The Loch Ness Monster could have been a freshwater dinosaur.
The Loch Ness Monster could actually have been a freshwater dinosaur
Fossils of small plesiosaurs - long-necked reptiles who lived during the age of the dinosaurs - have been unearthed from a 100-year-old river system that is now the Sahara Desert in Morocco.
Expert Dr. Nick Longrich, who has led the new study at the University of Bath, has revealed that the plesiosaurs may have been able to live in Scotland's Loch Ness alongside creatures such as frogs, fish and turtles.
He said: "It might work in terms of biology.
"Plesiosaurs were found in freshwater so you could probably get one in a lake theoretically."
However, Dr. Longrich says that evidence suggesting that the last plesiosaurs was killed millions of years ago could disprove the Loch Ness link.
He said: "But the fossils suggest an asteroid killed the last plesiosaurs 66 million years ago. So maybe it doesn't work."