The mystery of the Loch Ness monster has always been the most heart-wrenching of many mysterious events.
When many photos of the suspected Loch Ness Monster were released, the world was expecting to witness such a behemoth, but when the scientific team rushed to investigate, it was fruitless.
In 2019, when people had faded into oblivion, a couple photographed a huge black head and neck in the lake.
The mysterious and mysterious events have not yet given people an accurate answer, but speculation about the Loch Ness Monster continues.
According to recent photographs of water monsters taken in 1934, many believe the creature was an extinct plesiosaur.
Is the plesiosaur really the Loch Ness monster? So let's start with what a plesiosaur is.
What is Plesiosaur?
Plesiosaur was a marine reptile that was one of the hallmarks of the age of the dinosaurs, but did not belong to the dinosaur order.
According to existing fossils, plesiosaurs are believed to have evolved in the Late Triassic period and survived the Jurassic mass extinction 200 million years ago, but became extinct by the end of the Cretaceous.
The plesiosaur was about 15 meters long, had a long neck, a head and neck that accounted for half the body length, and had more than 70 cervical vertebrae, more than any other vertebrate, and was a first-class swimmer.
But its body is like a turtle, like a long neck through a turtle shell, which looks a bit funny.
In the early days, many scientists believed that having such a long neck would definitely allow plesiosaurs to dominate the oceans.
But in fact, according to the increasing number of fossils of plesiosaurs that have been discovered, as a short-lived overlord, plesiosaurs are definitely lucky.
First of all, he has a long neck, but he can't bend it, and it is very stiff, and it is difficult to even stretch upwards.
Scientists believe that the setting of their long necks and small heads helps them to sneak up on unsuspecting fish in turbid water, but in the end, the disadvantages outweigh the benefits, and the longer the neck, the easier it is to become the target of ichthyosaurs;
Second, plesiosaurs, despite their sharp teeth, were not suitable for biting;
Scientists have reconstructed the plesiosaur dragon head model using fossils and found that such teeth are very suitable for feeding on swimming animals, and closed teeth are conducive to filtering out particles in food.
Not only that, but in some fossils, it has also been found that they also feed on seabed animals such as shell crabs, that is, they will dive into the seabed to feed.
Therefore, when the gastrospareuca in fossils is found, it is natural to think that the main role of the stones is to dive into the water, or to help digest the food of shellfish.
Such eating habits are indeed incompatible with ferocious beasts.
Unlike reptiles in general, plesiosaurs are thought to be fetal.
Plesiosaurs were reptiles, so it was widely believed that they were also oviparous creatures, and it was not until fossils discovered in 1987 that this perception was broken.
When cleaning up the fossil, scientists thought it was an adult female with a fetus on her abdomen, and since there was no evidence that plesiosaurs devoured their young counterparts, scientists thought plesiosaurs might have been oviparous without an umbilical cord.
Is the plesiosaur really the Loch Ness monster?
Xiaobian believes that such an answer is somewhat far-fetched.
Plesiosaurs went extinct with dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period, at least tens of millions of years ago, while Loch Ness appeared less than 12,000 years ago, obviously the timeline of the two can not match, and the neck of Plesiosaurus due to its natural skeletal structure, resulting in the inability to stand upright normally, and there is a difference between the recent photos of the Loch Ness Monster taken;
Loch Ness is not fit for it to survive.
The cold environment, not suitable for cold-blooded creatures such as plesiosaurs, can not produce enough energy to maintain body temperature, and there is not enough food;
Most importantly, as a reptile, plesiosaur needed fresh air, so if it really existed in Loch Ness, it might show its head several times a day, so frequently, that perhaps people could have used modern technology to give it a super-clear image.
Therefore, many people think that the water monster or the giant eel, or the evolved version of the "plesiosaur".
What exactly is it? As long as there is no real hammer in a day, you can't make up your mind, so let your imagination run wild!