species to travel in pairs. That certainly accounts for some such
sightings. Actually though the morphology of salamanders, as Mackal
pointed out in 1976, makes them an ideal fit for explaining any number
of the multi-humped sighting aspects, and that's only with invoking the
tail and caudal fin.<br />
<br />
The top of the head, being two
feet thick from top to bottom and as much as three feet long (see my
diagram), easily provides another hump for multi-hump sightings. The
small eyes could easily be overlooked at the range of most sightings,
and could even remain submerged with the top of the head still
protruding a foot above waterline. The tail (or more precisely the tail
fin) seen breaking the water in profile easily provides the appearance
of another hump, or hump<i>s</i>. If the dorsal caudal fin sags in the
middle, it can provide a view of what would appear to be two humps by
itself. Thus even a single giant salamander seen breaking the surface
in profile can account for sightings of up to <i>four</i> humps. The
number of humps perceived can even vary during the course of the
sighting because of the flexible behavior of the caudal fin. The tail
fin can also lie flat, causing a perceived hump or pair of humps to
disappear while those caused by the back and head remain visible. Even
to all this we may add that, while salamanders are built to flex and
swim horizontally (unlike mammals which flex ventral-dorsally) they
still have quite a degree of vertical "bendiness" to their spines. The
cartilaginous skeletons of aquatic salamanders no doubt make this
possible. They sometimes float with backs arched, and sometimes with
spines almost horizontal to the waterline. This not only accounts for
the occasional acuteness noted in Nessie's dorsal hump, it also explains
how the contour of that hump can change right before the witnesses eyes
into one longer, straighter dorsal line.<br />
<br />
Hump sightings are also our main source of reports for the <i>coloration</i> and <i>texture</i>
of Nessie's integument. The most common color reported is black to
dark grey, followed by reddish brown and more rarely an olive or khaki
green. All of these colors occur in salamanders in general, and are not
always species dependent. When any part of the underside is noted, it
usually seems to be a lighter shade of the dorsal color, or even white.
The skin texture is often compared to that of an elephant. Some have
described it as smooth, while others wrinkled. As Tim Dinsdale pointed
out, rough skin can look smooth when wet and shiny and seen at a
distance, but smooth skin always appears smooth at any distance whether
it's wet or dry, leaving us with the inescapable conclusion Nessie has a
rough hide. Wrinkled skin is most consistent with the giant
salamanders among the <i>Cryptobranchidae,</i> as is the most frequently
mentioned color of black. These giant salamanders are dependent on
dermal respiration, and the wrinkling provides greater surface area for
the absorption of oxygen. Sometimes Nessie's skin is reported to be
very glossy or reflective, even slimy, either overall or in part. In
the Gray Photo we see how much more reflective the wet areas are,
consistent with the landing areas of the water being thrashed up.
Salamanders are of course well know for their shiny dermal secretions, a
defense mechanism brought on by stress or excitement, which can give
them both a slimy appearance and a smoother looking dermal texture even
when they are quite wrinkled. The <i>range</i> of observed skin colors and textures is most easily accounted for by <i>Amphibia</i>, but becomes a serious problem if we try considering candidates <i>other</i> than giant salamanders to be behind the mystery in Loch Ness.<br />
<br />
Humps also occur, albeit <i>quite rarely</i>,
in the presence of another
visible structure, a lengthy six foot protrusion we'll get to shortly.
When I say "quite rarely" I imagine many readers might be surprised by
that and hasten to disagree. But in rereading all 251 sightings Mackal
(1976) employed as data, and of these eyewitness accounts looking at all
in which both hump <i>and</i> long appendage features are reported, an almost invariable pattern emerges: <i>the hump submerges when the neck-like appendage comes up, or the neck-like appendage submerges
when the hump comes up</i>. The appearance of both parts <i>simultaneously</i> above water is <i>extremely</i>
rare. Yes, one can find exceptions to this, such as the group sighting
by the four ladies in September 1933 in which two humps were observed
behind an almost vertical, frilled neck-like object. A few exceptions
are readily enough accounted for by the infrequent but recognized
occurrences of <i>two</i> of the animals in close proximity to each
other, a circumstance which might easily have gone unnoticed during this
September 1933 sighting because it was made from a distance of 1,000
yards. In any event this pattern of alternated rather than simultaneous
views of the "neck" and humps holds for the vast majority of sightings
that include any mention of a neck-like appendage. This makes it very
safe to say this appendage cannot flex vertically at an acute angle to
the spine, an anatomical detail to be kept in mind. The consistent
submergence of the hump <i>before</i> this long appendage rises above
water tells us we are not dealing with a vertically flexible structure,
in this regard perfectly consistent with the <i>laterally</i> flexing tail of a giant salamander.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #38761d;">APPENDAGES (from surface observations)</span></b><br />
<br />
Our knowledge of Nessie's limbs based on accounts of surface
sightings
is minimal to say the least, and has long been a mystery within a
mystery. Flipper shaped appendages have been reported in less than 2%
of surface sightings, usually just one pair at the end of the animal the
witnesses took to be the front. Alexander MacDonald reported his
"great salamander" approached him by means of paddling with two short
limbs. Over the ages eyewitnesses have also reported <i>hoof</i> shaped
appendages on Nessie, perhaps harkening back to the Water Horse
tradition. My own amateur attempts to sketch flippers often
come out looking more like hooves than fins, as the outlines of both seen in silhouette are actually similar.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9HjjjqweF6G_eoFMzUi0LEnsiDUTOLGq66kESxy8MgnrNziWzLXL_LywxHBggzgTYRh6MeIPW43q44LkYLVlo7ChuCfhXyUu7G-cuxJO_1pVIahQOsFIduXIz9rExiQbItpKNaOvHUg2S/s1600/Limbs.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9HjjjqweF6G_eoFMzUi0LEnsiDUTOLGq66kESxy8MgnrNziWzLXL_LywxHBggzgTYRh6MeIPW43q44LkYLVlo7ChuCfhXyUu7G-cuxJO_1pVIahQOsFIduXIz9rExiQbItpKNaOvHUg2S/s400/Limbs.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>A webbed
foot. From left to right: (1) open or fanned, (2) contracted or in
profile, or (3) seen in shadow or silhouette. The latter could easily
be taken for a flipper (and even bears some resemblance to a hoof in
profile).</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Much
more frequently reported than flipper or paddle sightings <i>per se</i> are hump
sightings <i>accompanied by splashing on either side</i>. Obviously our
mysterious beast comes equipped with some bilateral organs or appendages
with which to do the splashing, and flippers or webbed feet are the
natural explanations. But which is it, or is it both? Flippers or fins
can be accounted for by fish, including eels, but only an aquatic
tetrapod can account for both those and/or webbed feet. The trouble
with
surface sightings is that the parts that normally stay below the
waterline will seldom be observed. Hugh Gray didn't even notice the
appendages during his famous sighting, yet his photograph shows a
posterior water spray with the blurred after-image of a flipper-like
object in the
pelvic region and, better yet, the upper part of an anterior <i>limb</i>
meeting the body above water, just behind the head of the nearer
animal. An observer can easily miss the limbs even when the camera
captures them, as it did on this singular occasion.<br />
<br />
There is however more data about our creature's limbs to be gleaned from another and much more telling source: <i>land sightings</i>. These are a category unto themselves and are covered at the end of this article.<b><span style="color: #38761d;"> </span></b><br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #38761d;">THE HEAD, MOUTH and EYES</span></b><br />
<br />
Over
and over through the years, we have heard of "the head which could
not be distinguished from the neck and merely looked like a continuation
of it" (Witchell, 1975). What is labeled to be the tiny head, this
undifferentiated tip of the long serpentine appendage in these
particular sightings, rarely shows any visible details, much less
details specific to heads such as eyes or a mouth. This begins to beg
the question, are these really heads in the first place? Perhaps an
answer lies in the way this tip moves. Others have noted, and Tim
Dinsdale once observed "On several occasions the head has been seen to
turn rapidly from side to side 'as quick as a hen' or to shake itself
vigorously, giving the appearance of acute awareness both of sight and
sound" (<i>Loch Ness Monster</i>, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London,
1961). I fear a certain amount of anthropomorphism may be at work
here. And keen eyesight is highly unlikely in a benthic animal from
deep, dark waters -- quite the opposite. My contention is the tiny
"head" that moves rapidly side to side on the end of the serpentine
"neck" has to be the tip of the tail flapping, flopping, and curling:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqLp6jXVYErUrHyjrvGD78lDQJiVz01-OUQbshIZvu2ExVwjPRI5Xvmd2B1BawE0mISxH8_hTHbMTBE1Ted_Dibr8a9lAFn2ox8k7a2CEn4HDti-snl9kw-61qk-VUuCQYBCgN-dipG1wn/s1600/Tail_Flop.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqLp6jXVYErUrHyjrvGD78lDQJiVz01-OUQbshIZvu2ExVwjPRI5Xvmd2B1BawE0mISxH8_hTHbMTBE1Ted_Dibr8a9lAFn2ox8k7a2CEn4HDti-snl9kw-61qk-VUuCQYBCgN-dipG1wn/s400/Tail_Flop.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Along with this "head" motion come reports of rapid undulations of the attached "neck". But necks don't normally undulate in <i>any</i>
species. Tails undulate, and the tentacles of cephalopods undulate,
but necks as a rule do not. If Nessie is any form of tetrapod, the only
conclusion can be that this type of head-neck sighting actually
represents the <i>tail</i>.<br />
<br />
There are a couple of
curious details that do get sighted with some regularity in these small
head-long neck cases, one being what appears to be a mane starting at
varying distances below the "head", sometimes on the dorsal side,
sometimes on the ventral side, sometimes on both; I shall venture an
explanation for that in the next section, covering the structure of the
tail.<br />
<br />
And the most curious detail of all perhaps, a
pair of stalks or knobbed horns such as observed by area resident Mrs.
Greta Finlay during her famous sighting of August 1952, but occasionally
mentioned by others as well. That Mrs. Finlay and her young son had
one of the closest encounters ever with our unusual beastie is hard to
doubt. She estimated she could have hit it with a pebble, and her son
was so terrified by the look and proximity of the animal that he put
away the new fishing pole he'd gotten that day and avoided the water's
edge ever after; Tim Dinsdale reported the fishing rod was still
untouched in the Finlay attic when he interviewed Greta eight years
later. The Finlay caravan had been parked near the water at a point
where it shelves very rapidly to a depth of 100 feet, which would permit
a large animal to swim in quite close to the shingle; but Greta only
reported the visible animal to be 15 feet long, small by Nessie
standards, so the terror elicited in this case sounds more based on <i>nearness</i> and <i>details</i>
of the creatures appearance. And yet Greta Finlay, who arguably has
had the closest look during any tiny-head/long-neck sighting of the
creature (perhaps 20 yards away in broad daylight), could see neither
eyes nor mouth on what she took to be the head, even though her
testimony implies she studied the "head" intently; Tim Dinsdale
confirmed this was her observation during his interview with her. To my
mind, no eyes and no mouth once again equates to no head here! Yet she
did see the curious detail of the knob-ended stalks. Perhaps, as I
suspect, someone else making the <i>same</i> sighting from a greater distance, and end-on, could mistake the knobs <i>for eyes</i>
and report a "definite" head to further confusticate the tail/neck
issue. Fortunately for us trying to get to the structural details,
Great Finlay didn't make such a mistake. (If there are indeed a pair of
bumps on the tail tip, we need look no further to account for the
miniscule number of times eyes <i>have</i> been reported on a small head
atop a swan-like neck, such as the May 1943 Farrel sighting.) I've had
reason to refrain from including these rarely seen and highly
mysterious protrusions in my working morphology for now, but will come
back to them. The point for the moment is that once again, due to the
absence of mouth or eyes, we are looking not at a head-neck but at a
tail and its curled over tip.<br />
<br />
Now we come to the one
great inconsistency in eyewitness testimony regarding the Loch Ness
animal. There are a number of reports of <i>very large</i> heads.
Reported as flattened, or sometimes triangular, and often dog-like or
sheep-like, but without ears. Heads estimated to be 2 to 5 feet long,
and 12 to 18 inches wide! In these sightings the head is set low in the
water and no long, serpentine necks are mentioned. A hump is sometimes
seen <i>close</i> behind the head; clearly a short-necked animal. Well
we'd hardly expect a long, thin neck to support so large a head in the
first place! One Mr. H. L. Cockrell came very close to getting us a
photo of the very large head he saw protruding from the water, from his
kayak in 1958, but snapped the shutter just a little late; we are left
with a hump photo instead, and what may be just the top of the head
submerging a few feet to the right of the hump. (As both hump and head
are creating wakes in this photo, I'm not inclined to accept the idea
Cockrell photographed a floating stick, after first hallucinating a head
raised in the same spot. Here I agree with Dinsdale: Mr. Cockrell
probably had one of the most dangerous encounters with <i>An Niseag</i> since St. Columba's time.)<br />
<br />
Based
on these observations, and consistent with my interpretation of the
Gray Photo, I've chosen the following dimensions for the head of my 25
foot virtual type specimen depicted at the start of this article: 3
feet long, 2 feet thick, and 2.5 feet wide at the widest point, tapering
to about 18 inches wide at the blunt snout. A short, thick neck of 1
foot in length and 2 feet in thickness joins the head to the body
immediately before the anterior limbs. As the head and neck are the
same dimensions viewed laterally and not well differentiated from each
other seen from the side, they could be taken together as a 4 foot long
head. This makes the head/neck region of the Loch Ness Giant
Salamander 16% of these animals' total length.<br />
<br />
Furthermore,
we get slightly more head-related detail in the large head sightings,
although not always consistent: no eyes visible, small eyes seen, large
eyes, round eyes, elliptical eyes, and slitted eyes. Actually the
shape of the eyes <i>should</i> vary by the viewers' perspectives. In
the Chinese Giant Salamander the eyes are small, rounded, lidless, and
in a dorso-lateral position that makes them difficult to spot when seen
head-on, or slit-like when viewed from above. They would best be viewed
laterally, from which perspective they do appear round; and that's also
exactly what we have with the eye visible on the head in the Gray
Photo.<br />
<br />
Perhaps the best look at (and into) Nessie's
mouth was the A. H. Palmer sighting of 1933, an unusually long sighting
of a large, flattened head protruding from the water, mouth opening and
closing rhythmically for 30 minutes. This latter "air gulping" behavior
is witnessed in all amphibians at some point, but most famously in
frogs. Palmer's view was head-on to the animal from only 100 yards
away. He estimated the mouth was 12 to 18 inches wide, opening as far
as 6 inches, and observed that the interior was <i>red</i>. The latter detail is certainly an exceptional one to be reported. Here we have a rather intimidating headshot of China's <i>A. davidianus </i>for comparison:<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUAoLD8_OPjMVvyx2ZMoTKRuUyTCDMMItdOBEoFSQNV_zzMly5LcDZiEvw0N_JyDiXx7_eRkaz3CFZ4UGZ39g-8Gts3p92B6wSWp7MCTbXufLW-d5vibPB3Ndv5LW8ewvPma8nTPn2rGwN/s1600/CGS03.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUAoLD8_OPjMVvyx2ZMoTKRuUyTCDMMItdOBEoFSQNV_zzMly5LcDZiEvw0N_JyDiXx7_eRkaz3CFZ4UGZ39g-8Gts3p92B6wSWp7MCTbXufLW-d5vibPB3Ndv5LW8ewvPma8nTPn2rGwN/s400/CGS03.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This would be the last view of <i>A. davidianus</i>
as eye-witnessed by many a fish. Note the left eye can barely be made
out if you look hard, about 3 inches above the mouth and 4 inches from
the side. The forced perspective belies the fact this is a 5 to 6 foot
specimen. Coincidentally, the tail is lying in a rather suggestive,
neck-like pose. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There is one other detail to the Palmer
sighting that again can only be called most curious. Palmer reported
short antenna, or horn like projections on either side of the head!
Here we have stalks of some kind mentioned <i>again</i>, but on a large, salamander-like head. No knobs this time, as with the similar structures reported on the tiny-headed (read <i>tail-tip</i>) sighting of Greta Finlay. Clearly, we don't have Nessie's with both miniscule heads on long thin necks, <i>and</i>
huge heads on short thick necks. Nor should we reasonably postulate a
second unidentified species in Loch Ness on so small a basis. Do we
have something like elongated sensory tubercles on <i>both</i> the head and tail? Perhaps not impossible. The known species of giant salamanders are replete with <i>short</i>,
you could even say knob-like tubercles almost everywhere (more so the
Japanese species than in the other two), but never elongated ones. In
the Loch Ness Giant Salamander, the distance from the tip of the tail to
the brain is some four times greater than it is in the Chinese Giant
Salamander, so perhaps some larger, more developed sensory tubercles had
to evolve to keep pace with the increasing distance to the brain. That
might account for larger knobs on the tail tip, but doesn't help at all
to explain stalks or horns on the (large) head at the front end of the
animal. Herein lies a mystery I'll return to in my future article on <i>taxonomy</i>,
as I suspect the potential classification of the species may literally
hinge on the true nature of these enigmatic little head stalks.<b><span style="color: #38761d;"> </span></b><br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #38761d;">THE TAIL'S TALE (or, The Story Of The Headless Neck That Never Was)</span></b><br />
<br />
At
one-third of the overall length of our animal, a whopping 8 feet long
in typical specimens, the tail of the Loch Ness Giant Salamander is a
marvelous structure. So too are the tails of all salamanders, but those
of aquatic salamanders, whether they be in the advanced order of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamandroidea"><i>Salamandroidea</i></a> or in the primitive order of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptobranchoidea"><i>Cryptobranchoidea</i></a>,
are remarkably muscled limbs of rapid propulsion. While speed
estimates from surface sightings are highly subjective, we know from the Tucker sonar studies I mentioned in an earlier article
that 20 foot specimens can manage at least 17mph below water, with an
incredible diving rate of 5mph (this is faster than fish, with their
open swim bladders, are capable of doing -- this diving speed is one of
the reasons fish can be ruled out in establishing Nessie's identity).
(In all fairness it should be pointed out that there are other
interpretations of the Birmingham University sonar data. Specifically
that during
some of the most pertinent readings, the thermocline was at its most
reflective, and a surface craft had indeed passed through the area, the
wake of which could have caused some spurious sonar reflections.)<br />
<br />
Although rarely spotted <i>and identified</i> as the tail in most surface sightings, there seems to be universal agreement among eyewitnesses that when it <i>is</i>
recognized, the tail is quite long, laterally flattened, blunt ended,
and moves with rapid sinusoidal undulations. That is an exacting
description of an aquatic salamander tail, and the way in which it moves
to provide rapid propulsion.<br />
<br />
Also noted in some
tail-specific sightings are the presence of a caudal fin, and the sudden
widening of the tail where it meets the body. This widening at the
base, it should be noted, is also attributed to the supposed neck in
long-neck sightings. More interesting however is that caudal fin, a
structural trait present to one degree or another in all neotenous
aquatic salamanders. They appear to be key to efficient undulatory
swimming above certain speeds in open water (see Korsmeyer, Steffensen,
and Herskin, 2002, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11948202"><i>"Energetics of median and paired fin swimming, body and caudal fin swimming"</i></a>).
It seems wherever Nessie may have started its evolution, it came
pre-adapted to swim like a torpedo when it got into the wide open waters
of Loch Ness.<br />
<br />
A caudal fin often collapses or folds
down out of water, so there is nothing remarkable in that it goes unseen
in most sightings of the tail above water. The dorsal caudal fin in
the Loch Ness Giant Salamander has been noted to <i>not</i> extend all
the way to the tip of the tail, and we seem to have corroboration of
this in the Gray Photo. This is different than in the <i>Crytobranchidae</i>,
in which the ventral and dorsal caudal fins extend all the way to the
tip and actually appear to meet, and also different from the caudul fins
of eels. Whether Nessie does or doesn't have a ventral caudal fin has
not been determined, although I suspect one is present and have
indicated such in my diagram. There are however wide variations in the
tail fins of aquatic salamanders even within species, so neither outcome
would be surprising. But of interest for entirely different reasons,
the location of this caudal fin that stops short of extending all the
way to the tip coincides with the reported location of a fin, frill, or <i>mane</i>
below the "head", on the back of the "neck" where it meets the suddenly
widening body in several of the long-necked animal sighting reports.
This is not coincidence.<br />
<br />
Now we come to it. The
"trouble" with a giant salamander in Loch Ness, and with a short-necked
model of Nessie is that this "new" morphology cannot be reconciled with
sightings of an animal with a tiny, almost indistinguishable head
perched atop a long serpentine neck. (It seems widely assumed there
have been many such long-neck sightings, when in reality my manual
tabulation of the Mackal data reveals only 15% of surface sightings fall
unequivocally into this category, with another 3.3% open to
interpretation. More current statistics would be welcome, but for now
it appears witnesses at Loch Ness have only claimed to see long necks
15% of the time, and claimed to have seen heads of any kind attached to
them in even fewer cases!) Must we contrive a long-necked animal to
explain these sightings? I've been dropping clues to the contrary
throughout this article, but lastly it is these characteristics of the
tail, presented here, that should end all argument (although I am not so
naive as to believe the argument will ever go away, not even if we
catch a Loch Ness Giant Salamander to keep on public display.) It's
actually far easier to reconcile the morphology of a giant salamander
with the actual <i>sightings</i> than it is to reconcile it with cultural <i>tradition</i>,
even a tradition that didn't truly emerge until the 20th century. It's
likely far more people adamantly believe Nessie has a long neck and
tiny head than there are people who have ever seen <i>any</i> part of the animal in question.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi01VAcbiLmPcMHFet0KhuUDpsBonV1rD2lFt1bPEqF0pJhNcVjwwwOHeEdILSk9-R9ta82g3V_z4lykxXjRK-TKHDj0qxjy_cH9FqCS1Da693-o3iFDjj_23Blw2f81__cQATsP_g9TON5/s1600/Tail_Out_finished-bordered.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi01VAcbiLmPcMHFet0KhuUDpsBonV1rD2lFt1bPEqF0pJhNcVjwwwOHeEdILSk9-R9ta82g3V_z4lykxXjRK-TKHDj0qxjy_cH9FqCS1Da693-o3iFDjj_23Blw2f81__cQATsP_g9TON5/s1600/Tail_Out_finished-bordered.JPG" /></a>In part, people report or
think they see what they expect to see, and the plesiosaur theory has
become deeply engrained in public consciousness since the 1930's.
Dinosaurs were a new revelation to late Victorian culture, and
every early discovery was treated as hot news to be seized upon by the
press. The enduring popularity of such period books as Verne's <i>Journey
to the Center of the Earth</i>, Doyle's <i>Lost World</i>, and the early motion picture
<i>King Kong</i> remind us that only eighty years ago modern society became
enamored with giant, prehistoric animals for the first time, and the tantalizing notion
that somewhere, somehow, a few of them might have survived. And
Darwin's <i>Origin of Species</i> had everyone talking and thinking about human
evolution. Every cryptic, legendary or mythological animal from the
dragon to the yeti was suddenly a candidate standing in for some
longed-for prehistoric remnant species. Which might be to say, a
longed-for component of mankind's rapidly fading past. Perhaps the
psychological component to all this came about because Europe was
running out of unexplored territory and undiscovered animals on the rest of the continents, or so it thought. North
America was settled, and the British Empire had colonies and outposts
everywhere from India to Africa. The telegraph and radio were shrinking
the world at an alarming rate. The notion that the long-known but
mysterious and unidentified animals living in one Scottish lake had to
be dinosaurs was just one of many reactionary responses to the "future
shock" unsettling post-Victorian thinking. Ironically it was
conveniently overlooked that plesiosaurs weren't technically dinosaurs
in the first place, but that was merely splitting hairs.<br />
<br />
And
then came the Surgeon's Photo. The most iconic and popular picture to
ever come out of Loch Ness. But not necessarily iconic because it was
greatly definitive or detailed or all that good a picture, or even authentic, but because
it <i>fulfilled human expectations</i>. There for all the world to see swam
the plesiosaur, in swan-like, noble repose. Just what the world
wanted. There's a bit more irony in that we now know the vertebrae of
plesiosaurs a bit better, and they couldn't actually bend their necks
back and tilt their heads in that manner, but that's just one more thing
conveniently overlooked by proponents of a long-necked, marine reptile
explanation for the unusual animal in Loch Ness.<br />
<br />
Earlier I stated my belief that any authentic sighting of Nessie in which a long
neck was spotted must have been a misidentification of the tail as
the neck. The case has been made before that some
of the long serpentine neck sightings could just as well be sightings of
the tail. Roy Mackal made the point that most eyewitnesses viewed what
they reported seeing from such great distances, there was no objective
basis for categorizing them into either neck or tail sightings; he
treated such sightings as equivalent data for statistical purposes, and
combined them in the same column for the extensive Surface Sightings
spreadsheet he created (<i>The Monsters of Loch Ness</i>, Swallow Press,
1976, Appendix A, Table 1). Mackal and C. S. Wellek, who did the
illustrations for Mackal's first book, seem to have hedged their bets on
the neck issue; their drawings of the hypothetical amphibian on page
215 depict a creature with a head-neck region some 20% of overall
length, midway between the long thin neck of a plesiosaur-shaped animal
and the shorter and thicker one of a salamander. I was always curiously
dissatisfied with these beautiful illustrations, as the neck
interpretation looked unnaturally pushed and pulled between conflicting
data like some piece of taffy. Mackal was indeed onto something though
in considering the sightings of
long serpentine structures just as likely to be tails as they were to be
necks.<br />
<br />
As discussed in the earlier section on humps, <i>simultaneous</i>
appearances of a hump and a long, neck-like appendage are actually very
rare, but can still be readily enough accounted for by the tail of a
short-necked animal protruding above the water:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv8pzNjtGohgXfztYuIm9pVMTVrdvBuYcn1_Ntx8RoQ3FI13hFC3gr5GvMSA6NI8xOp7OjYVKrbWhmgn6tMpPtRISBQy40Ch6LgsWlHSToMqfyxzSLu5jICPRuh-wjO4kcdvAaWY5IyM5O/s1600/Lnms-11c-color_SMALL.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv8pzNjtGohgXfztYuIm9pVMTVrdvBuYcn1_Ntx8RoQ3FI13hFC3gr5GvMSA6NI8xOp7OjYVKrbWhmgn6tMpPtRISBQy40Ch6LgsWlHSToMqfyxzSLu5jICPRuh-wjO4kcdvAaWY5IyM5O/s640/Lnms-11c-color_SMALL.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
Image Copyright (c) 2012 Steven G. Plambeck - All rights reserved</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
More often however, if a hump is above water and the animal pitches forward, the tail emerges as the hump <i>submerges</i>,
the tail twisting or rolling a bit towards the tip because it's natural
flexure is lateral. This fold or bend near the tip creates the
illusion of a small head, leading observers to believe a tail is a neck.<br />
<br />
Nearly the rarest sighting reports of them all are those that describe both a long neck <i>and</i> a long tail witnessed together.
This kind of report is even rarer than reports of two animals observed at once. Needless to say then, there <i>must</i> be cases of two animals showing visible parts at once that are not <i>recognized</i>
as more than one animal, owing to distance, lighting, and point of
view. These latter cases account for the few combined
neck and tail reports readily enough. Two animals can show us two tails
at once. Witnesses unaware they are watching two animals, and
expecting to see a long neck, would undoubtedly attribute one long
appendage to the neck and the other long appendage to the tail during
any of the rare occasions two tails were visible at once:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIcVaFR7RteQu9sDjRO9niUaYSnr783pg2AkEVzyzygeEtzI-VHuMZALmVgJrxNkPaepidTPunxAlRAJnFpl8mSyxosqsWJsrSYCwId5sotLpWScEXfSIXqbbWAaM6fV1YqvYqVzfTAc05/s1600/Lnms-11d-color_SMALL.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIcVaFR7RteQu9sDjRO9niUaYSnr783pg2AkEVzyzygeEtzI-VHuMZALmVgJrxNkPaepidTPunxAlRAJnFpl8mSyxosqsWJsrSYCwId5sotLpWScEXfSIXqbbWAaM6fV1YqvYqVzfTAc05/s640/Lnms-11d-color_SMALL.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Copyright (c) 2012 Steven G. Plambeck - All rights reserved</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Having established that the tail is
mistaken for the neck in all of the long-necked sightings also means
that, historically, we have had a greater number of tail sightings
than previously realized, and hence a slightly greater opportunity to
collect rare details about this part of the animal even though we didn't
realize it when the original data was reported. It is therefore time
to re-sift all of the long neck sighting data we have through the filter
of new knowledge, to see if there are tidbits of old information we can
now recognize. This is a project unto itself, and left for another
day. But here is one example worth an immediate digression. And a test
of any new theory is to see if it sheds light on
any old, but highly anomalous data. If a piece of the puzzle that
wouldn't otherwise fit
suddenly begins to fit, it's a good sign the theory is on the right
track.<br />
<br />
Qualifying as both a unique and a previously inexplicable description
of a "monster" in Loch Ness, we have a quote from a letter by Highland
historian David Murray Rose referring to how the Loch Ness locals
described their 'water-horse' in the mid-17th century. The discovery
of this Rose letter, from which I'll quote just a snippet below, was
made by <a href="http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/">Roland Watson</a> and is discussed more thoroughly in his book (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Water-Horses-Loch-Ness-supernatural/dp/1461178193/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314689370&sr=1-11"><i>The Water Horses of Loch Ness</i></a>, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011, pages 68 to 77).<br />
<br />
To
quote Rose: "Old people said it was a 'water-horse' or 'water-kelpie',
because it had a head that looked like a cross between a horse and a
camel, <i>but its mouth was in its throat</i> (italics mine)."<br />
<br />
Some
strange observations have come out of Loch Ness, but as far as I
know this is the only mention of an animal with its mouth in its
throat or neck! One could hypothesize someone had tried to decapitate
Nessie with a broadsword, and she'd escaped with only a gash in her
neck, but that would be reaching. That this locating of the mouth in
the throat is attributed to prevailing opinion of the time rather than a
single sighting may imply this feature was observed more than once
during
this period. Such a weird piece of data, and so old, it surely must
belong to some
entirely different puzzle, so we can safely throw it away as having
nothing to do with Nessie or our Loch Ness Giant Salamander. Or, could
it?<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3dJH9nAZvP5EV7JWb_lkMWdzqcQsaLTDLHO5g1dv5MZ71X4fh5RTNtZxIO7A39J4knzzSsxkOdjROQBvO7gcF3y6690ditUo-CA_hGzVcs_tjvtqjeZ-iRC_KHc7LPu1b37XOw299mjv/s1600/cloaca.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3dJH9nAZvP5EV7JWb_lkMWdzqcQsaLTDLHO5g1dv5MZ71X4fh5RTNtZxIO7A39J4knzzSsxkOdjROQBvO7gcF3y6690ditUo-CA_hGzVcs_tjvtqjeZ-iRC_KHc7LPu1b37XOw299mjv/s200/cloaca.jpg" width="143" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A salamander's cloaca</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
While not usually glimpsed from above, there is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca"><i>cloaca</i></a>
at the ventral base of every salamanders' tail.
It can be more pronounced in some specimens than others, and it can be
much more pronounced at breeding season than at other times, but it is
always
there, and as the picture illustrates it can look very mouth-like.<br />
<br />
Now all amphibians have cloaca (as
do all reptiles, birds, monotremes, and certain fish). Any time an aquatic salamander were
to lift its the tail above water, there is a chance, however slight, to
glimpse this posterior orifice. Being on the underside it would almost always go
overlooked, unless of course the animal was listing to one side, or
rolling. A few modern observers have reported rolling, but never during
sightings that were close enough to note anatomical details
usually hidden below the waterline, other than the lighter color of the underside. Even the limbs, which we know are
present in at least one pair if not two, have never been reported during
one of these rolls. Suppose during the mid-17th century someone
luckily observed a roll from closer range, or witnessed a floating specimen <i>listing</i> to one side, thereby exposing its cloaca to observation? We can safely assume that
if the tail is mistaken for the neck in modern sightings, the same error
has gone on in the past. In that case, observers who glimpsed
the orifice at the base of what they assumed to be the neck would have no other way to
relate what they'd seen except to say "<i>but its mouth was in its throat</i>". Changing the identification of the "neck" to the tail, we have an elegant explanation for what was actually reported.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #38761d;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>WHAT SURFACE MOTION SAYS ABOUT MORPHOLOGY</b></span></div>
<br />
If, as I assert, the long appendage when viewed above water is <i>always</i> the tail, and as the tail is presumably the principle means of the animals' propulsion, then we must account for the apparent <i>motions </i>of specimens during the course of such sightings.<br />
<br />
First,
we have established so far that surface sightings alone tell us there
must be at least two, and possibly four limbs with which the animal can
paddle, and that they can raise a considerable disturbance in the water
tells us they are not completely ineffectual. Secondly, in rereading
the remarks to all 251 sightings recorded in Mackal's 1976 table of
eyewitness observations, cross-checking neck/tail sightings against any
reported movement, something quite telling emerged: in all but <i>six</i>
cases, the animal was reported to be stationary or moving slowly while
the neck/tail appendage was above water. In two of these six cases, the
speed of the animal was reported as "fair" or "moderate", leaving only <i>four</i>
cases where the object was reported to be moving fast or at speed with
the "neck" above water (cases I'll come back to in just a few
paragraphs). By contrast, there are plenty of accounts of Nessie making
speed, just below the water or with only a hump or dorsal edge breaking
the surface. Sonar has shown the animals making speed at depth. Why
can't Nessie make any speed when her neck is above water? Because that
isn't the neck at all, it's her primary form of propulsion, the <i>tail</i>. <br />
<br />
When surface motion is both slow and in the direction <i>opposite</i>
that in which the tail is tilted we can naturally visualize the animal
beneath the water is paddling forward (the animal on the left in the
diagram below). But in these cases, if the observer believed the tail
was actually a neck, wouldn't they report they saw Nessie swimming
backwards? That doesn't seem to be mentioned in any of the accounts.
Very often though what we do hear a comparison of the supposed "neck" to
a telegraph pole, completely or nearly vertical; that may be true, or
it may be the effect of the angle of observation; the closer to vertical
the "neck" <i>appears</i> to be, the less possible it becomes to judge
if there's any tilt in the direction of travel. Add to this that most
surface sightings are at too great a distance to even distinguish
whether the appendage seen is a neck or tail, along with the fact the
observer usually has no objective basis for knowing which way the
submerged body is facing, and the direction in which the tail is tilted
actually becomes guesswork. If slow or minor motion <i>is</i> observed,
anyone with the preconceived notion the visible appendage is the neck
might think they see a tilt in the direction of movement even where no
such pitching exists. The tip of the tail folded down or curled to a
horizontal position, being taken for the head, may also be taken as a
pointer for direction of movement, even when no movement is actually
occurring.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ-chky5pFB8UBGtLTSMwptqPBUNzUYc8lB4SL4XE8z1Sv-V6_pNzJhKu7MQndEhdgPRFAVjrs7Vj5zHKCU6x-fGj6PkfhzDoxilgNbEqpe5daxZc5x-DSc6TZebVtmsy5reSh3f2MxY_q/s1600/Paddling_small.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ-chky5pFB8UBGtLTSMwptqPBUNzUYc8lB4SL4XE8z1Sv-V6_pNzJhKu7MQndEhdgPRFAVjrs7Vj5zHKCU6x-fGj6PkfhzDoxilgNbEqpe5daxZc5x-DSc6TZebVtmsy5reSh3f2MxY_q/s1600/Paddling_small.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Watching,
waiting, and keeping pace... Slow movement to adjust position is
possible with the paddling action of limbs alone, regardless of
inclination of the tail when exposed above water. Such motion is
entirely consistent with the little if any movement reported in the
overwhelming majority of head-neck sightings</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Now consider the opposite case. Motion appears to be slow and in the <i>same</i>
direction as the "neck" is tilted (animal on the right in the above
diagram). Here it appears the animal is moving in the same direction
the "neck" is pitched. No one would report backwards swimming now, as
they are seeing what they expect forward motion to look like. And yet,
being an aquatic animal, there is no basis for assuming which way the
sub-surface appendages are moving. In this case movement in the same
direction as the tail is tilting requires the animal to paddle
backwards! Now is that reasonable? Well, not being aquatic animals
ourselves, we're more used to land animals like dogs and sheep, horses
and cows, normally walking in just <i>one</i> direction: forward! What
must be remembered here is that an aquatic animal, used to
three-dimensional movement at will, can paddle forwards, backwards, or
in circles to its heart's content. Any fish or giant salamander,
regardless which way it's long axis is pointing, can back up whenever it
wants or has reason. The vertical tilt of the tail, which is going
unused for propulsion when it's above water, is actually irrelevant to
the direction of movement in all these cases.<br />
<br />
Consider: what type of behavior might we be witnessing when the Loch Ness
Giant Salamander floats nearly motionless, near or on the surface, tail
up and head down, perhaps making slow adjustments in
position with only slight motions of its limbs? Head <i>down</i> is
probably the significant clue. The tail isn't being deliberately lifted
above water for any purpose at all; rather, the entire body is canted
at an angle to keep the <i>head</i> pointing downwards, and it is merely
coincidental the animal has reason to be at the surface in the first
place. (Recall in the first part of this article we established
definitively that any visible hump almost always submerges when the long
appendage rises above water, and that this <i>tail</i> almost always submerges before a hump rises above water; the animal is actually adjusting its entire pitch.)<br />
<br />
The
reason for striking such a pose and calmly holding its attitude
for many minutes, is consistent with the
behavior of known giant salamanders freezing as their prey swim
near. While the river species live in shallow waters and lie in wait
on the bottom for passing fish, momentarily freezing when one is near
the mouth to allow it to blunder into striking range, a giant salamander
adapted to deep water would have to float near the surface or just
above the littoral shelves (which brings it near the surface) to be near
its food supply. Fishermen traditionally hold that dawn is the best
time of day for fishing, as fish rise to feed as the encroaching
daylight begins to warm the surface. Fishermen apparently are not the
only species aware of this advantageous timing, not if you will recall
that the majority of all sightings of the unidentified species in Loch
Ness occur in the earliest hours of daylight, with between 80% and 85%
of reported sightings falling between sunrise and 9:30 am (Dinsdale,
1961).<br />
<br />
At first it might seem
counter-intuitive that the Loch Ness Giant Salamander would hold its
main form of propulsion perfectly still while feeding, whether the tail
is below water or protruding above (temporarily depriving it of any
high speed maneuvering). But the known species of giant salamanders do <i>not</i>
chase their prey, which would be far too costly in terms of
energy expenditure. They float rather passively among their prey, or
just above or
below, and employ a method of vacuum feeding. When a fish passes close
enough to the front or side of their large, wide mouths, they snap their
jaws open so rapidly that the prey is sucked into the sudden vacuum
created in the empty space between
the jaws, and then they snap their mouths shut again so quickly that the
fish
literally seems to vanish into nothing. The other nearby fish don't
even seem to notice the sudden "evaporation" of their comrade, and
neither panic nor flee. The salamander hasn't had to move a muscle or
expend any energy other than the single snap of its elastic jaws, and
the <i>next</i> victim remains in close range, as calm as if it was
swimming near a log. (Some excellent footage of a Japanese Giant
Salamander, <a href="http://eol.org/pages/319982/overview"><i>Andrias japonicus</i></a> feeding can be found in the documentary series <i>Planet Earth</i>.) The main difference here between the known species of <i>Cryptobranchidae</i> and our Loch Ness Giant Salamander is that the known species have no great depth to hover over.<br />
<br />
The final stumbling block to my proposal that the appendage above water is <i>never</i>
a long neck may at first appear daunting, but is actually the case that
cements the argument. What of those mere four sightings (out of 251)
that I mentioned earlier, where the animal, long neck-like appendage
clearly above water, appears to swim <i>at great and/or sustained speed</i>?
These exceptions are so few, it is tempting to cherry-pick around them
rather than let them upset my working morphology. (Unfortunately, by
extension of this logic we could almost ignore all long head-neck
sightings, as they comprise as little as 15% of the 251 overall
sightings referenced here in the first place.) How to account for the
animal swimming at its highest speed if that "neck" held high is really
the tail, which needs to be beneath the surface to propel it?<br />
<br />
In
fact these remaining head-neck sightings of Nessie moving at speed pose
no trouble at all, for a quite simple reason: aquatic animals <i>never</i>
swim at sustained speed with a substantial part of their bodies above
the surface and adding drag. None of them. Period. The <a href="http://concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t47887451/energy-efficiency-of-locomotion-below-the-surface-5-times-be/">hydrodynamics of sustained surface swimming</a> are energy-prohibitive due to wave resistance, or "surface tension" if you will. It costs an animal 5 times <i>less</i>
energy to make speed when it is entirely below the surface. And in the
animal kingdom, calories equal food, food equals survival, and it is
survival that dictates behavior.<br />
<br />
Therefore any reported sighting of a neck-like object above water, and sustaining high speed, could <i>not</i> be the neck of the animal, or any animal, because it couldn't be an animal in the first place. Yes, <i>short</i>
bursts of a couple seconds may be accounted for by flipper or paddle
action alone, leaving the tail free to be the part seen above water.
But <i>no</i> animal, even if it had both a long neck and a long tail,
would ever swim at sustained speed with that neck held above water. We
can also be sure plesiosaurs never swam that way, even if they were
otherwise candidates. That there are only a miniscule number of such
long-neck, high-speed sighting reports (1.59% on Mackal's extensive
list) is actually quite a good thing to know. Any such sightings must
be cases of misidentification of non-living objects (i.e. speedboats),
and it is reassuring to find out such eyewitness mistakes have been
exceedingly rare.<br />
<br />
This last hurdle behind us, there is no remaining reason to postulate a long neck for Nessie to explain <i>any</i> of the surface sightings. All can be accounted for by the appearance of the tail alone.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>(In the upcoming Part 3 of this article we will examine:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: #38761d;">"What Land Sightings Have Told Us About Morphology")</span></b></span><br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com58tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3716477215381066992.post-32293737503740384342013-01-23T12:26:00.000-06:002014-04-02T10:55:37.473-05:00A New Morphology vs Classic Sightings (Part 1 of 3)Readers of my previous articles may have noticed I've treated the image of the Loch Ness animal in the Hugh Gray photo as if it were a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_specimen#Type_specimen">type specimen</a>. In the absence of physical remains in a museum, or a living captive, this is only rarely acceptable to the academic community when recognizing a new species (and I'd hazard to say Nessie is the <i>least</i> likely candidate to be granted an exception to the rule). Luckily for us, there is no law against discussing the nature and form of an as yet unnamed, unclassified species. And while the Gray Photo is critically helpful, it is not our only source of information about the morphology of the Loch Ness Giant Salamander.<br />
<br />
The next question to be resolved is this: can the morphology of a giant, aquatic salamander even be compatible with the other evidence (besides the Gray Photo), the other observations, and the centuries of varying reports of unidentified creatures in Loch Ness? Particularly with what reports there are of long necks? Herein I shall attempt to demonstrate that this is indeed the case, and that the form of a giant salamander is more than adequate for explaining the great majority of all observations.<br />
<br />
Before proceeding, another brief nod to history is in order. Over a century before the press coined the name "Nessie" and began spreading the notion one should expect to see a plesiosaur if they went looking for <i>An Niseag</i>, in fact a whopping 131 years before Hugh Gray took his camera to the loch, a crofter from the village of Abriachan named Alexander MacDonald was rescuing an injured lamb near the water's edge when he had a harrowingly close encounter with a 20 foot long animal in Loch Ness. As related by Nicholas Witchell (<i>The Loch Ness Story</i>, Penguin edition, 1975, page 17) MacDonald reported the animal that paddled to within 50 yards of him using two short appendages reminded him of a salamander, and indeed referred to it as "the great salamander" for the rest of his life. (From another source, a correspondent for the Northern Chronicle who
also looked into the Alexander MacDonald case, we hear that MacDonald
"often" saw his "salamander" in the early hours of the morning while he
waited to catch the ferry to Inverness from Abriachan pier.) Witchell further relates that into the start of the 20th century the ferry skippers putting in at Abriachan pier would hail the piermaster by shouting: "Seen the salamander today?" This tale almost immediately precedes Witchell's account of an even more singular event, this time from 1880, the first underwater sighting. The diver was Duncan MacDonald. When sent down to examine a shipwreck off the Fort Augustus entrance to the Caledonian Canal, he immediately gave the emergency signal to be pulled up, and reportedly never dove again in his life. Because next to the keel of the ship, on the rock shelf where it was lodged, Duncan MacDonald saw a large animal "like a huge frog". (Taxonically speaking of course, salamanders are frogs with tails, and hence the name of their order of classification, <i>Caudata</i>.) Here we have three nineteenth century references to exceptionally large animals recognized as amphibians in Loch Ness.<br />
<br />
(Thanks to an anonymous reader of my blog, I also have another most pertinent account to relate. The source is <i>A Bridge To The Past: An Oral History of Families of Upper GlenUrquhart</i>
by Peter R. English (Inverness, Speedprint, 2009). It reads: "Early
in the Second World War, Ian [MacDonald] had been on an exercise
in the area with the Cameron Highlanders when, going along the shores of
Loch Ness, a disturbance was spotted. They all piled out of the truck
and, armed with their spying binoculars, they watched "the beast" for a
full twenty minutes. When Hamish [MacDougall] as a little lad was not
behaving to Granny's [Annie MacDonald nee Galbraith's] liking, she
would threaten "I will throw you to the <i>salamander</i>" – her name
for "the
monster" [emphasis mine]. Between this and the Alexander MacDonald
account of 1802 cited above, we have proof that for a period of at
least 112 years, the local name given to "the monster" in Loch Ness was
<i>the salamander</i>, or <i>the great salamander</i>.)<br />
<br />
I
quote these accounts at this point to invoke the cryptozoological term
"ethnoknown". Put simply it means, local people know and realize what
animals they have around them, and have a working knowledge that often
proves superior to the "informed" opinions of outsiders. One must live
in an environment to understand it. It strikes me as critically
suggestive that during the 19th century and into the early 20th, a
period relatively free from mythological and medieval influences on the
one hand, but also free of the upcoming journalistic, pseudo-scientific,
and Hollywood-borne influences on the other, that local inhabitants
were interpreting the animal they lived with in the Loch as "the great
salamander". Not a water horse nor dragon, nor a plesiosaur, and
certainly not Godzilla. The people living around Loch Ness who
encountered this mysterious animal during this arguably less-biased
period were comparing what they saw to the fauna they already knew, and
they saw it for what it was: a <i>very</i> large salamander. In earlier
times witnesses were surely more apt to jump to the conclusion they'd
seen a manifestation of the devil, and in later times a Jurassic marine
reptile. But in this post-rationalistic age, this window of time before
the animal in the Loch had any 20th century expectations to conform
with, eyes were open and common sense may have just prevailed. People
weren't labeling it a <i>salamander</i> without reason. The simplest reason being, that's exactly what they were seeing.<br />
<br />
<br />
All this seems to have made perfectly good sense to William Horsburgh Lane, who retired along with his wife Agnes to Invermoriston to lead a quiet life by the shores of Loch Ness. Lieutenant Colonel Lane had lead an adventurous life, soldiering in the Far East with the Indian army, and then pursuing his life-long interest in archaeology. But earlier in his life, while fishing in Burma about 1901, Lane had run into none other than <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_giant_salamander">Andrias davidianus</a>,</i> the Chinese Giant Salamander which grows to lengths of six (perhaps even eight) feet. With that interesting encounter in his past, and then finding himself living beside Loch Ness, Lane took up a keen interest in the local rumor, and was sure he knew the answer: the local monster must be a relative of the creature he remembered from Burma. In a 1933 letter to the Inverness Courier, William Lane became the first to espouse the giant salamander theory in print, and went on to write the very first book published on the subject of Nessie, <i>The Home of the Loch Ness Monster</i> (Moray Press, March 1934). Respected naturalist Rupert T. Gould (<i>The Loch Ness Monster and Others</i>, summer 1934) and biologist Roy Mackal (1976) were at least temporary proponents of a giant amphibian theory, but otherwise the idea has languished, largely perhaps as a consequence of the Surgeon's Photo, which was taken after Lane published, and shortly before Gould's book went to press. There is however no account of Lane ever wavering in his theory. Like Alexander MacDonald, we may presume William Lane was also still thinking in terms of "the great salamander" when his life ended. Fortuitously he had his own sighting just a year before his death, and in so far as we know the large black hump he witnessed didn't cause him to change his mind.<br />
<br />
<br />
Morphology is the study of the gross structure of an organism and the details of its outward appearance (size, shape, measurements, color). Below is my "working" morphology of the Loch Ness Giant Salamander, an attempt to pin down what a specimen would look like if we could lift it out of the water and examine it. This is compatible with my interpretation of the two animals in the Gray Photo, but not limited by it. (Size, for example, cannot be reliably measured from the Gray Photo until we work out what the field of view was before the print was cropped.) The degree to which my model is compatible with other lines of evidence, or incompatible with the conclusions of other researchers, will no doubt raise some points for discussion, but none more so than the absence of the classically interpreted long neck. A long, plesiosaur-like head and neck arrangement on any species of <i>Amphibia</i>, any salamander current or extinct, would be a startling and unlikely anomaly. And if the Gray Photo with its short-necked and large, almost eel-like headed creatures is accepted into evidence, then we must resolve this new morphology with the views of the past.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj75li59F9W-B961pHhHX5OGQnhFAG8D9pL_yijlRjzf-9x9vg3X2TR_Iqoj0o21ilAdNoKCVN-kVsImZeKNxBAIQ55WLkMfQXDlztI7ZH67m_L76Q2rOi8oBCT7cmWR9J2ODXYbqfa8hT-/s1600/Morph_D01_1066x960_with_NOTES_&_borders.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj75li59F9W-B961pHhHX5OGQnhFAG8D9pL_yijlRjzf-9x9vg3X2TR_Iqoj0o21ilAdNoKCVN-kVsImZeKNxBAIQ55WLkMfQXDlztI7ZH67m_L76Q2rOi8oBCT7cmWR9J2ODXYbqfa8hT-/s640/Morph_D01_1066x960_with_NOTES_&_borders.jpg" height="576" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click on diagram for larger image</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="color: #134f5c; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Here for comparison is a juvenile specimen of the Chinese Giant Salamander, <i>Andrias davidianus</i>, which may still prove to be the nearest living cousin of the Loch Ness Giant Salamander. I've chosen a juvenile to better illustrate how fin-like the posterior appendages may appear, in contrast to the anterior appendages which have already developed into webbed feet in this example. The rear appendages will later become webbed feet, by which time the front feet will have lost their webbing. Eventually in the adult <i>davidianus</i> the rear feet will also lose their webbing, and all digits will be quite well differentiated. Cases of more fin-like or flipper-like appendages reported for Nessie may also represent younger specimens going through these transitions, or they may equally as well represent the permanent retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood (see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny"><i>neoteny</i></a>).</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3KeSQbH9S7Vo-wusDzI2yoKjHWZYZGcIdF3iIfW3akOHBWBD2V_zJUGpkmTN6zKWD9fXJV54ibuuqMEDnSJjF6bxmT77P-aJUo3p05HtiF6t2XRdVDLCgJGwsU_Qr2Qi2_n0CEBldhZSZ/s1600/Andrias+davidianus+001.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3KeSQbH9S7Vo-wusDzI2yoKjHWZYZGcIdF3iIfW3akOHBWBD2V_zJUGpkmTN6zKWD9fXJV54ibuuqMEDnSJjF6bxmT77P-aJUo3p05HtiF6t2XRdVDLCgJGwsU_Qr2Qi2_n0CEBldhZSZ/s320/Andrias+davidianus+001.jpg" height="258" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Juvenile<i> Andrias davidianus</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Before dealing with the human viewpoint and the previously proposed long-necked morphologies, let's have a look back at the evidence on which those viewpoints were based. The three lines of evidence that can give us structural details or help to infer morphology are eyewitness accounts (from surface and land sightings), photographic evidence, and to a much lesser extent sonar readings. I shall tackle these in reverse order, to get the smallest out of the way first and save the largest category for last.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-size: large;"><b style="color: #38761d;">What Sonar Has Told Us About Morphology</b></span><br />
<br />
Unfortunately sonar images do not provided morphological detail beyond approximate size (and not always that, depending on the type of sonar). When size is reported for sonar contacts, the estimates never seem larger than 20 feet (with a 50 foot exception recorded in 1954; see Nicholas Witchell, <i>The Loch Ness Story</i>, Penguin edition, 1975, pages 80-81). Significant sonar echoes might also be returned by Atlantic sturgeon or Wels catfish, distractor species that <i>might</i> also be occasionally present in the Loch, but these would not normally exceed 15 feet, leading us to believe our larger contacts must be with an unidentified species.<br />
<br />
Sonar can also give us speed, direction and depth of an animal, implying anatomical and behavioral traits which help construct an image to some minor extent. For example, it tells us the body plan must be that of a powerful swimmer. Time and location of contacts may tell us something of behavior as well, such as diving profiles telling us we're dealing with a benthic, water-breathing animal (see Roy Mackal, <i>The Monsters of Loch Ness</i>, page 126). This may not seem like much, but it's actually invaluable to the conclusion we're dealing with an unknown species in the first place, and the type of animal it must be.<br />
<br />
Despite the maximum size of 20 feet so far detected by sonar, I have elected to go with 25 feet for my "typical" specimen in the preceding drawing. In any event, changing the scale would be the easiest correction to make if future evidence so warrants. There are two reasons to predict a slightly larger size. One is that eye witness testimony over all these years includes larger specimens, even up to or exceeding 60 feet. I would throw out these largest estimates on general principles, suggesting as others before me that these are cases of misidentification of the Loch's well-documented and occasionally remarkable wave forms. This brings us down to the many estimates of 30 feet or smaller as representative of the largest reported size. And I would further reduce that, taking into account how difficult it is to estimate the scale of something seen far out in the water, with no adjacent reference points; if anything, the adrenaline or preconceptions of the viewers seem more likely to cause observational errors on the "plus" side, rather than the "minus" side.<br />
<br />
But I also hesitate to take the 20 foot sonar readings as indicative of the <i>largest</i> size for the following reasons. Sonar reflections are highly dependent on the <i>density</i> of the object. Giant salamanders have a low bone density; reduced ossification is a characteristic part of the adaptation from terrestrial salamanders to aquatic forms. This is not only true of our three current, recognized species of giant salamanders in Asia and North America. The post-cranial remains of the aquatic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinthodontia">Labyrinthdonts</a> show an evolutionary progression towards increasingly cartilaginous skeletons before fading out of the fossil record (a subject to which I'll be returning, and for very good reason, in a later article on the taxonomy of our beastie). What this comes down to is that there are good reasons to suspect the Loch Ness Giant Salamander has a relatively low bone density, and would therefore return sonar contacts that could lead to an underestimation of its actual size. If the calcification is even lower in juveniles, one could even wonder if these smaller, younger specimens might be invisible to sonar.<br />
<br />
So between 30 foot eye witness sightings and 20 foot sonar contacts, I am parsimoniously confident to award our virtual type specimen, a typical adult, a size (or we should say <i>length</i>) of 25 feet.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="color: #38761d;">What Photographs Have Told Us About Morphology</b></span><br />
<br />
Studying the external form of an animal only requires a pair of eyes, but of course captured images that can be studied and measured at leisure would be the most helpful thing to have. Unfortunately <i>useful</i> photographic images of our beastie are few and far between. Here I'm narrowing the definition of <i>useful</i> to any image that gives us a clue to the structural morphology of Nessie, and for which the case of it being a hoax or mistake cannot be definitively proven. As liberal as this may sound, just these two criterion serve to eliminate almost all candidates: a photo (or webcam video) of a hump, blob, or wake tells us nothing we don't already know, regardless of authenticity. I also include the Tim Dinsdale film in this category, as even if it's not a boat it doesn't show us structure. As to the second category of unheplful material, examples include the Sheils photos, the recent Edward's hoax, and the tremendously "over-enhanced" Rines flipper pictures which aren't showing us parts of any living creature at all.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-size: small;"><b>Some of the more famously (or infamously) useless photos:</b></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAX3k6GtqV5CR8j4-Kk2L6ICWOH4MxQPrJ2b3SFyiT6MlnOP_hmYRHtDUxHA22U589-5Y1I24fWy_t5XdKG53OyPAUUn1j2eKApIOJu8v9lnM7tBSTaZsYykHRdZckvDJGtN4kaaqseWn8/s1600/Useless.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAX3k6GtqV5CR8j4-Kk2L6ICWOH4MxQPrJ2b3SFyiT6MlnOP_hmYRHtDUxHA22U589-5Y1I24fWy_t5XdKG53OyPAUUn1j2eKApIOJu8v9lnM7tBSTaZsYykHRdZckvDJGtN4kaaqseWn8/s640/Useless.jpg" height="156" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left to right: (1) a puppet (2) a recycled, wooden film prop being towed by a tour boat (3) a famous photo of the loch bottom <i>before</i> the flipper got hand-painted over it (4) a famous tree stump on the bottom of Loch Ness, which was still in the same spot and photographed again years after this picture was taken.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This leaves, in my estimate, only three photos that can be taken as <i>useful</i>, or possibly useful. I've devoted two previous articles to the Gray Photo, and direct you to those for my reasons to believe the photo is not only authentic, but shows us the upper portions of two giant salamanders of unrecognized species. Unfortunately the Gray Photo lacks reference points to give us scale. On the other hand, the Peter MacNab photo, which gives us reference points and scale, only shows us two moving humps. For many years the MacNab photo was thought to be inadmissible as evidence because there appeared to be two conflicting versions of the photo. Roland Watson has resolved this matter with a proof that the two versions are actually one and the same photo, and you may read about that <a href="http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/2012/02/analysis-of-peter-macnab-photograph.html">here</a>. And lastly we come to the much maligned Surgeon's photo, although purported to be a hoax (<i>Nessie - The Surgeon's Photograph Exposed</i>, by David Martin and Alastair Boyd, Herts., U.K., 1999). If one wishes to accept it as genuine (and I don't consider the case quite closed on this matter) it also lacks reference points to give us scale. It also undermines the working morphology I've established so far, or at least it would seem to. And what of the second photo Dr. Wilson took? The temptation here is to throw out these two Wilson pictures, but one should never be too hasty to throw out data that doesn't fit one's model. What doesn't fit might actually be trying to tell us something. So I have chosen to keep the Wilson photos under consideration, and let's see where that leads.<br />
<br />
So what then do these few photos tell us about structural morphology?<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Useful, or possibly useful photos:</b> <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRrYkPBBiGL0FdWc1EzOBv_hYYlHq1gfziZkmiorN_L_kk_HGEtUkCpzu_3vuGxJe6DdRj3nOpIBi_X4BY5pBQc5uH-pUtnCjIufYEIflhCo0idV4M-8_J6UPaYwArJ8UupTZU4GSfs-cJ/s1600/Uselful.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRrYkPBBiGL0FdWc1EzOBv_hYYlHq1gfziZkmiorN_L_kk_HGEtUkCpzu_3vuGxJe6DdRj3nOpIBi_X4BY5pBQc5uH-pUtnCjIufYEIflhCo0idV4M-8_J6UPaYwArJ8UupTZU4GSfs-cJ/s640/Uselful.jpg" height="115" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left to right: (1) the Gray Photo (2) the MacNab Photo (3) detail of the 1st Wilson Photo (4) the 2nd Wilson Photo</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The Gray Photo is the most useful piece of evidence we have. We see the overall shape of the upper portions of the animal, evidence for the number of appendages and their locations as well as the important clue that the anterior appendages are actually limbs, the shape of the head and mouth (on the further of the two animals), and the horizontal flexture of the powerful tail along with a look at a fairly prominent caudal fin that runs forward from a point about a third of the tail's length, starting from the tip, to slightly up the rear of the dorsal hump. Also of great importance, it gives us the lateral proportions of the animal. As a percentage of overall length we have: 16% head-neck, 50% body, and 34% tail. This is in major contrast to the traditionally assumed proportions of 33.3% head-neck, 33.3% body, and 33.3% tail. And I am about to make much of the "co-incidence" that the actual tail is the same proportion of the total animal as the traditional head-neck region was supposed to be: <i>any authentic sighting or photograph of Nessie in which a long neck was spotted must have included a misidentification of the tail as the neck.</i><br />
<br />
Accepting that the right hand portion of the Heron-Allen print of the Gray Photo shows a large head on a short neck (see <a href="http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/2011/06/hugh-gray-photograph-revisited_26.html">Watson's article</a>), then every case of a witness reporting a long thin neck <i>had</i> to be a misidentification of the tail (if what they saw was the same species as in the Gray Photo). It would be highly imprudent to postulate two separate species of large unidentified animals in Loch Ness, or to postulate extreme variability in neck anatomy from specimen to specimen, when all we need to account for such sightings is that the Loch Ness Giant Salamander occasionally lifts its tail above water.. And exactly such a tail <i>is</i> the clearest element in the Gray Photo. I'll return to this dilemma later.<br />
<br />
We can take from the MacNab photo one of two conclusions: we have a single, two-humped specimen an incredible 50 feet long, or we have two single-humped specimens, one with a 30 foot dorsal line followed by a smaller animal showing a length of about 12 feet. Personally I would favor the two-specimen interpretation, and the supporting evidence to this might be that the two humps seem to be on slightly different axis in the full size image. Even so, the <i>visible</i> 30 feet of the longer object would mean something even bigger than my virtual type specimen. But the normal variability within a species would still allow for an occasional member to exceed the mean size, which if 25 feet might make a specimen a little over 30 feet (20% above average) not totally implausible.<br />
<br />
Last among the photos relevant to the problem of morphology, we come to the two pictures taken successively by Dr. Kenneth Wilson in April 1934, the first of which has become known as the "Surgeon's Photo". It remains the most popular Nessie icon in the world, despite having been labeled a hoax since 1994 (<i>Nessie - The Surgeon's Photograph Exposed</i>, by David Martin and Alastair Boyd, Herts., U.K., 1999).<br />
<br />
What's problematic for <i>this</i> article is any chance the Wilson pictures might still prove genuine, as at face value the Surgeon's Photo (1st Wilson photo, above) depicts what has been accepted by many as a long, plesiosaur-like head and neck. That Wilson's photos <i>might</i> still be vindicated is a possibility, as the key witness for the expose that debunks Wilson's first photo (Christian Spurling, stepson of Marmaduke Wetherell) actually seems to have been unaware of the existence of Wilson's second picture (2nd Wilson photo, above), a glaring omission by someone claiming to have been in on the alleged hoax from beginning to end. So rather than dismissing the Surgeon's Photo, I've chosen to tackle it head on (no pun intended), as if it does show a live animal in Loch Ness.<br />
<br />
For those who long accepted the Surgeon's Photo to be a genuine picture of Nessie, the standard interpretation was almost universally agreed upon: this was the head, held horizontally, atop a long serpentine or swan-like neck that appears to meet a thicker body before entering the water. There is some disturbance in the water behind the neck, but no hump. Perhaps the animal is stretched out vertically with the neck above water. But isn't it equally possible then that Nessie is stretched out vertically, head <i>down</i>, tail above water with the tip curling down? Unfortunately the angle of the sun at the time this image was made gives us only a black silhouette to study. All details within the borders of the silhouette are blank, awaiting completion by the imagination of the viewer. Tim Dinsdale (<i>Loch Ness Monster</i>, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1961) took the picture to be genuine, and thought it couldn't be a carved model because of details he saw in the photo that a hoaxer wouldn't have had the foresight to include.<br />
<br />
A rather curious detail that first perplexed me when I was analyzing this photo many years ago is the apparent pinching in the neck that starts about halfway up. At the time I took this uneven diameter to be the sign of a possible mane lying flat, but this constriction occurs on both the dorsal <i>and</i> ventral sides, which seems inconsistent with a mane. This sudden narrowing of the "neck" is even more evident in a negative image of the photo (I've indicated the spot where it starts with red arrows in the first three panels below). Years ago I gave up trying to understand this artifact in the photo. Earlier this year I had prepared a drawing based on a giant salamander for use in this article (you'll see these illustrations a bit further on) and had need of turning the finished product into a silhouette to use as an insert. Imagine my own surprise when I black-filled the picture, rotated the tail into an upright position, and spotted pinching in the same area of the "neck" as in the Surgeon's Photo. How had I unintentionally created the same effect? The answer lies in that the perceived pinching in my drawing is an illusion. It's not that the tail object has any constriction in it (look at the fourth panel), it's that the caudal fins I depicted hanging on either side, when viewed in silhouette, cause a sudden widening on the object that fools the eye when other detail is lacking (see panel five). Now I hasten to add, quite strongly, this proves nothing whatsoever about Wilson's first photo. It should be obvious that proof about a photo cannot be drawn from any illustration that coincidentally resembles the photo. The only thing unequivocal is that a coincidence has occurred. That coincidence being, the object in Wilson's first photo has a detail <i>consistent</i> with the raised tail of a salamander bearing dorsal and ventral caudal fins. It's certainly a hard detail to explain in a hand-carved plesiosaur neck. It's not impossible to explain, perhaps the hoaxer got carried away with his sandpaper, but it certainly is a curious matter besides the rest of this business. At any rate, I'm satisfied the Wilson photos pose no danger to my working morphology, and could even strengthen the case if anyone overturns Christian Spurling's story. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdK0ugpRAEhb8bA8VAgEMMV1HfH2IxeuNhSr_dvD8JUWSNgRK5TGpogdFT1sjnGosBaJxmSuWv_qlPAAE8yl9B8y6lVGdBusWuLkKBaWx_tSS2EF-ebKQlSZCSzBawR_0a6UrRRdhjJwNa/s1600/Surgeon_photo_is_tail.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdK0ugpRAEhb8bA8VAgEMMV1HfH2IxeuNhSr_dvD8JUWSNgRK5TGpogdFT1sjnGosBaJxmSuWv_qlPAAE8yl9B8y6lVGdBusWuLkKBaWx_tSS2EF-ebKQlSZCSzBawR_0a6UrRRdhjJwNa/s640/Surgeon_photo_is_tail.jpg" height="144" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click for larger image</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
If the object had been moving at any significant speed this would contraindicate the tail being above water, as we can presume the animal can't make great speed without use of the tail. According to Nicholas Witchell, who obtained his information through Wilson's widow and the rare privilege of viewing Wilson's own letters about the incident, he reported it took him two minutes to take the photos (he had to change plates multiple times), during which the object "moved a little and submerged" (<i>The Loch Ness Story</i>, revised edition, Penguin Books, 1975, pages 44-45). Note there is no wake in either Wilson photo, and nothing to indicate significant motion as well. Wilson also reported having to run 50 yards and back to obtain his camera from the time the object surfaced; from that we can estimate that the object was above water for about 5 minutes, during which neither Wilson nor his companion apparently saw any significant movement to report. But yet there is <i>some</i> movement. In the 2nd Wilson photo, taken approximately 30 seconds later according to Witchell's findings, the object has submerged by approximately two-thirds of what was visible in the first picture; the angle at which the object enters the water is noticeably lessened, yet the "head" is still horizontal to the waterline (was the model hinged?). And most importantly, the profile of the knob at the tip has changed; a skull is fairly unlikely to change its proportions in 30 seconds, but the flopping tip of a tail is extremely likely to take on other dimensions as the tail moves to a lower angle.<br />
<br />
There is nothing in Wilson's photos or sighting account to preclude the object above water being the tail rather than the neck and head of an aquatic animal. In fact a tail, especially one with a pair of caudal fins, makes for a much better explanation of the object that occurs in both photographs. Nor is it suspicious that the animal (if the photo is genuine) held its pose for five minutes; the known giant salamanders are ambush rather than pursuit predators, and will hold quite still waiting for nearby prey to pass within snapping range. If this is an instance of feeding behavior, doesn't it make far, far more sense for the head to be <i>below</i> water than above?<br />
<br />
Having exhausted anything sonar and photos can tell us about the structure of the Loch Ness Giant Salamander, let us move on to eyewitness accounts.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
</h3>
<div style="color: #38761d;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;">(</span><a href="http://thelochnessgiantsalamander.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-new-morphology-vs-classic-sightings.html">Click Here</a> <span style="color: black;">for Part 2 of this article,</span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>"What Surface Sightings Have Told Us About Morphology"<span style="color: black;">)</span></b></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3716477215381066992.post-83962860292632719452012-09-18T04:23:00.001-05:002012-11-04T01:55:59.975-06:00A Beast With Two Backs - Part II<div style="color: #741b47;">
(This entry is an addendum to my previous post, <i>A Beast With Two Backs - The Gray Photo Deconstructed</i>. I would suggest reading the main article first if you haven't already. I'll integrate the two posts into a permanent page on this site later.)</div>
<br />
I thought I'd be done with the Gray Photo for awhile and get on with the larger topic of this blog, but the original article engendered so much comment on the buoyancy issue, the "balloonish" shape of the object in the photo, I knew I had to do one of two things. I considered putting Nessie on a low-fat, vegan diet and waiting for her to slim down and answer her critics herself, but in the end it seemed more politically correct, perhaps even chivalrous, to post a short sequel and defend her bodily proportions myself.<br />
<br />
It has been a long-time criticism of the Gray Photo that the object appears to float much too high above the waterline to be a natural object or real animal. My previous post dealt with this issue in passing, but it clearly requires a greater explanation, and a broader one covering three things: What We Have In The Photo, What's It Doing? and What Else Might Be Going On?<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>1. WHAT WE HAVE IN THE PHOTO</b> </span><br />
<br />
The first thing addressing this was implicitly the main point of the article: it's not one but <i>two</i> animals in the photo, most evident in the cleaner Heron-Allen print than in the press photos. Thus the observed vertical height is <i>not</i> that of a single animal. As we're looking downwards at two parallel bodies, the top of the further animal can be seen "above" the dorsal line of the front-most animal, accounting for about 25% of the overall vertical height perceived above the waterline.<br />
<br />
Separating the image into two bodies, and clipping out the furthest of the two animals (see figures below) is not the only thing that reduces the vertical axis of the front animal relative to its horizontal axis. We must also take into account the perspective from which the photograph was taken. Had Hugh Gray lain on his belly at the shoreline to take the photo, then the picture would show only the profile of the animal, and the true ratio of the visible length to the visible height. But Gray was standing on a high bluff, looking downwards at a point believed to be just south of where the river Foyers enters the Loch. We must know the angle from which he took the picture in order to estimate the true horizontal perspective.<br />
<br />
In the original article I had calculated an angle of 8 degrees based on the details of Gray's account as were published in various sources (not all of which completely agree with each other), as well as the observations of researches who had visited the site on the bluff. Whereas Gray himself said he was about 30 feet above the water, the majority opinion tended towards that elevation being 40 feet. F.W. Holiday claimed a height of 50 feet, and from the map in his book <i>The Great Orm Of Loch Ness</i> (W.W. Norton and Co., 1968, page 30) he was indeed talking about the same bluff widely, but not universally, accepted to be the correct spot. I originally went with the 40 foot height estimate, which coupled with the 100 yards distance to the object Gray also reported gave us the elevation of only 8 degrees.<br />
<br />
Now there is fresh data. I am very grateful to <a href="http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/index.html">Dick Raynor</a> for not only contacting the experts with the Ordnance Survey, but also visiting the site in person and dropping a measuring tape from the bluff. The present, confirmed height from the edge of the bluff to water level, with a meter added to allow for Gray holding his box camera at waist level, is 30.9 feet. Remarkably close to Gray's original estimate, and less than the 40 feet I used in my original calculations. I should add that Mr. Raynor himself suspects the Gray Photo was probably taken at a different, as yet unidentified location other than the commonly accepted spot on the bluff. Dick has been studying Loch Ness since 1967, and I highly recommend a visit to his <a href="http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/index.html">Loch Ness Investigation</a> website for anyone with a serious interest in the subject. But if you have grand illusions about the "wealth" of photographic "proof", especially in things like plesiosaurs, giant flippers, and gargoyle heads, be prepared for a refreshing shower of logic.<br />
<br />
Dick was also helpful in suggesting a method for extracting the true angle at which the Gray Photo was taken from the picture itself, rather than relying on Gray's distance estimate. This hinges on the concentric ripples emanating from the leftmost tip of the object, which I take to be the tail of the animal. These waves would of course form circles if seen from overheard. The degree to which they've been deformed into ellipses by the angle of view can be calculated by measuring and comparing the ratio of the major and minor axes of these ellipses. This is a perfect and objective method in principle. Putting it to practice, I ran into the difficulty that the larger ellipses, the ones most suitable for precise measurement, are truncated on the left by the end of the photo, and they are blocked on the right by the main body itself. Tracing these partial ellipses and then completing them by eye introduces a subjective element I'd rather have left out, so I welcome any suggestions to further refine the method. What I have settled for in this instance is the range of values I obtained from these tracings, with these falling between a minimum of 19 degrees and a maximum of 31.2 degrees elevation. The lower value came from the smallest ripple, and is therefore more prone to error than the higher values obtained from the larger ones. I'm confident Gray's true angle of elevation falls between these two numbers, but leave it for a real expert in photo analysis to pin the precise measurement down further.<br />
<br />
Setting aside the overall significance of Gray's elevation being close to 30 degrees for a few moments, let's finish up with this whole buoyancy issue first. Let's draw in a waterline as a reference point on the Heron-Allen image, and highlight the dorsal outline of the front-most of the two animals. And let's for good measure excise the second animal from the photo altogether (images below). Last of all, let's do something to take into account the fact we are looking <i>downwards</i> at the animal from an elevation of 30 degrees. Unfortunately it's not a hologram, so we can't really rotate the body in 3 dimensional space. But the problem isn't complicated enough to really require that for our purposes here. Mathematically it's similar to rotating the ripples from ellipses into circles to determine the angle of elevation in the first place. What happens when you correct the horizontal perspective for that 30 degrees of elevation? Luckily Paint Shop Pro has a filter for that, and the result is the last of the three images below.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV0Y5AEZILHdpGb66zIJuWJTRNx1Vhql-2_ArMpVvxZKhhX7e51jJ5iYNDnzHlu4EcZlV_wrwtWzjyHWdBW-TVNHPG3ZELYc5QwnfWPDbsJHrx54XhxR-UgrbAAJW-vtTKuWroGSOOQnVi/s1600/HA1-Front-outlined.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV0Y5AEZILHdpGb66zIJuWJTRNx1Vhql-2_ArMpVvxZKhhX7e51jJ5iYNDnzHlu4EcZlV_wrwtWzjyHWdBW-TVNHPG3ZELYc5QwnfWPDbsJHrx54XhxR-UgrbAAJW-vtTKuWroGSOOQnVi/s400/HA1-Front-outlined.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">FRONT ANIMAL OUTLINED (click for larger image)</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2M1LDVOayI89vQWdKpiu5sn3PvPuYDis1xrcGWI9uU4l4OZ7cgAPg7ylFVM-IdqHzOegaK4udh-C0rKyj_jxR6-UUCDVdiPwYZo1U5qlzza-oI6pNEiORQ22OMWoTRwxqtKeAkPqO_6O_/s1600/HA2-Front-alone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2M1LDVOayI89vQWdKpiu5sn3PvPuYDis1xrcGWI9uU4l4OZ7cgAPg7ylFVM-IdqHzOegaK4udh-C0rKyj_jxR6-UUCDVdiPwYZo1U5qlzza-oI6pNEiORQ22OMWoTRwxqtKeAkPqO_6O_/s400/HA2-Front-alone.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">REAR ANIMAL REMOVED (click for larger image)</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_ZQvnimnYd4nYxpmSKvJOs87iixR-DbIWCtykpIzMXc5pDiXSXHDxhZhwpc1IDu-TekcOncw2-kT-ro-3fYwDvGel1_5VEnz_BQVqWv7WyzPjuQGm2T0BDp69CW0t_Rzf3hK4juJ02NsQ/s1600/HA3_Front-Z-minus-30d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_ZQvnimnYd4nYxpmSKvJOs87iixR-DbIWCtykpIzMXc5pDiXSXHDxhZhwpc1IDu-TekcOncw2-kT-ro-3fYwDvGel1_5VEnz_BQVqWv7WyzPjuQGm2T0BDp69CW0t_Rzf3hK4juJ02NsQ/s400/HA3_Front-Z-minus-30d.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">TILTED BACK 30 DEGREES to approximate profile viewed at water level</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
What we end with is a considerably flatter profile than what we started with when we had the backs of two side-by-side animals viewed from above. (That we also end up with a profile that correlates astonishingly well with the body plan of a member of the family Cryptobranchidae is something I'll get to in just a few more paragraphs.) The isolated side view of the nearer animal is, to say the least, far from "baloonish" anymore, and there is no longer reason to presuppose there is less of the total body <i>below</i> the waterline than above it! This last image is still only an approximation of the horizontal profile, and contains distortions we can't correct without more work. For example, the head still appears artificially raised above our reference line because it was turning to the left in the original photo, and the simple perspective filter I used cannot correct for that. To get rid of that illusion and do a truly proper job of this, we'd have to hand draw contour reference lines onto the original body (to serve as the missing "3D" data) and then feed it all into proper CGI software. I welcome anyone to give that an attempt and share the results here. The point for now is that any further straightening of the neck and tail, and lowering the head to get everything in line with the long axis, isn't going to make the body <i>thicker</i> than it already appears, but will yield an even <i>thinner</i> profile than what we've already obtained here.<br />
<br />
Now there's two more things that address this whole floatation issue, separate from the image in the photo itself, and fortunately they don't require trigonometry and diagrams, only logic:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #38761d;">
<b>2. WHAT'S IT DOING?</b></div>
<br />
It, or more precisely they, there being two of them, are in motion. Hugh Gray described the object to be in considerable motion, with much splashing and noticeable thrashing of the tail(s). But he never spoke of forward progress or swimming, nor of horizontal movement. His report tells us the object surfaced, made a considerable commotion in one spot for a few minutes, and then submerged presumably in the same spot it came up. This is totally consistent with the photo itself, which shows no wake. So if this considerable motion is not horizontal, it has to be vertical. For whatever reason these animals bobbed up to the surface where they did, bobbing in one spot is <i>what</i> they were doing.<br />
<br />
That means from moment to moment, varying degrees of the bodies were vertically exposed. There's no need to justify how the animals held themselves up at whatever highest point they obtained, because it was a transitory oscillation in the vertical movement, not a pose held for the count of ten while the photographer said "cheese". We have no idea what the mean value of the vertically exposed portion was over time, because we have only one frame. A still photo can capture a very
transitory event. A snapshot of a whale breaching doesn't require a
belief that whales can fly - and that's a good thing because there are
plenty of genuine photos of whales completely in the air. We do not say whales are too buoyant to exist, because we have snapshots of them fully clear of the water. In my third illustration above, there's no reason to presume we have more than 50% of the animal visible above water at all. So what's good for the whale is even better for the giant salamander.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #38761d;">3. WHAT ELSE MIGHT BE GOING ON?</b><br />
<br />
By a wayward path, we now come back to the overall theme of this blog, the Loch Ness Giant Salamander. The question has been raised as to how a purely aquatic, benthic animal could spend time above the surface at Loch Ness at all. When an animal swims on the surface, it meets for more resistance than when swimming below the surface. The laws of hydrodynamics dictate 60% more energy has to be spent by an animal swimming above the surface, and animals as a rule do not waste excessive amounts of their hard-won calories, at least not the ones that succeed evolutionarily.<br />
<br />
But in the case of the Gray photo, it does not appear to be a case of surface swimming at all, it's a case of floating in place and thrashing. Whatever this behavior represents, we do not have to explain it in terms of locomotion. Still, the specific gravity of an aquatic animal designed for bottom dwelling would normally require it to burn energy paddling in some way to stay afloat on the surface. Except, however, in one very important case: when the animal has lungs. Once at the surface, inflation of the lungs becomes possible, this lowers the specific gravity of the animal, and floating becomes "cheap" if not completely free. That doesn't aid forward locomotion one bit, but again we don't <i>have</i> forward locomotion to explain in Hugh Gray's photo.<br />
<br />
During the course of their evolution, most of the terrestrial amphibians that re-adapted to fully aquatic living have, with few exceptions, <i>retained their lungs</i>. The purely aquatic caecilians, which normally absorb all their oxygen through their skin, retain their lungs throughout life and come up for a breath when they aren't getting enough oxygen by their normal means (but see the recently rediscovered <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atretochoana_eiselti">Atretochoana eiselti</a></i> for a marked exception). <i>All</i> species of aquatic salamanders have and rely on their little-used lungs when their ponds are low. Axolotls also kept their lungs, despite having both gills and epidermal respiration, and when forced to use their lungs to survive during dry conditions will sometimes even morph into terrestrial salamanders. And the largest recognized amphibian of all, the Chinese Giant Salamander <a href="http://www.edgeofexistence.org/amphibians/species_info.php?id=547"><i>Andrias davidianus</i></a>, has retained its lungs and still uses them when needed, although it is fully aquatic and normally doesn't leave the water. For as seldom as they use them, it's a fact all the living members of the family Cryptobranchidae have retained lungs, so a Loch Ness Giant Salamander falling in the same family would be quite likely to have retained them as well. For as young as the Loch is geologically, a population of giant salamanders that arrived even shortly after the glacial melt would not have had enough time yet to lose its lungs through evolution.<br />
<br />
If as I believe we have giant salamanders in the Gray Photo, then their buoyancy (if it needed any enhancing to explain the photo) would only require use of their lungs. In fact the animals were apparently being so aerobically active with their splashing, thrashing and tail wiggling, it's possible the need for extra oxygen via their lungs is what brought this behavior up to the surface in the first place. It's where all aquatic amphibians go when they are running out of breath, at least if they want to sustain the activity that was costing them the extra oxygen to begin with.<br />
<br />
Between these three things, the corrected profile of the front animal in the photo, the vertical bobbing that had to be part of their motion on the surface, and finally the presumed ability to inflate their lungs once on the surface, I see no room at all to refute the authenticity of the Gray Photo based on flotation or any issues dealing with buoyancy.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #38761d;">AND LASTLY</b><br />
<br />
As promised I must return to an issue raised earlier. That the true elevation of Hugh Gray's camera at the moment the picture was taken is actually close to 30 degrees (at least 19, but probably closer to 30) raises its own questions.<br />
<br />
Gray's estimate that the object he photographed was 100 yards (300 feet) away is clearly impossible if his elevation was 30.9 feet, and the angle derived from the rippled wave measurements in the photograph is as much as 30 degrees above horizontal. One need only dust off the Pythagorean Theorem to work that out.<br />
<br />
If the location of the bluff is correct, and the height of the
water is correct, and the 30 degree angle is correct, then the object can only be 60 <i>feet</i> from
the camera (and that's generously using the hypotenuse, although that is technically the line-of-sight portion of the triangle). And 60 feet is hardly comparable to 100 yards. This picture was taken from considerably closer than the distance for which Hugh Gray was quoted.<br />
<br />
If the picture
was taken from another location at a higher elevation of say 50 feet (that was the number Ted Holiday gave),
then line-of-sight distance to the object comes in at nearly an even 100 feet, but still not 100
yards. Could Gray have misjudged the horizontal distance by a factor of
3? Were his units of measure misquoted in the accounts? Proposing
two exceptions as an explanation begins to feel like stretching the truth to fit the data,
which is rarely a safe idea.<br />
<br />
Now is probably a good time to remember the angle of elevation I derived from the elliptical wave patterns was fuzzy, between a low of 19 degrees and a high of 31.2. That will have to get pinned down at some point. At that lower estimate of 19 degrees, the line-of-sight distance to Gray's object becomes 95 feet (from an elevation of 30.9 feet) or just over 150 feet (if the picture was taken from a hypothetical spot 50 feet up). But this last possibility is stretching things; not impossible, but decidedly less probable.<br />
<br />
In any of these number games, we end up with a photo taken from a much closer spot than traditionally believed. Which at least serves one helpful purpose: this accounts for the <i>absence</i> of the far shoreline from the top of the picture, without having to depend on creative cropping or theoretical tampering for explanations. At Foyer's Bay the opposite shore is relatively close, and a photo taken straight across the Loch from an angle as low as 8 degrees or less would almost certainly have had to include that opposite shoreline in the picture, just over the animals' backs. That Gray was aiming downwards, at a steeper angle and at a closer point, solves this part of the problem.<br />
<br />
As one can see, there is still more work that needs to be done with the Gray Photo, but as that's not the sole purpose of this blog we shall let that rest for awhile.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3716477215381066992.post-23298814307399605112012-08-28T16:03:00.000-05:002013-10-03T16:58:19.275-05:00A Beast With Two Backs - The Gray Photo Deconstructed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
In his landmark book <i>The Monsters of Loch Ness</i> (Swallow Press, 1976) University of Chicago Professor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Mackal">Roy P. Mackal</a> wrote of the 1933 Hugh Gray photograph:<br />
<br />
"I believe the picture is probably a genuine photograph of one of the aquatic animals in Loch Ness. However, objectively, nothing decisive can be derived from this picture. There is no apparent basis for determining which is front or back, and any such decisions must depend largely on what preconceptions one may have. Nevertheless, the two protuberances along the waterline may well represent appendages (fore and hind limbs), and the outline at the waterline appears to show a horizontal sinuous undulation. The importance of providing photographic evidence of these possibilities is not to be underestimated."<br />
<br />
A distinguished research biologist, as well as being the first scientist to apply computer based statistical analysis to Loch Ness phenomenon data, Mackal was no easy pushover. In his analyses of the Loch Ness "monster" surface photos then extant, he awarded his "positive evidence" rating to only three, including the Gray Photo, while ruling out even that most famous of Nessie pictures, the Surgeon's Photo by R.K. Wilson, a photo widely accepted as authentic by many people of the time.<br />
<br />
Mackal's observations about the Gray photo were astute, but also rather
remarkable considering the poor quality of the image he and every other
researcher had to work with at the time. Here is a scan of the Gray
photo as it appeared in Mackal's book: <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUHj9isSW5NeNhQbn1tWQ867nGMppXORAYOdP7qj4caQe_vbZyVTZvf_T6OwaJ93lCqc26wL5BW3CyKb86brUkYByCPzeaT-jRGaB-eBE7bx5fBQopOFzs5VUpCeuzcQM-Ap4B7WzbZUb2/s1600/Xp01.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUHj9isSW5NeNhQbn1tWQ867nGMppXORAYOdP7qj4caQe_vbZyVTZvf_T6OwaJ93lCqc26wL5BW3CyKb86brUkYByCPzeaT-jRGaB-eBE7bx5fBQopOFzs5VUpCeuzcQM-Ap4B7WzbZUb2/s400/Xp01.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #38761d;">SOME HISTORICAL BACKGROUND</b><br />
<br />
References to the Gaelic water horse tradition, and specific mentions of the <i>Each Uisge</i> or <i>kelpie</i> of Loch Ness, the loch most frequently cited in conjunction with the tradition, are scattered throughout historical texts written from the 16th century and forward. A Pictish gravestone dating from between the 7th and 9th centuries depicts the creature, as may some earlier carvings. The earliest recorded sighting of a "monster" in Loch Ness (or at least the River Ness, depending on one's source) details an encounter with the animal made by Saint Columba, while traveling through Scotland in the late 6th century on a mission to convert the Picts. For a full account of the long overlooked historical tradition behind the Loch Ness mystery animal, I heartily recommend reading Roland Watson's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Water-Horses-Loch-Ness-supernatural/dp/1461178193/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314689370&sr=1-11"><i>The Water Horses of Loch Ness</i></a> (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011).<br />
<br />
Despite the ancient and deeply rooted tradition that large, unidentified animals lived in the depths of Loch Ness, it's unlikely that few people outside the Highlands of Scotland would have paid the matter any attention if it had not been for one invention: the camera.<br />
<br />
Around Sunday noon on the date of November 12, 1933, while strolling home from church, a local resident named Hugh Gray spotted something rise in the Loch, thrashing its tail and making a considerable splashing about 100 yards out from the spot where the river Foyers enters Loch Ness. Gray's sighting was only one of many over the centuries, but what distinguishes it from all that came before was that he was carrying a camera, and used it to take the first known photograph of the animal. He took five pictures in total, unsure if any would turn out amidst all the splashing and spray. One photo did turn out, and along with Gray's story it was submitted to The Daily Record and Mail. The Daily Record had the fortuitous presence of mind to submit the negative to several experts, including Kodak, all of whom agreed there was no sign of any tampering. Of course it would have been highly difficult in those pre-Photo Shop days for Hugh Gray, a local aluminum company worker, to have engaged in trick photography, but it is all the better for us that the provenance of the original photograph and negative was being firmly established at this early point, re-enforced in subsequent years by the findings of those researchers who visited Gray. Interviewed over the years by the likes of Constance Whyte, Ted Holiday, and Tim Dinsdale, Gray never waivered in the details of his story, and must be considered a highly reliable and even reluctant witness.<br />
<br />
The Daily Record published the Gray Photo in December of 1933. It was quickly picked up and repeated in The Daily Sketch, The Daily Telegraph, and newspapers across the world. In modern terms, the story "went viral", and the modern, press-driven era of "The Loch Ness Monster" and its nickname "Nessie" had begun<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="color: #38761d;">HEADS OR TAILS?</b></span> <br />
<br />
The various versions of the picture as published by the press of the day can be found all over the Internet, and generally look no better than this:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcx_O7qbjhIvfLQaevyx2D8qCrpkXSdhrio4WUhyphenhyphenS2fySiE0os1j5M_kMJHUPYvyKCVeBjoz0MAi4GI2FVOEcumd8QVQ9QWrq6D8_ilcxUId1GLbE7bUm291n5YRVekQmju8FIp8CKvtJO/s1600/Xgraypict.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcx_O7qbjhIvfLQaevyx2D8qCrpkXSdhrio4WUhyphenhyphenS2fySiE0os1j5M_kMJHUPYvyKCVeBjoz0MAi4GI2FVOEcumd8QVQ9QWrq6D8_ilcxUId1GLbE7bUm291n5YRVekQmju8FIp8CKvtJO/s320/Xgraypict.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
And it was from reproductions like these, made from the original negative first being converted to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-tone">half-tones</a>, and then having had their contrast considerably tweeked upwards to darken and "solidify" the images for newsprint publication -- processes which inevitably subtract all fine detail -- that Loch Ness investigators have had to work for the past eight decades. Back in the early nineties when I originally became interested in seeing if I could work out the morphology of the Loch Ness animal for myself, I put one of my first computers to work scanning images of the various photos from books, another process which in itself can lead to further lost detail and the introduction of visual artifacts that weren't part of the original photo. One result was the reproduction of the Gray Photo from the Mackal book, found at the very top of this article. The fact is that if you tweek and photo-shop any photo enough, you might start seeing Labrador Retrievers in anything, including the Mona Lisa. (That Gray photographed a dog is a ludicrous and lamentable idea that itself went viral in the early days of popular Internet usage, and some renditions of the Gray photo floating around appear further retouched to deliberately bolster that ridiculous notion.)<br />
<br />
Looking at these newsprint and book reproductions leaves little wonder why Mackal wrote "<i>There is no apparent basis for determining which is front or back, and
any such decisions must depend largely on what preconceptions one may
have.</i>" And yet there is enticing detail in even these images. Coupled with Gray's testimony there can be no doubt we are looking at an animate, living object. The part on the left is the clearest element of the image, and caught in the act of undulating as Hugh Gray described the tail to be doing. There's not one but two pointed, fin-like structures arising from the top of this tail, if it's the tail, at the point it meets the main body, but then these fins appear to diverge into different directions -- which seemingly makes no sense. This particular mystery is most evident in the higher contrast versions:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlz_XF0exeAn27YTnH-76lXgDGC1O2rihs2CYqjCqwfVG_O9lhi8hG6TYb0mcUVncdFww6w1meCBlxlsWdVAe3tUCueXqt8dhBYDjl_J6RFZJZqMErINgqfGiYwabNMX3wsjtcHhbWmJr1/s1600/Xp01-fins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlz_XF0exeAn27YTnH-76lXgDGC1O2rihs2CYqjCqwfVG_O9lhi8hG6TYb0mcUVncdFww6w1meCBlxlsWdVAe3tUCueXqt8dhBYDjl_J6RFZJZqMErINgqfGiYwabNMX3wsjtcHhbWmJr1/s320/Xp01-fins.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
But if this is the tail, then where is the neck and head? If one is working from the preconception that there <b><i>has</i></b> to be a long neck, then perhaps this <i><b>is</b></i> the neck, and perhaps those dorsal fins, if relaxed and hanging, would account for the occasional reports of a mane? Following an assumption this is the head and neck, then the head is small indeed, absolutely miniscule in proportion to the overall size of the animal; it appears completely undifferentiated from the "neck" here, although there may be a couple minute features visible that could be eye slits or even little stalks (except that they only appear at the highest contrast and when the image is taken from a book; on this small scale they may only be artifacts of the printing process).<br />
<br />
Also, if this is the neck, then the tail (which must be quite developed to serve as Nessie's means of reputed rapid propulsion) must be at the right hand end of the object, but there's no sign of it; could it be flexed down at an acute angle and fully below the waterline? Conversely, if this element in the image detail above is actually the tail, then it's the neck bent acutely below the waterline at the right end of the object; that might make some sense if Nessie is floating on the surface dangling its neck below the waterline like a fishing line intent on snagging prey. But if that were the case, all the splashing and tail thrashing Gray reported seems counterproductive to sneaking up on fish.<br />
<br />
Other intriguing details in the total picture are the two white dots along the waterline where one might expect appendages to be. F.W. Holiday studied the Gray Photo intensely, was one of the interviewers of Hugh Gray, and visited the spot from which the picture was taken. In <i>The Great Orm of Loch Ness</i> (W.W. Norton and Co., 1968) he states his conviction these are indeed the parapodia of the Loch Ness animal.<br />
<br />
And here is pretty much where further analysis of the Gray Photo was stalled. There wasn't enough detail in any of these newsprint photos and their circulating reproductions to answer these questions. Unfortunately whatever became of the original negative is unknown. After nearly 80 years of study, not much more could be said.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #38761d;">
<b>A BOMBSHELL</b></div>
<br />
In 2011, Loch Ness researcher and author Roland Watson wrote the definitive analysis of the Hugh Gray Photo in his article <i><a href="http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/2011/06/hugh-gray-photograph-revisited_26.html">The Hugh Gray Photograph Revisited</a></i>. It is published at his <a href="http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/">blog</a>, and it is mandatory reading for anyone interested in the Loch Ness animal, and the Hugh Gray photo in particular. To quote Mr. Watson:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
"It is best in these cases to get the most original image and as luck
would have it another print came into the hands of Maurice Burton in
the 1960s which were made from glass lantern slides in 1933 for E.
Heron-Allen. Importantly, these contact positives were made from the
original negative and represent the best untouched picture of what Hugh
Gray saw that day."</div>
<br />
Watson obtained this all-important picture, made from the original negative, from the Fortean Picture Library. The full image used in Mr. Watson's analysis may be viewed in his blog article mentioned and linked to above. In commenting on Watson's analysis, Aleksandar T. Lovchanski furnishes the information that Steuart Campbell deposited the glass lantern slide print with the FPL after obtaining it from Burton. Therefore the provenance of the Heron-Allen version is rather well established, stretching back to the original negative. It is only regrettable that this more definitive version of the Gray Photo was overlooked by so many researches for so long.<br />
<br />
The Heron-Allen image contains all the detail lost in the press reproductions and their overwhelming contrast adjustments, and upon studying it Roland Watson made what few would contest must be the most important discovery in Loch Ness research in many years. He found the head! And it is on the right.<br />
<br />
Having stared at the Gray Photo in books, having scanned it, enlarged it, filtered it, sketched it, and looked at it every way possible for about 40 years, I'm still a bit thunderstruck by this revelation. But I am convinced that what Watson has identified as the head is indeed just that: our only known picture of the head of the unidentified species in Loch Ness.<br />
<br />
At first this struck me as creating more problems than it solved, as like many I took it that Nessie had a long neck and a small head. While I never subscribed to the Plesiosaur theory, I assumed that convergent evolution had resulted in an amphibian with an anatomy that followed the long-necked, fish-chasing body plan of a Plesiosaur. Nature does not discard proven templates, and it was a design that served many species of aquatic reptiles quite well for millions of years. But that has not proven to be the case in Loch Ness. The Gray Photo is hard evidence that Nessie has a short neck, and a relatively large and fish-like head.<br />
<br />
So swallowing my pride (and abandoning a pet theory of my own, which I might detail in a later post for nostalgia's sake) I set about having my own closer look at the Heron-Allen image. After all, if I'd been overlooking the head for 40+ years, the important question became: <i>what else</i> had I (and everyone else) missed? If the details of the poor, over-contrasted press releases of the Gray Photo had been so enticing, how much more might we learn from the Heron-Allen version? It needs to be taken apart and put back together, a project I decided to tackle soon after learning of Watson's find.<br />
<br />
The first and most important contribution I spotted is the reason for the title of this post.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #38761d;">A BEAST WITH TWO BACKS</b><br />
<br />
There are not one, but <i><b>two</b></i> specimens of the Loch Ness animal captured in Hugh Gray's photo. (For the best look at the Heron-Allen image I again link you to an article by Roland Watson, <i><a href="http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/forensics-of-loch-ness-monster.html">The Forensics of the Loch Ness Monster</a></i>. You may click on his image there for a full-sized zoom on the Heron-Allen image.)<br />
<br />
There are two backs (or dorsal lines) to follow if you trace your finger across the image from left to right, with the clearest example of this being between the two bright water sprays. You may note that the back of the topmost or further animal becomes the top of the head Watson discovered. This animal, the one furthest away, is also about one head's length ahead of the nearer animal, and the head of the nearer animal is hidden in the spray.<br />
<br />
If you are using an LCD monitor such as on a laptop, start with the screen almost vertical and then slowly tilt it back while viewing the Heron-Allen image -- that's how I first spotted the second dorsal line. Below is a smaller version of the image onto which I've drawn an overlay for comparison with the original. I use hyphenated lines in the two places where spray obscures the dorsal line of the front-most animal, where the head of the front-most animal is hidden behind spray, and where the anterior appendage disappears below the waterline:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHz4QxemquEfJM2cRDz5-0A3d1NemTNq2YqnTUDKNAMf3dDe6WmCVlcPmkXSFZ7voWpijnXFBot7vITyhxG5L8QP3VTITOwRNl9X8TVT7nq4-gdAgydVYUZqI_9anaAtnJVDlgzwuoVBMs/s1600/GS-01-comparison.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="534" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHz4QxemquEfJM2cRDz5-0A3d1NemTNq2YqnTUDKNAMf3dDe6WmCVlcPmkXSFZ7voWpijnXFBot7vITyhxG5L8QP3VTITOwRNl9X8TVT7nq4-gdAgydVYUZqI_9anaAtnJVDlgzwuoVBMs/s640/GS-01-comparison.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Let's examine, from left to right, what is visible here but has not been previously noted or explained by the high contrast press releases of the Gray Photo.<br />
<br />
First is the tail. Unlike Mackal, whom we quoted to begin this article, we now <i>do</i> have a basis for identifying the leftmost part as the tail, because the head has been identified by Watson on the right. The caudal fin<i>s</i> (not fin) were actually more evident in the high contrast prints. If you capture the image and increase the contrast yourself, you can turn the Heron-Allen image into an exact replica of the press version minus the scratches (another bit of proof we're dealing with the original photo here.) Turning up the contrast does increase some detail on the left side of the picture, like the caudal fins in my earlier close-up, while simultaneously ruining details such as the head on the right hand side. But now that we've identified two separate backs, the reason for the mystery in my earlier look at the fins becomes evident: there are two apexes to the "fin" because it's actually two fins belonging to two separate tails, one behind and slightly ahead of the other. What may even be the tip of the second tail is visible protruding just left of the caudal fin of the front-most animal.<br />
<br />
Working our way right, the next element of interest is the posterior appendage. We now know it to be the posterior one, because we know which end is which. In the original press publications of the photo both appendages appeared as mere white dots, but here we have quite a bit more to look at.<br />
<br />
There actually appears to be a motion-blurred after-image of a flipper-shaped posterior appendage in the spray, making it look for all the world that this fountain of water was cast up by the rear appendage of the front-most animal. What may be the edge of the appendage itself, slapping the water, appears at the waterline. Alas this is not a great view of the appendage itself, but it's almost incontrovertible from this that Nessie <i>has</i> posterior appendages -- or at least this one does.<br />
<br />
Moving further right along the waterline we come to the anterior appendage. Second only to the head, this may be the detail most improved in the Heron-Allen image. Instead of just a white dot, we have the upper joint of a limb meeting the body at approximately a 90 degree angle, then flexing downwards and sweeping back at a second joint point just before dipping below the waterline. We cannot say if the termination point of the appendage is a flipper, a webbed foot, or another form because the end is below the waterline. The few witnesses that have reported appendages in their sightings over the years have varied in their descriptions of flippers, webbed feet, and even hoof-like forms.<br />
<br />
Accounts have also varied as to whether Nessie has both front and back appendages, but in this photo there is clearly a back appendage of some kind tossing up water. Oddly though, whereas the anterior limb joins the body clearly above the waterline, the joint of the posterior appendage does not appear at all. This is a mystery. The animal (the front one) might be twisting a bit on its longitudinal axis -- there is considerable flexing in the body from the curvature in the waterline, a feature also less evident in poorer quality images. The animal be turning its head towards the animal beside it. Perhaps in the process of twisting its front half to the left, the attachment point for the right front limb is lifted higher than the attachment point for the posterior counterpart, which is hidden just below the waterline at that moment.<br />
<br />
It may be worth mentioning at this point that aquatic amphibians, being <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny" title="Neoteny">neotenic</a> and only completing partial metamorphosis do not always have equally developed front and back limbs, or at least do not always have equally developed appendages until the latter stages of growth. In aquatic urodeles the second pair of limbs may be fully developed, partially developed, or totally absent in members of the same species (Mackal, 1976).<br />
<br />
It must also be mentioned that, while the left-most spray of water
appears to be created by the posterior appendage slapping the water, the
same cannot be said for the right-most flash of spray; that must be
coming from the <i>left</i> anterior appendage of the <i>second</i> or furthest animal, tossed towards us and over the head of the nearer animal. That the two beasts are <i>alternating</i> front and rear water slaps like this is in itself quite interesting; water must be flying continuously; Hugh Gray reported considerable splashing, which must be taken to mean ongoing splashing, not just one instance of spray.<br />
<br />
We end our tour of the Heron-Allen image at the right hand end, with Nessie apparently looking right back at us. In making this discovery Roland Watson points out that even if the eye is not an eye, even if the mouth is not the mouth, the body of the animal clearly ends here in a blunt, conical shape <i>above</i> the waterline, and it casts a definite shadow of its own on the water. Again I recommend <a href="http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/2011/06/hugh-gray-photograph-revisited_26.html">his article</a> on this, but for my part I'm fully convinced the Gray Photo is showing us the head of Nessie.<br />
<br />
And I'm equally certain we have been looking at a photo of <i>two</i> of the animals all along. But is this mating behavior? Social behavior? Some salamanders engage in a courtship dances when preparing to
mate that consist of rubbing sides, splashing with their limbs, and thrashing their tails side to side. Such
behavior is strikingly similar to what Hugh Gray witnessed and photographed. This is obviously one area where we'd like to know much more.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="color: #38761d;">
<b>GRAY'S ACCOUNT VS. HIS PHOTO</b></div>
<br />
At this point I can imagine skeptics protesting the likelihood anyone could be so lucky as to photograph a <i>pair</i> of Loch Ness Monsters at one go, as it's so notoriously difficult to get photo evidence for even a <i>single </i>such animal. Yet real animals often travel in pairs and small groups. Even the most solitary creatures have to pair up on occasion if the species is to continue. In fact the many reported sightings of multiple and varying humps are most easily accounted for by multiple animals. If genuine, the P.A. MacNab photo taken in 1955 is most likely a picture of two animals as well (otherwise we're faced with a specimen over 50 feet long, which would be much less probable than two animals of 20 or 30 feet each.)<br />
<br />
The strongest evidence that the creatures swim in small groups comes from the University of Birmingham expeditions (1968-1969) and their sonar experiments headed up by Professor D.G. Tucker. On multiple occasions, the Birmingham researchers tracked large animate objects they estimated to be 20 feet long moving between the bottom of the Loch and mid-water, but never any higher. Contacts included at least one pair, and on one occasion a group or pod of what they estimated to be at least as many as five animals moving together for an extended period. They also clocked the diving speeds of the animals to be too great to be accounted for by fish.<br />
<br />
(In all fairness it should be pointed out that there are other interpretations of the Birmingham sonar data. Specifically that during some of the most pertinent readings, the thermocline was at its most reflective, and a surface craft had indeed passed through the area, the wake of which could have caused some spurious sonar reflections.) <br />
<br />
The hardest thing about accepting the Gray photo as two animals was that
Gray himself never said anything about seeing more than one. He did however say that he never had an unobscured view due to the considerable disturbance the animal was making in the water (Nicholas Witchell, <i>The Loch Ness Story</i>, Penguin Books, 1975). Now Gray estimated the animal to be 100 yards away, and his own height from the bluff on the shoreline to be 30 feet. Some accounts quote Gray as giving the distance as 200 yards; but he also said it "rose out of the water not so very far from where I was"; based on his wording I feel more inclined to trust the 100 yard quotes. Researchers visiting the site since then have also stated the elevation to actually be 40 feet, with F.W. Holiday even calling it 50. I think 40 is the safer estimate for us to consider. So going with 100 yards out and 40 feet above the waterline, this makes Gray's elevation relative to the animals a mere 8 degrees, with his view nearly broadsides; the photo supports both those conclusions. Under these circumstances the silhouette of the nearer animal would almost completely mask or hide that of the second. It would have indeed been difficult for Gray to tell it was two parallel animals.<br />
<br />
We have the luxury of staring at an enlarged, static photo for as long as we
like, whereas Hugh Gray only had a few minutes, and was
dealing with his camera and probably looking through the view finder while snapping his five attempted photos. Then
there's all the thrashing and spray to obscure what he was watching.
Still, he says the "object of considerable dimensions" moved about a great deal for "a few minutes", and
minutes are not seconds. So if it's a pair, they must have stayed in
close tandem for the minutes Gray watched them moving, for if they had
separated by any distance he'd have noted it was two independent objects. Unless we apply an even simpler explanation: the
second animal could have been on the surface at the start, been caught in the
photo, but then submerged. Then Gray, setting aside his camera, continued to watch the single
remaining animal for the final minutes before it too submerged. <br />
<br />
Let's look at the Heron-Allen image geometrically. As stated above, Gray's line of sight was only 8 degrees above the water level. In the diagram below I've placed two floating objects of equal size and shape next to each other, here viewed in cross-section. Since we already have the angle, the actual height of the objects doesn't matter at this point, but Gray estimated the animal's height to be 3 feet above water, and so I have indicated the same. The question is, would the camera be able to capture any noticeable separation of the two dorsal lines, and if so, how much? We can see here that the back or top of the nearer object would appear one foot below the top of the further object. The actual number of feet doesn't matter, as it's the ratio of the visible part of one animal to the visible part of the other animal we're trying to measure, and in this case the ratio is a clear 3:1. That is, Gray's camera would capture an image, from the top down, consisting of 1/4 rear animal, and 3/4's front animal. See the insert in the lower right corner of the diagram, where I've rotated the whole view slightly to make this more obvious:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipwV-fjgWFtBz1z0i0ywt_eV2Sx3FwtPYauKKi-Xt8A961-IceWVCjTEgYPkjpDW364ldvPWWUjgn1jTW-PA9h0H38Jiim3UqBkyAy4oe8PkuG7WstKICKHIXruWjubJwp_b-cu6r4yhIo/s1600/LOS_done.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="491" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipwV-fjgWFtBz1z0i0ywt_eV2Sx3FwtPYauKKi-Xt8A961-IceWVCjTEgYPkjpDW364ldvPWWUjgn1jTW-PA9h0H38Jiim3UqBkyAy4oe8PkuG7WstKICKHIXruWjubJwp_b-cu6r4yhIo/s640/LOS_done.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
This turns out to be extremely consistent with the amount of the further animal that is visible above the back of the closer animal in the actual Gray Photo. It's exactly what we'd expect in the photo, given the distance, the height of the observer, and assuming the two animals are of nearly equal size. (Personally I think the nearest animal is the slightly larger of the two. The distance between the apexes of the caudal fins is a bit larger than that between the front ends of the animals, which makes the rear one slightly shorter than the other. But given that these are moving animals with sinusoidally flexing bodies, thrashing tails, and turning heads, it's impossible to be exact about which one may be longest.)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
That there have been two animals present all along has an added benefit to us, as it answers not one but two of the unexplained problems previously related to the Gray Photo. One of the first criticisms of the picture has always been that the body looked too "baloonish" or buoyant, and that a real animal wouldn't float that high in the water. It only appeared this way because in the high contrast press images, two bodies had been lumped together vertically. As soon as the second dorsal line is recognized and drawn in for the closest animal, and the viewer becomes aware of looking downwards at side-by-side animals, then Nessie's proportions get a lot sleeker.<br />
<br />
Secondly, the parapodia Holiday recognized are no longer too low on the body to be accepted as appendages, because the height of the body above the waterline was never what it seemed. The appendages are right where they belong, and always have been.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #38761d;">THE MORPHOLOGY REVEALED</b><br />
<br />
Having taken the entire picture apart element by element earlier, it seems only fair to put it back together in the end. The overlay I drew for the Heron-Allen image makes for a good starting point:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQxvFBQo4kNS48Pj8peBfaWmg64V6ktEx7qIrh0X9Dx5YyEVpVqAXMMVQxdZPXRbU909F5UBKqfBB0fG_8AGsFGt4i4cconJ8xo5TEFUP2DqlQpGBq7M0SOJDslVVGthDxPS0rHNNs1Wvb/s1600/01-Overlay.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="111" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQxvFBQo4kNS48Pj8peBfaWmg64V6ktEx7qIrh0X9Dx5YyEVpVqAXMMVQxdZPXRbU909F5UBKqfBB0fG_8AGsFGt4i4cconJ8xo5TEFUP2DqlQpGBq7M0SOJDslVVGthDxPS0rHNNs1Wvb/s400/01-Overlay.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
One must guess at the features below the waterline. I have ventured to assume the tail is vertically symmetrical, thus adding a ventral fin. A laterally flexing, keeled tail makes for a powerful swimming appendage, which seems necessary to account for the great speed (as much as 10 knots) that's been reported for the animals. Also, or perhaps I should say inevitably, that's the normal tail configuration for aquatic salamanders.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6z8XlfVkqIEQRXksD5XDxhIABFzk7b5Ly3iCePNPQDb1KI-G-SG4gzFD3F7eYK4fUNTqAzdzC_VD-8GHhvVbX2WIvOks1Id4zrTdudsbTNLbw81ZDadvvrCy4B0IYWcMCGxkGpTc-n1uZ/s1600/Lnms-10_SMALL_bordered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6z8XlfVkqIEQRXksD5XDxhIABFzk7b5Ly3iCePNPQDb1KI-G-SG4gzFD3F7eYK4fUNTqAzdzC_VD-8GHhvVbX2WIvOks1Id4zrTdudsbTNLbw81ZDadvvrCy4B0IYWcMCGxkGpTc-n1uZ/s640/Lnms-10_SMALL_bordered.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The exact size and shape of the appendages must remain conjectural. I've gone with webbed feet here, but more flipper-like appendages are certainly possible; the posterior one could be a true flipper even if the front limb is more of a webbed foot. Also the true girth is conjectural as well, with the body being perhaps a bit thicker than I've shown here.<br />
<br />
Having recreated the front-most of the two animals, we now give a copy of that image an open mouth to yield an otherwise identical second animal, and lastly we place them together side by side with the further animal one head's length ahead of the other. The final result is my recreation of the Gray Photo as we would see the animals if we could take away the water and fountains of spray:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUwmMhq1nhfW8IifDkH7OmayO_LrF_Cx_jPdmYvh5sCUKlq1jMkEjXscszL22SnKnz0VrM8ZbRI2TSyFvCzxwFb7y6zu3AaEycxDZQX5p94WAe4zAxvVcGh0nmD8Bqi9U7sQThdZB4DbJZ/s1600/LNMS-10A-Gray_small_bordered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUwmMhq1nhfW8IifDkH7OmayO_LrF_Cx_jPdmYvh5sCUKlq1jMkEjXscszL22SnKnz0VrM8ZbRI2TSyFvCzxwFb7y6zu3AaEycxDZQX5p94WAe4zAxvVcGh0nmD8Bqi9U7sQThdZB4DbJZ/s640/LNMS-10A-Gray_small_bordered.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
As a bit of a reality check, I made one more rendition with the glare and water sprays manually airbrushed over the final reconstruction, to compare side by side with the original photo. Not a perfect match, but sufficient I hope to demonstrate that, once the water is removed and precious few blanks filled in, we have two of the same animal present in the original Gray Photo:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVKCxEVCTFHUd2Ihe1QcuGLZU0_WxzaGlaIdK0ESbNFltVgu7NJ-Q8cHW5fNpPRLYMi448PMXh4j1ILCUgZ5JtkMnZ30Qe0BZMr9fDhVlzwzYK9vEYNYoLy978SAQI9J-_n7kQNg4THsTT/s1600/LNMS-10A-Gray_w_overlay_SMALL_bordered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVKCxEVCTFHUd2Ihe1QcuGLZU0_WxzaGlaIdK0ESbNFltVgu7NJ-Q8cHW5fNpPRLYMi448PMXh4j1ILCUgZ5JtkMnZ30Qe0BZMr9fDhVlzwzYK9vEYNYoLy978SAQI9J-_n7kQNg4THsTT/s400/LNMS-10A-Gray_w_overlay_SMALL_bordered.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
Morphologically, the animal captured in the Hugh Gray Photo doesn't look very much like a fish in my opinion, but instead bears an exceedingly similar form to many aquatic salamanders. But those of similar form and similar <i>size</i> are unknown outside the fossil record. Within the fossil record though, they are quite well known. When it comes to living forms, the Chinese Giant Salamander, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_salamander"><i>Andrias davidianus</i></a>, is recognized as the largest amphibian in the modern world, reaching a length of six feet. The Loch Ness Giant Salamander seems to have that beaten by a factor of at least three, if not four or five.<br />
<br />
This brings us to the taxonomy of the unidentified species in Loch Ness, and the related issue of how it came to populate the Loch in the first place. I'll address both these items in a subsequent post article.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>(If you are outside the posts thread, click <a href="http://thelochnessgiantsalamander.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-beast-with-two-backs-part-ii.html">here</a> to view Part II of this article.) </b><br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com51tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3716477215381066992.post-53042037221656762792012-08-08T02:26:00.001-05:002012-09-21T15:13:26.671-05:00The Known Suspects - A Short AnswerWhile great discussions have been had over the possible candidates
for the Loch Ness animal, and I may go into greater detail about some of
those theories in later posts, we are going to get the ball rolling
with a single, and I hope definitive, statement:<br />
<br />
Nessie is not an air-breather, which consequentially rules out everything other than fish or amphibians.<br />
<br />
Even
if the temperature of Loch Ness was warm enough to support reptiles
(which it is not) and even if <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plesiosauria">Plesiosaurs</a> were not thoroughly extinct
(which, unfortunately, they are) you couldn't hide a population of them
in Loch Ness -- you couldn't even hide one. As air-breathers,
Plesiosaurs would continuously and regularly surface. Their respiration
would rule their behavior, and we'd have had our type specimen in hand
long ago. There are other problems with any form of giant reptile in
Loch Ness, but the respiration obstacle alone ends that debate. The
theory that the unidentified creatures in Loch Ness represent a relic
population of surviving Plesiosaurs has been the romantic favorite for
so many decades that many people will be disappointed by this. But
alas, this is rather irrefutable logic. Nessie never was nor ever
could have been a Plesiosaur.<br />
<br />
The same logic applies to mammals and birds. Extinction and known range aside, <i>Hydrodamalis gigas</i>,
or <a href="http://www.sirenian.org/stellers.html">Steller's Sea Cow</a> might be a suitable candidate based on
size and anatomical appearance, and could tolerate cold water, but runs into the
same initial problem as a Plesiosaur: it would constantly be coming up
for air, and too hard to overlook. The same is true of any less exotic
aquatic mammals, of which only whales grow large enough to account for
the size of our mysterious denizen. Even granted some form of giant
aquatic reptile or mammal came equipped with snorkeling appendages that
permitted it to sneak breaths without fully revealing itself at the
surface, that would still place it at or near the surface on a constant
and regular basis. Such an animal would still be spotted regularly by
fisherman, or any sufficiently patient monster hunters. It would also
have to <i>regularly</i> show up on sonar scans in mid-water, never far
from it's source of oxygen. The infrequency of such sightings tells us:
we are not dealing with an air-breathing animal here.<br />
<br />
A
nod must be paid to the late F.W. Holiday, who espoused for many years
his theory that Nessie was a giant aquatic worm. His book <i>The Great
Orm of Loch Ness</i> outlines this theory, as well as delving deep into the
dragon mythology of ancient Europe, and remains a great read to this
day. The obstacle to entertaining the possibility of a giant
invertebrate again comes down to Nessie's behavior, but in this case the
rarest and most mysterious quirk in that observed behavior: land
sightings. No invertebrate of Nessie's size could voluntarily leave the
water, enjoy a stroll, and return to the water. Like a giant jelly
fish it would collapse under it's own weight if removed from the water. Even
Holiday acknowledged this flaw in his otherwise rather good theory. As
infrequent as land sightings may be, they have been a constant part of the historical tradition, and an irregular but definite portion of modern, recorded sightings (perhaps as many as two dozen instances since the 19th century).<br />
<br />
Ultimately,
it all comes down to behavior. Nessie is a bottom dwelling, water
breathing animal that spends very little time on the surface or in
mid-water, although just enough to be spotted visually or by sonar on
very rare occasions. Its forays up from the the depths are most likely
made along the sides of the Loch, to feed on the fish which are
predominantly found along the sides, in shallower water above the
underwater cliffs that precipitously drop off into the 750 foot abyss.
Such behavior is only consistent with a fish, or aquatic amphibian,
which can extract all of it's needed oxygen directly from the water.<br />
<br />
Yet as seldom as it happens, and for reasons known only to the animal itself, Nessie also <i>leaves the water</i>
for apparently brief stretches, as observed most famously in the Spicer
and Grant sightings of 1933 and 1934 respectively. It may be said that
this is nothing new: it's a centuries old tradition among the
Highlanders that the <i>kelpie</i> or water horse of Loch Ness comes
ashore. That's a key behavioral trait to take into account if we are
distinguishing fish from amphibians.<br />
<br />
My next post will
be a picture essay which will on the one hand "deconstruct" one of the
more famous photographs ever taken at Loch Ness, while further demonstrating why we should be thinking in terms of the Loch Ness Giant
Salamander.<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com22