Could the Loch Ness Monster Really Be a Dinosaur?

Everyone knows that all the dinosaurs were killed off about 65 million years ago during the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction. But reports of sightings of dinosaur-like creatures continue to emerge from locations around the world. Is there any evidence that a few dinosaurs might actually have survived?

There have been at least five mass extinctions in the last 450 million or so years. The term 'mass extinction' generally conjures images of some catastrophic event that swept every living thing off the face of the earth. But a number of species survived at least one, and in many cases several of these mass extinction events. And while some have only recently been discovered, many of these ancient species are fairly common and have been well known to science all along.

For example, the platypus, which looks like it was designed by a committee, first appeared around 110 million years ago. Other survivors of that era include an ant (martialis heureka), which boasts a whopping 120-million-year fossil record, and the Gingko tree at roughly 125 million years.

The cockroach, which some call the ultimate survivor, first appeared some 350 million years ago and has survived three mass extinctions. But the cockroach is a comparative youngster compared to the Mantis shrimp (400 million years old), and the Devonian lungfish found in waters off Australia and Africa, which have survived for roughly 400 million years. The coelacanth, of which two species are now known, has been around for a whopping 410 million years, but perhaps the oldest of all known survivors is the horseshoe crab. It first appeared in the fossil record about 440 million years ago, surviving all five mass extinctions.

Many of these living fossils inhabit lakes or oceans. Apparently, even though many land-dwelling animals fell victim to the mass extinction events, sea-going animals generally fared better. It is interesting to note that 200-million-year-old gar and sturgeon frequently occupy the same bodies of water as the reported dinosaur-like creatures.

To be fair, scientists can point to the fact that identifiable dinosaurs have been recovered, either dead or alive. For that reason, sightings of creatures like the Loch Ness Monster, Canada's Ogopogo, and Lake Champlain's Champ are written off as misidentified fish, floating logs or other debris, or as just plain hoaxes or photographic mistakes.

Cryptozoologists, who look for previously unknown creatures around the world, insist that there are many parts of the world that are either unexplored, or under-explored, and point to the discovery of the coelacanth and a recently discovered purple frog as evidence that some animals did survive devastating cataclysms yet remained unknown to science until recently.

If dozens of species of both flora and fauna survived one or more of the great mass extinctions, it is not entirely beyond reason that dinosaurs, especially those who lived in the oceans and primitive lakes, could also have survived. Thousands of people who have seen them are convinced that they have.

Selected Sources:

Ancient Traces, Michael Baigent, 1998, Penguin Books, Ltd., London, England
http://www.americanmonsters.com/monsters/lakemonsters/index.php
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/whats‑old‑is‑ne.html
http://www.unmuseum.org/lostw.htm