NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD PLESIOSAURS?

By Scott Mardis

Fig. 1. Primary Mesozoic Marine Reptile Forms: (a) Thunnosaurian Ichthyosaur, (b) Plesiosauroid

Plesiosaur, (c) Pliosauroid Plesiosaur, and (d) Mosasaur.

The first relatively complete skeleton of one of the major Mesozoic era predatory

marine reptiles, the presumed “varanoid” lizard Mosasaurs (Fig.1d), was discovered in late

Cretaceous deposits near Maastricht, Holland around 1770 but was not formally described by the

great French anatomist Georges Cuvier until 1808. The first relatively complete skeleton of one of

the fish-like Ichthyosaurs (Fig.1a) was discovered in 1811 in Jurassic deposits from Lyme Regis

near Dorset, England. The first relatively complete plesiosauroid Plesiosaurs (Fig. 1b) were found

in the same Lyme Regis deposits in 1821 and the first pliosauroid Plesiosaur (Fig. 1c) was

described by the great English vertebrate paleontologist and anatomist Sir Richard Owen in 1841.

Even before the dinosaurs captured the public imagination, these unique animals were a major

contribution to the understanding of the nature of extinction of entire orders of animals and the

structuring of the geologic column into stratigraphic layers based on diagnostic index fossils.

Commenting on the discovery of these animals and their impact on paleontology, vertebrate

paleontologist Michael A. Taylor states: “ These new fossil finds were plainly not merely species

or genera closely related to known living forms, which might have suffered local extinctions, but

rather radically different from known living forms. Thus, it was harder to argue that such large and

supposedly ' extinct ' groups were still living in unexplored corners of the globe.”

Roughly contemporaneous with the discovery of these remarkable animals and the emerging view

of their place in the context of geologic history was the emergence of another, apparently unrelated

phenomena: reports of sightings of large, seemingly unknown marine animals, generally referred

to under the blanket term of “ sea serpents”. As some opinion held that some of the alleged animals

sighted bore a vague resemblance to some of these fossil marine reptiles, it was not long before

serious speculation that a survival of one or more of these types might exist undiscovered in the

depths of the ocean was expressed by various naturalists. In Froriep‟s Notizen, Vol. 40, n.879 of

June, 1834, it is stated: “ With regard to the often mentioned and much questioned great American

Sea-Serpent Mr. R. Bakewell, in the latest edition of his Introduction to Geology, Chapt. 16, pg.

312, has expressed the opinion that the great sea-serpent often seen on the coasts of the United

States of America probably belonged to the fossil Ichthyosaurus, and that the description, given of

the sea-serpent, as having flappers like sea-turtles, and formidable mandibles like a crocodile, was

agreeing more with that of a saurian than that of a snake. Some of the people who saw the

sea-serpent state that the body was very long and as thick as a water cask”. In a note to R.

Bakewell‟s Introduction to Geology, another well-known contemporary geologist, Prof. Benjamin

Silliman, stated: “ Mr. Bakewell‟s very sensible conjecture that the sea-serpent may be a Saurian,

agrees still more with the supposition, that it is a Plesiosaurus, than an Ichthyosaurus, as the short

neck of the latter does not agree with the common appearance of the sea-serpent”.

The aforementioned Richard

Owen had a very different opinion on the question of Mesozoic marine reptile affinities for the

so-called sea-serpents, however. Commenting in the Times ( London ) newspaper of Nov. 11,

1848 on a recent sighting of a strange animal (thought by some to resemble a plesiosauroid

plesiosaur) by officers and crew of the British naval vessel H.M.S. Daedalus off the coast of South

Africa, Owen stated: “ The sea saurians of the secondary periods of geology have been replaced in

the tertiary and actual seas by marine mammals. No remains of Cetacea have been found in lias or

oolite, and no remains of Plesiosaur, or Ichthyosaur, or any other secondary reptile, have been

found in Eocene or later tertiary deposits, or recent, on the actual sea-shores; and that the old

air-breathing saurians floated when they died has been shown in the Geological Transactions ( vol.

V., second series, pg. 512 ). The inference that may be reasonably drawn from no recent carcase or

fragment of such having ever been discovered, is strengthened by the corresponding absence of

any trace of their remains in the tertiary beds. Now, on weighing the question, whether creatures

meriting the name of ' great sea serpent ' do exist, or whether any of the gigantic marine saurians of

the secondary deposits may have continued to live up to the present time, it seems to me less

probable that no part of the carcase of such reptiles should have ever been discovered in a recent or

unfossilized state, than that men should have been deceived by a cursory view of a partly

submerged and rapidly moving animal, which might only be strange to themselves. In other words,

I regard the negative evidence from the utter absence of any of the recent remains of great sea

serpents, krakens, or Enaliosauria, as stronger against their actual existence, than the positive

statements which have hitherto weighed with the public mind in favour of their existence. A larger

body of evidence from eye-witnesses might be got together in proof of ghosts than of the

sea-serpent”. It can be argued that the idea that these diagnostic

Mesozoic marine reptiles might survive in the modern era was a direct threat to the paleontology

community‟s insistence that these animals were truly extinct and, therefore, questioned the

ordered nature of the geologic column. Some would also argue that the recent discoveries of these

fantastic animals had so gripped the public imagination that the desire for them to be among the

living was strong and that fleeting glimpses of anomalous objects or animals at sea had been

colored by the power of suggestion with the attributes of these presumably extinct creatures. As for

Richard Owen, it has been suggested his stance was part of a larger agenda. During the first half of

the nineteenth century, authority in the various disciplines of natural history was shifting away

from theologians and amateur “ gentleman naturalists “( who were willing to accept judicial or

testimonial forms of evidence as hard data without confirmatory biological evidence in some

cases) to professionally- trained and institutionally- organized scientists (who insisted on the

primary use of direct evidence of a biological nature to settle such questions). Owen apparently

used three separate claims ( the sea-serpent, claims of toads surviving for long periods of

hibernation in solid rock and claims for extreme human longevity in the bible) to further his

agenda and expedite this process. A further extension of Owen‟s stance on the sea serpent question

( which treated the question seriously but in a highly skeptical manner ) was open ridicule of the

subject as not worthy of scientific discussion, as exemplified by the naturalist Frank Buckland.

Even as Richard Owen‟s views on the sea serpent were slowly becoming the prevailing scientific

opinion, some other eminent contemporary naturalists such as Louis Agassiz, Edward Newmann

and Phillip Henry Gosse took a completely opposite stance.

While the hibernation of toads in solid rock and biblical claims of human longevity

are rarely discussed in the modern era, the question of unknown marine and/or freshwater animals

and their possible affinity with Mesozoic marine reptile forms has continued to resurface in

various guises. On Dec. 7, 1905, a strange, large animal with a turtle-like head, a long neck and

squarish dorsal fin was allegedly seen by professional biologists E.G.B. Meade-Waldo and

Michael J. Nicoll near the mouth of the Para River off the coast of Brazil. A detailed account of

this incident, complete with an eyewitness sketch by Nicoll ( Fig. 2 ), was published in the

Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London on Oct. 10, 1906. Commenting on this incident

in the June 30, 1906 issue of the British science journal Nature, an anonymous correspondent

stated: “ If the creature be a living fossil, the plesiosaurian group has the strongest claim to it‟s

ownership, as, although the zeuglodont cetaceans are the latest in time of possible representatives,

the smallness of it‟s head prevents the reference of the sea serpent ( as described) to that group “.

Fig. 2. Animal allegedly seen off the coast of Brazil near the mouth of the Para River on Dec. 7,

1905 by zoologists E.G.B. Meade-Waldo and Michael J. Nicoll. Sketch by Michael J. Nicoll,

1906.

In March 1922, newspapers all over the world reported the opinion of Prof.

Clementi Onelli, Director of the Beunos Aires Zoological Gardens in Beunos Aires, Argentina,

that perhaps some animal resembling a plesiosauroid plesiosaur existed in certain lakes of the

Chubut region of Patagonia, Argentina, based on several seemingly credible reports he had

received of such an animal having been seen in the region. An expedition under Prof. Onelli‟s

leadership to the area to find this animal was unsuccessful. The presence of such an animal in a

freshwater lake has been rationalized by the possibility of migration of a marine animal to

freshwater environments via connecting rivers or an isolated, freshwater- adapted breeding

population of animals that are relicts in freshwater lakes that were once connected to marine

environments during post-glacial flooding after the most recent glacial cycle.

A series of reports of strange aquatic animals allegedly seen in Loch Ness, Scotland

gained world attention beginning in 1933. As more details emerged, a similarity between the Loch

Ness and Patagonian reports seemed apparent, as well as an alleged resemblance of the Loch Ness

animals to plesiosauroid plesiosaurs. The general reaction of contemporary biologists to the Loch

Ness claims largely reflected the views of Richard Owen almost a century earlier. Writing on the

Loch Ness reports, the physical anthropologist Sir Arthur Kieth stated: “ The only kind of being

who‟s existence is sworn to by scores of witnesses and yet never reaches the dissection table

belongs to the world of spirits”. Despite the lack of physical evidence of such an animal to be

found in Loch Ness after 3/4 of a century, alleged evidence in the form of hundreds of eyewitness

reports, photographs, motion picture film, video, anomalous sonar contacts and underwater

hydrophone recordings has been produced sporadically down to the present day. Various pieces of

the alleged evidence have been used to argue pro and con over the possibility of the existence of

unknown and/or unidentified animals in Loch Ness over the ensuing years.Maurice Burton,

Deputy Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum of Natural History, was publicly endorsing

possible plesiosaur affinities for the alleged animals in Loch Ness in 1957, but he would have an

abrupt and dramatic reversal of opinion in 1960.One of Burton‟s contemporaries, Denys W.

Tucker (a Principal Scientific Officer at the British Museum and a much-respected ichthyologist)

allegedly saw one of the Loch Ness animals in March 1959. He would shortly thereafter make

public his endorsement of the plesiosaur hypothesis and be fired from his position at the British

Museum in 1960, allegedly in large part to his contrary position on the Loch Ness question relative

to the prevailing opinion of his superiors at the Museum.

The strongest of the alleged evidence to make a positive impact in favor of the existence of

the Loch Ness animals in the scientific community was that produced by the Academy of Applied

Science (an affiliation of acknowledged experts in the fields of sonar, radar and photographic

technology, some of whom were M.I.T. alumni, including Robert Rines, Harold Edgerton, Charles

Wyckoff, Martin Klein and Isaac Blonder) in the 1970's. This culminated in the formal description

of the Loch Ness animals as the tentative species Nessiteras rhombopteryx in 1975, using

underwater photographs (some of which were computer enhanced and subjected to high dynamic

range imaging techniques), alleged to be of various body portions of living animals in Loch Ness,

as a type specimen(Fig.3).

Fig. 3. Photographs and drawings from the formal description of Nessiteras rhombopteryx.

This evidence gained positive public endorsements as evidence for an unidentified animal

species from A.W. Crompton (Professor of Biology and Director of the Museum of Comparative

Zoology, Harvard), George Zug (Curator, Division of Reptiles and Amphibians, Smithsonian

Institution), Christopher McGowan (Associate Curator, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology,

Royal Ontario Museum), and the Chairman, Vice Chairman and Executive Director of the New

England Aquarium (David B. Stone, Henry Lyman and John H. Prescott, respectively), but all

declined to specify the animals‟ probable taxonomic affinities. In the paper formally describing

Nessiteras rhombopteryx, written by Sir Peter Scott (Chairman, World Wildlife Fund) and Robert

Rines (President, Academy of Applied Science), the opinion was expressed that the alleged

flipper-like appendage photographed in Loch Ness was most likely from a vertebrate animal and

the authors‟ inclinations were to view it as reptilian, and that the proposed new species probably

had affinities with certain fossil forms, as well as some “sea serpents” as had been reported

historically. This could easily be read as a vague implication of plesiosaurian affinities for these

alleged animals or, alternatively, a remarkable case of convergent evolution to plesiosauroid

plesiosaurs.

While a few scientists in North America made positive statements about the Academy of

Applied Science Loch Ness evidence, the reaction of the scientific community in the U.K. was

overwhelmingly negative, in particular over the idea of possible plesiosaurian origins for the Loch

Ness animals. In a joint statement issued by five senior zoologists and paleontologists from the

British Museum of Natural History, the author‟s, commenting on one of the Loch Ness

photographs ( Fig.3, top left image), stated: “If indeed it were a single object, it would have a shape

suggestive of an elasmosaur, but the outline is very blurred and conceivably various floating

objects could assume this form”. In a letter to the journal Nature following the publication of the

formal description of Nessiteras rhombopteryx, plesiosaur expert and vertebrate paleontologist

Beverly Halstead, along with two other biologists from the University of Reading, stated:” The

publication of Scott and Rines and the photographs in the national press indicate that there may be

a plesiosaur-like reptile inhabiting Loch Ness. It is exceedingly difficult to envisage how a former

tropical marine reptile could endure the cold waters and harsh environment provided by a small

lake in Scotland. Since Loch Ness did not exist until some 12,000 years ago, one is faced with the

problem of the survival of Nessiteras for a period of 64 million years in a world where it‟s former

ecological niche has been occupied by modern cetaceans and pinnipeds”. Another criticism by

Halstead et al. included the implications that Nessiteras rhombopteryx looked like a plesiosauroid

plesiosaur, yet behaved like a pliosauroid plesiosaur and that a mixture between the two plesiosaur

morphotypes was inherently improbable. Halstead et al. also effectively demonstrated the

disparity between the oar-shape of the Nessiteras “ flippers” and the hydrofoil shape of plesiosaur

limbs. Scott, in his rebuttal, pointed out that nowhere in the description of Nessiteras

rhombopteryx was the word “plesiosaur” used and that the anatomical peculiarities of Nessiteras

relative to plesiosaurs might be an imperfect case of evolutionary convergence.

Some of Halstead et al.‟s criticism‟s can be countered. There is paleoclimactic and oxygen

isotopic evidence to suggest that plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs may have had elevated

metabolic rates and possessed the ability to tolerate cold water conditions such as those found in

Loch Ness.The old paradigm of two distinct plesiosauroid/pliosauroid “ morphotypes” has been

brought into serious question and the fossil record is replete with many intermediate forms of

questionable affinities.

The eminent astronomer Carl Sagan would even weigh in on the Loch Ness question. A review

of a presentation of the Academy of Applied Science evidence at Cornell University in 1976

contains the following passages: “Dr. Carl E. Sagan is an astronomer and is noted for his work on

the Mariner probes of Venus and Mars, projects involving some of the same photographic

enhancement techniques used on the Loch Ness project. Sagan stated that the possibility of a hoax

in this instance is quite remote because of the reputations of the persons involved and because of

the elaborateness necessary to perpetrate a hoax when the gathering techniques are so

sophisticated and involve so many simultaneous modalities. He also contacted his associates at the

Jet Propulsion Labratory in Pasadena, California, where the Loch Ness photos had been processed

and they are convinced of the photographs‟ authenticity. Sagan felt that the Rines-Wyckoff data,

although not definitive, were the best hard evidence now available and caused him to believe that

large unidentified organisms do exist in Loch Ness. Sagan then mentioned his recent calculation of

the possible number of monsters in Loch Ness, based on the mean-free-time method of collision

physics.” In Sagan‟s paper

calculating the possible population density of animals in Loch Ness, published in the journal

Nature, he states:” The nature of these organisms seems still more uncertain than their existence,

but it would appear more likely that they are a minor variant of a fairly abundant contemporary

taxon than, for example, the only surviving group of aquatic Mesozoic reptiles”. In one of his last

interviews in 1996, Sagan would retract his endorsement of the Loch Ness evidence, while

emphasizing the possibility that positive evidence could yet materialize. Here is the relevant

excerpt- Charlie Rose:"Things like the Loch Ness monster and all of that. Is it all faked?” Carl

Sagan: “The most famous photograph has now been shown to be a fake, but could there be an

unknown mammal or even reptile of large dimension swimming in a Scottish lake? Sure there

could. That we don‟t know about? Sure there could. Who say‟s no? But the evidence does not

support it, does not demonstrate it. So do we say „Oh, ridiculous‟? No, we don‟t do that. We say

„unproved‟, which is a Scottish verdict.” As

time progressed from the mid-1970„s and a biological specimen from Loch Ness failed to

materialize, some alternate reinterpretations of the Academy of Applied Science Loch Ness

evidence included accusations of faulty methodology and deliberate fraud.Henry H. Bauer, former

Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Tech, has addressed these criticisms in a

review of the scientific evidence from Loch Ness (2002) and makes a rational argument that the

Loch Ness animals may, in fact, exist. Rines and his Academy of Applied Science teams continued

their search for proof of the Loch Ness animals‟ existence until shortly before his death in 2009.

Rines and his team were able to confirm the presence of marine invertebrate fossils (tentatively

C14 dated at 12,800 years old) in clay from the bottom of Loch Ness, giving support to the idea of

colonization of Loch Ness by marine animals at a time when Loch Ness was open to the sea.

The famed marine explorer Robert Ballard was recruited by the National Geographic Society

for an unsuccessful search for the Loch Ness animals in 1976. Two of Ballard‟s research partners,

Captains Marvin McCamis and Bill Rainnie, allegedly saw and tracked on sonar an animal

resembling a plesiosauroid plesiosaur from the Naval Deep Submergence Research Vessel

ALVIN while attempting to survey the U.S. Navy‟s underwater listening array ARTEMIS near the

Tongue of the Ocean in the Bahamas. The author Charles Berlitz erroneously gave the year as

1969, which is impossible due to the ALVIN being sunk and out of commission most of that year.

The date was in fact around July 1965, based on an interview with Captain McCamis by the author

in 1999.

On April 25, 1977, the Japanese commercial fishing vessel Zuiyo Maru, off the coast of New

Zealand near Christchurch, trawled up in it‟s nets the 32 ft. long carcass of a dead animal that

superficially resembled a plesiosauroid plesiosaur (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Carcass of dead animal trawled up by the Japanese commercial fishing vessel Zuiyo Maru

off the coast of New Zealand on April 25, 1977.

The complexities of this case are so numerous to summarize that what follows is reproductions

of some of the many contemporary media articles, as well as a set of scientific papers about the

Zuiyo Maru carcass in it‟s entirety.