01x03 - Loch Ness: Fathoming the Monster

[bunniefuu]

Heart of Darkness and most importantly

Conan Doyle's The Lost World which

portrayed isolated islands of jungle as

potential Habitat For A Relic reptile

Survivor

in the 1920s the lost world became the

first of the ever popular dinosaur

movies and in 1933 just three months

before the spicers broadcast their story

on BBC Radio the Blockbuster King Kong

was released

it's not hard to see why the media was

so Keen to turn the spices Nessie into a

living dinosaur

and whatever they actually saw took on

the classic identity of a plesiosaur

and as for the proof

well they didn't have to wait long the

very next swing in April of 1934 proof

was provided in the form of this

Photograph hard evidence taken by an

apparently honorable Harley Street

surgeon and immediately the animal was

defined long neck tiny head the

plesiosaur Theory took hold

foreign

we know that up until 65 million years

ago reptiles Ruled the Earth dominating

the land the Seas and the skies

the dinosaurs were just one group

the plesiosaurs another

plesiosaurs were marine reptiles the

classic one that most people know about

had a very very long neck with a fairly

small head and fairly slender quite

delicate teeth

it had a barrel-shaped body with four

very large flippers and a fairly short

pointy tail

reptiles are not fish these were

air-breathing animals physiosaurs were

definitely air breathing animals they

were related to the likes of lizards and

dinosaurs they weren't like fish they

didn't have gills they had a proper lung

system and they were dedicated to the

surface for air breathing

now aside from being marine animals is

there any chance at all that any of them

strayed into fresh water it is possible

that they went into fresh water to have

their babies

they could have been doing that to give

birth to life young or they could have

been going there like turtles and

crocodiles to lay eggs that is a

possibility

and it's the possibility that is the

Monster Hunters scanning from the shores

of Loch Ness

but is or was Loch Ness ever a habitat a

lost world where a population of monster

reptiles might have survived

well imagination is one thing biological

feasibility is probably quite another

so could there be an unknown species of

giant reptile anywhere in the world and

could there really be a Loch Ness

Monster

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surprisingly to answer these questions

we need to travel 10 000 miles

sadly not to any real-lost world

but to Australia

you see in a way this is our most recent

Jurassic Park

here a great range of reptiles has

continued to rule Supreme

and I've come to find out why

to see if any monsters are still out

there

pick up any clues to

tell that Loch Ness mystery

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in the UK we'd expect squirrels and

foxes or dogs and cats to root through

the trash or Raid the picnic basket

but not here no in Australia mammals are

left waiting in the wings whilst

reptiles like these monitor lizards take

Center Stage

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too to find out exactly why reptiles are

so successful here I met Greg chakura

from Queensland Museum

Australia has basically a very poor

environment a lot of our habitats and

ecosystems here are very low in

nutrients and what that means is for the

reptiles is not the massive competition

with mammals and birds that you you know

find in other continents

the life of a reptile Predator is easier

than yeah a mammal Predator simply

because they don't have the high

metabolic rates they don't need the

massive intake of food all the time so

you know you can be a bit more laid back

being a reptile

they may feed you know once every couple

of days if it's a largeish predator

where a mammal produce got to be feeding

nearly every day

we never really developed the big mammal

Predators we never have had an animal

equivalent to a lion or a tiger in

Australia but the reptiles took the

challenge up and we wound up with some

very big monitor lizards

oh magnificent big ladies there are

undoubtedly new species of reptile to be

discovered here in Australia and every

once in a while reports filter in from

the Outback of lizards a little on the

large size

Steve and Tanya oxbower won't forget

their encounter

we come along here

and I heard what I thought was a cow

walking towards me sort of behind me up

here and I didn't take much notice at

first and as I got closer I turned to

look at it

and it was a big lizard

sort of walked along here went up there

and sort of sat up where that log was he

was

scary

well I reckon he would have been as big

as me counting his Tails his legs would

have come out here and his legs would

have been as thick as my legs as well

his back was probably about that off the

ground I reckon

the way it was walking down the track

here towards me it obviously didn't care

that I was at the end of the track it

was just going to walk through me or

around me

I felt like it was probably further up

the food chain than I was

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see

was it a relic a reptile Survivor

because there were real monsters here

and the greatest was called Megalania

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it's massive a truly formidable reptile

and it was living here just a few

thousand years ago which relatively

speaking in evolutionary terms was just

yesterday

Megalania was a very large monitor

dessert probably reaching a length of

somewhere between five and seven meters

you can see the vertebrae of Megalania

and vertebra of a large Australian

monitor so you can see substantially

larger than any of the ones living today

in Australia what about the world it

lived in what would it have shared it

with I mean were humans included well

human beings apparently entered

Australia about forty thousand years ago

and Megalania and the other large

Australian animals were thought to have

become extinct about 20 to 18 000 years

ago so Megalania would have been sharing

Australia so to speak with humans for

about 20 000 years it's much more recent

than things like dinosaurs which became

extinct 65 million years ago

million dollar question could it still

exist in in modern Australia

it could but I wouldn't wager any money

on it I don't think that it does and I

think that because Megalania probably

lived in areas that were open grassland

areas Prairie areas and all of these

have been converted to agriculture

nowadays in Australia so one would

expect that there would be a lot more

reports of Megalania than there have

been that you would find recent

carcasses recent bones that sort of

thing and we haven't

yourself

so what have I learned so far

well firstly in this nutrient-pore

environment eating a living is very hard

so this has favored the energy efficient

reptiles over us mammals

secondly I don't know what the Oxford

saw but it appears that even the great

lizard of Oz Megalania is extinct

so does this mean that here in our best

chance location in reptile Paradise

there are no prehistoric survivors

no it doesn't

one thing's for sure there's already an

animal here which we're very aware of

it's an animal survived the extinction

of the dinosaurs

it's the largest reptile left on Earth

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the estuarine crocodile

to fall saltwater crocs once reached

over eight meters in length that's 28

feet

that's monster

at the Darwin crocodile farm I met Anne

Palmer

I think the success of the crocodile

really has a lot to do with the

environment that it lives in they live

in semi-aquatic fresh water and salt

water swamps of the Northern Territory

they don't tend to have many predators

certainly no competition for the big

animals they can survive for long

periods of time without food but they

are very opportunistic for you to taking

horses cattle even human beings if they

wander into that territory

what about their hunting strategy

uh crocodile is very efficient Predator

a large crop will stalk their prey dive

underneath the surface

the last minute lunge out take the

animal off and roll and just form the

death roll and drown it

there's no doubt that this qualifies as

a very real monster reptile but then

also as one of the most successful type

of animals ever to evolve on Earth

clocks like this appeared about 150

million years ago and they filled a

niche and got it right they're

semi-aquatic opportunistic predators and

because their habitat and the job they

do in it is virtually unchanged then

they remain virtually unchanged

themselves

foreign

you see they are survivors not in a lost

world but in an environmental Niche

where they've reigned Supreme

so if we have an aquatic prehistoric

reptile living here

then why not in Loch Ness

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Loch Ness sits in a steep-sided valley

cut out by a succession of glaciers over

the last few million years

in fact only 10 000 years ago this was

one of the biggest ice cubes on Earth

so the origin of any species living here

now has to be more recent for instance

it was only after that ice melted that

the ancestors of today's fish swam in

from the sea

so what about those plesiosaurs

in the 1970s these photographs taken by

Dr Robert Ryan's attracted worldwide

attention they appeared to show a

flipper of a plesiosaur type animal and

in the fly of excitement the unknown

creature was even given a scientific

name by the eminent naturalist sir Peter

Scott

appeared in the highly credible journal

Nature and it means Ness Wonder with a

diamond-shaped fin however it didn't

take long for some skeptical word wizard

to point out that the name had a rather

intriguing anagram

and it was later revealed that the

images themselves had been computer

enhanced

but what of the other photo evidence

they were still the most famous image of

all the surgeon's photo from 1934.

NASA those Astro scientists took an

intense look at the photograph and they

gave it the thumbs up

but oh dear in 1994 the last of the

original g*ng finally broke their

silence and revealed the whole thing as

a hoax the most famous Loch Ness monster

ever was no more than a model mounted on

a toy submarine so much for mission

control the old surgeon was a scoundrel

after all

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but of course people do see some pretty

weird things

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Loch Ness is famed for baffling

phenomena

curious waves and boat wakes atmospheric

Distortion Mists and novel reflections

of the light

these can all confuse and convince the

Casual Observer

but what about the low course people who

live with the log and are used to its

fickle trickery every once in a while

they see something and maybe their

accounts are a little bit more difficult

to dismiss and when you consider their

stories on mass there's a clue

I thought

I have to keep this quiet was my first

thing nobody believed that I've actually

seen this I can't have publicity for

this I can't tell anybody about it

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out in this area here I saw

what can best be described as a boiling

of the water not a dramatic boiling just

a little bubbly

something

caught my eye

in the middle of this disturbance there

were three shiny black humps I mean till

the day I go to my grave now I'll tell

you there were three black humps here I

don't care what anyone else says

at the edge of the jetty I could see

that there was definitely something in

the water

and then it surfaced

and it was large

looking into the Setting Sun it was 10

o'clock at night it was a silhouette

effect

and I can recall distinctly the chap

saying it's eels and I said it's not

bloody eels it's too big and his wife

said well I've not been in the bar

I approached it and it was only just a

couple of feet away from me in the water

I was looking down on it

and it started to move

there was this week coming from it just

little ripples of water coming from it

for such a big object I was amazed that

it didn't make more of a splash no

doubtful thing no for that but nothing

that you would relate to say like a

k*ller whale or or any of that sort of

things or a fluke or a tailor another no

I thought I hadn't

seen what we think to be a humpback Loch

Ness monster but I thought I'd seen

a crocodile

oh no I have no idea I have no idea

there's something living in there more

than one and I can't relate it to

anything that I've ever seen in any part

of the world

crocodile or some sort of fish I would

say

quite a fascinating experience

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you see the clue is they're all seeing

completely different things

Adrian shine came to the lock in the 70s

he's been a monster hunter but now he

has a different agenda

at Loch Ness really you've got two

thousand people you've got about a

thousand eyewitnesses who say they see

unusual things and they do see things

that they don't understand

on the other hand you have scientists

who've studied the lock and who say

there is not enough food in Loch Ness to

sustain large creatures

rather than tour for Nessie Adrian has

spent a productive decade examining the

life in this PT pool to establish a

better understanding of the food chains

that support the Lock's distinctive

ecosystem

Loch Ness is a cold water environment

the last thing that happened here was

the ice age and when we get right down

to 200 meters it's an ice age world that

we're entering

so we are a lost world at the bottom of

Loch Ness

but it's not Jurassic Park

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so there a cold ice age Lost World not

very promising for a sun-loving animal

what about that food supply

Loch Ness is a very impoverished Lake

several surveys are suggesting that

there's only about 20 tons of fish in it

which would rarely only support about

two tons of top predator in Lochness and

that's a problem for a resident

population of large Predators so I

wouldn't myself believe in any sort of

reptile Jurassic or otherwise viable and

living here

so for a whole population of Big Fish

Eaters it doesn't look great

especially for ones from the prehistoric

past

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inclusive but I wanted a final expert

opinion

Dave why couldn't the Loch Ness monster

be a please use

for one reason we have a 65 million year

gap between the last fossil record and

the present day there is no evidence for

any pleasure source

Loch Ness can only have had animals in

it in the last 10 000 years therefore

there would have to have been a

population of plesiosaurs in the sea

somewhere that got in to longness ten

thousand years ago we have no evidence

for them also the physiology would have

to have changed they would have to have

gone from being Marine aquatic animals

to being a freshwater animal in a very

very short period

also a viable population would have to

have got in this population would have

to have been really quite large for it

to be viable over the last 10 000 years

and I don't think that the productivity

in Loch Ness is sufficient to have been

able to feed all of those relatively

large animals

another thing is of course that remember

that plesiosaurs were air-breathing

animals and for a large population to a

viable population to have been there you

would have been seeing please your sores

at the surface breathing every few

minutes sadly the Loch Ness phenomenon

is not a plesiosaur

foreign

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firstly

there's not enough food in this lot to

support a population of large Predators

reptiles or otherwise

in fact Loch Ness in human terms is like

a great big Supermarket with three

lettuces and one can of salmon left on

the otherwise empty shelves

secondly the spices even if they had

seen the last monster on the morning

when it d*ed we now know that for a

population of plesiosaurs who have

survived into historic times they would

have needed to be at least five thousand

individuals

now people have been pressing up and

down the side of this lot for hundreds

of years keeping detailed records and

yet there's no mention of a veritable

Forest of long necks and Tiny heads

so I'm sorry to say

there is no Loch Ness Monster

for the very simple reason that there's

never been a population of them but hey

just because there's no monster doesn't

mean that there's never been anything in

here

there has and there always will be

because the lock is open to the Sea

there's a way in the riverness

salmon swim and leap into the lock to

spawn and sometimes larger animals such

as seals follow them in

there's also the Caledonian canal and

although there are locks to negotiate

animals could make it through and as far

as Adrian shine is concerned at least

some of the historic sightings could be

explained by one particular visitor

Loch Ness is a body of water that's open

to the Sea and that's where all our fish

came from and a local tradition says

that a strange fish was in Loch Ness so

what about strange fish

and you know there is a very rare

visitor to Britain would enter

freshwater only to spawn

there's really the largest fish you

would ever see in fresh water in fact

it's the it's a Baltic sturgeon

and they've run up British Rivers 70

miles or so past locks and Weirs and

what I'm suggesting really is that the

original tradition could have begun with

the occasional entry of a sturgeon

vainly seeking a maid and then leaving

leaving no Trace save an enigma

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I'm pretty convinced that sturgeon

account for at least some of the ancient

encounters

it can grow to seven meters often swim

near the surface creating long wakes and

with their prominent scales they do look

very reptilian

but a fish wouldn't be crossing the road

did the spices actually see well real

animals do visit the lock and they

probably did so with a much greater

regularity when these folks were around

and I've no doubt they saw something

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perhaps I don't know perhaps they've got

an unusual really distorted view of a

couple of otters running across the road

disappearing down the bank into the

water who knows seals porpoises all

kinds of unexpected animals probably pay

fleeting visits to the lock

foreign

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there's not one Loch Ness Monster

there are many

amongst the jumble of hoaxes and media

hype there are different people

interpreting different things in

different situations

at its cynical worst the Loch Ness

Monster

often a boy to the local tourist

industry but even that wouldn't work if

it wasn't such a fantastically romantic

idea we'd all like to think that Nessie

was out there even I would but it isn't

for the very simple reason that there's

never been a population out there

population is the key word what there is

a curious lot phenomena visiting animals

and too many people looking too hard but

hey I know exactly whatever I say won't

ever stop any visitor to the lock from

slowing down taking a look over the

water and hoping to see something a

little bit too strange to be true

foreign

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next week's ex-creature was the famous

film for real or a hoax Chris

investigates at the same time seven

o'clock next tonight on BBC One a new

series of Tomorrow's World with the

technology that could save your life