Loch Ness monster: Back a ways

Look out now!     (Stan Winston - Fair Use)

Although Nessie might be a figment of the collective imagination, her ancestors were decidedly real.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that “an ichthyosaur fossil discovered on the Isle of Skye” in 1966 is now being studied by technologically-equipped paleontologists in order to unlock “its mysteries.”

Lead study-author Steve Brusatte explains that “REAL sea monsters used to exist,” and they were “bigger, scarier and more fascinating than the myth of Nessie.”  The fossil currently being researched “actually lived in Scotland 170 million years ago.”

So what did this “Storr Loch Monster” (as the fossil is affectionately dubbed) look like all those years ago?  Big?  About 13 feet long.  Long snout?  Affirmative.  Sharp teeth?  Resounding affirmative.

Brusatte claims that there are a lot more where this fossil came from.  Enough to move Jurassic Park to Scotland’s shores…

Resources

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0906/What-did-the-real-Nessie-look-like 

Copyright September 7, 2016 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved