The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 7

'I I II' VANCOUVER SUN, WMDNI'SDAY. MARCH 8. 2006 A7 SCIENCE Ifl) ft) ILLUSTRATION COURTESY. THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM Scottish museum curator and dinosaur expert Nell Clark says early sightings and photos of the Loch Ness monster may actually show a circus elephant swimming. Circus elephants newest Loch Ness monster theory JJ i I lit BATHROOMS a if A OA Is there a monster In Loch Ness? he thinks the occasional sighting of a big, weird animal swimming in the early 20th century may have fuelled rumours of a monster.

Another modern explanation is that people saw some really big sturgeon they often grow a couple of metres long, and if people are mixed up about the scale they can seem even larger. Some Scots are intrigued by the elephant theory, the paleontologist says. "Then there's always the hardliners who believe that these things really represent some kind of monster." Clark is known for finding dinosaur remains in Scotland, though they aren't common there. He found part of Dougie the Dinosaur the first dinosaur discovered in Scotland on the Isle of Skye in the 1990s. Is there a monster in Loch Ness? "Quite possibly," he says.

"There's a lot of unexplained sightings of something in the loch, so you never know what's going to turn up. But I'm pretty sure it's not going to be a ple-siosaur, anyway." Ottawa Citizen MYSTERY I Animals swam in loch while at Inverness in 30s, museum curator says BY TOM SPEARS A Glasgow museum curator and dinosaur expert says early 20th-century sightings and photos of the Loch Ness monster may actually show a circus elephant swimming. The circus came to the town of Inverness a lot in the 1930s, and elephants were sometimes led down to the loch at the edge of town for a drink and a swim, Neil Clark says. An elephant in the water looks like a couple of humps and an upraised trunk could easily be mistaken for a sea monster with a long neck, he says. Clark is the curator of paleontology at the Hunterian Museum, part of the University of Glasgow.

"The problem is that a lot of people associate the Loch Ness monster with plesiosaurs swimming dinosaurs, and that's my interest." He doesn't believe in modern dinosaurs and wanted to sink that idea. The elephant idea just emerged as he looked at old photos. "They look very much like elephants swimming, and the descriptions sound like elephants as well. "The big problem is working out how to find elephants in Loch Ness." He tracked down old residents and circus residents; it was evidently an easy watering place, and elephants enjoy swimming. He's not suggesting that an elephant stayed around in the water for long, but illf sill re sits a.

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