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This is a submission for the Anatomically Correct Series enter image description here

The Loch Ness Monster is commonly depicted as:

  • living in lakes/oceans
  • having a long swan like neck
  • sometimes peaks it's head out of the water
  • having flippers and tail
  • being quite large

Given these characteristics, what species could the Loch Ness Monster have evolved from, and what evolutionary pressures would lead to such a creature?

icewar1908
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    Millions of years ago many prehistoric land mammals and reptiles gradually evolved into aqautic marine animals. I would say the Loch Ness monster (despite being a hoax) would have probably evolved from a sauropod dinosaur which gradually transitioned into a fully aqautic marine creature where it's front and hind limbs evolved into flippers. –  Feb 22 '20 at 21:16
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    Pleisiosaurs are also a thing - they match the description pretty well. – arpanet101 Feb 22 '20 at 21:21
  • VTC: poor quality, as it's a copy-paste of other questions. Make this about your world or make it of use & interest to others! Always ask yourself: what is the worldbuilding problem I need to solve? before posting a query! – elemtilas Apr 18 '20 at 20:20
  • Closely related question. – Escaped dental patient. Apr 18 '20 at 21:02

1 Answers1

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I'd like to raise your attention towards Plesiosaurs. They lived at around the same time as dinosaurs (200 million years ago).

Now, for your question about evolution and such, I'd raise you: sharks. Shark skeletons have not changed much in their millions of years of existence - they're older than TREES! Despite having been around for so long, physically speaking their characteristics haven't changed for millions of years. They have increased and decreased in size, survived 4 mass-extinctions, but they're still here, and are very recognizable from the skeletons. Crocodiles are another example of this.

So the question we should ask is why these species didn't change that much - modern sharks are not the same as ancient ones, but why are their characteristics the same? It's because their characteristics work for them. Through natural selection, mother nature has created a few "perfect" machines that only need minor modifications over aeons to survive their changing planet. If we were to think of Mother Nature as being a conscious being (without getting too metaphysical about it), wouldn't we ask "Why change what works?"

For the same reason, if a certain group of shy Plesiosaurs got isolated in Scotland of all places and found that they're surprisingly good at handling themselves in the Loch Ness (and have adapted to the weather) and obviously don't seem to have many natural predators, they'd probably persist that way. Most likely they'd suffer a size change in order to compensate for more/less availability of food over the years, and different hunting/swimming strategies to draw less attention to themselves, but physically their characteristics wouldn't change that much.

Over millions of years, they'd evolve into our beloved Nessie - a lonely descendant of Plesiosaurs of old. Not the same species as its ancestors, but definitely of the same family.

arpanet101
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