What happened
In June 2018, an international team led by geneticist Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago in New Zealand collected several hundred water samples from various locations and depths in Loch Ness. The environmental DNA method makes it possible to determine which organisms live in a body of water from tiny fragments of skin, scales or secretions suspended in it. The results, announced in September 2019, covered thousands of species, from bacteria to mammals, but no reptile sequences were found. Nor was any DNA detected from sturgeon, catfish, sharks, otters or seals. The surprise, however, was the large amount of European eel DNA, present in almost every sample. The study drew wide media coverage around the world.
Witnesses
A team of scientists from the universities of Otago, Copenhagen and Hull and from the University of the Highlands and Islands.
Explanations and hypotheses
Gemmell concluded that a “giant scaly reptile” is unlikely to be swimming in the loch. He did not rule out that some sightings involve exceptionally large eels, although he noted that DNA says nothing about the size of the animals and that huge specimens have never been caught there – the large amount of material may simply come from many small eels. Critics point out that the method detects only what ends up in the samples. For skeptics, the result is yet another argument that Nessie is the sum of mistakes, waves and hoaxes.
Disputed A likely explanation exists, but some of the facts are still disputed.
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