The Otago University professor and the project leader, Neil Gemmell, doubts about the existence of Loch Ness monster. The evolutionary genetic-study professor is now going to use the legend of Loch Ness to actually attract the attention of people to the biodiversity of the lake. Even they will let the whole world know if they somehow find the genetic sequence of this immortal monster previously not known to science.
Earlier this year, Neil told in a video that “You can’t help but wonder, when so many swear black and blue that they saw these things, that there might be a biological basis for them,” and added, “It really does resonate with people of all cultures all around the world. I honestly don’t know why.”
The legend first came into notice through a 2000-year old carving of a strange image of the flippered beast in a nature artwork by a northern Scottish tribe. And according to PBS, Saint Columba claimed to have witnessed the Loch Ness during the sixth century. It was nearly attacking a swimmer when the Saint raised his hand and the monster retreated in God’s name.
After the opening of the new road at the shore of the lake in the 1930s, the legend eventually became quite a sensation for the whole world. The natives started to report a massive creature living in the lake. And, the London Daily Mail soon started a hunt to locate the monster. In 1934, they published the iconic photo of the Loch Ness with its great giraffe-like neck rising from the lake’s water. And in this context, Reuters stated: “It was revealed 60 years later to have been a hoax that used a sea monster model attached to a toy submarine.”
In a BBC funded 2003 project, scientists searched the entire length of the Lake with Sonar but found nothing suspicious. Then in 2016, an expedition team found a 30-foot movie prop of the Loch Ness monster sunk to the bottom of the lake in 1969. But, the new study will not just be the hunt but also be the “well established tool for monitoring marine life,” according to Reuters.
The project will collect the water samples of the lake at various depths to actually get the DNA fragment of all the species living there. They will then collect the samples from other two nearby lakes and will analyze the DNA to finally understand what could have been living there in the lake.