this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
276 points (99.6% liked)

News

23259 readers
3301 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The skull of a colossal sea monster has been extracted from the cliffs of Dorset's Jurassic Coast.

It belongs to a pliosaur, a ferocious marine reptile that terrorised the oceans about 150 million years ago.

The 2m-long fossil is one of the most complete specimens of its type ever discovered and is giving new insights into this ancient predator.

The skull will be featured in a special David Attenborough programme on BBC One on New Year's Day.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] tygerprints@kbin.social 0 points 11 months ago (2 children)

So if these marine reptiles could exist off Dorset's Coast, could there be such a creature living still in Loch Ness? The one photo that has become famous sure looks like this kind of a creature. Or could it even survive in a closed lake system? Just pondering - this is an awesome discovery!

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 12 points 11 months ago (3 children)

For a loch ness monster type creature to exist it would truly need to be supernatural.

If there were only one it would need to be practically ageless and have survived since these creatures roamed the earth millions of years ago.

Otherwise you'll have to have at least two creatures in Loch Ness for the entire time to maintain a lineage throughout that time, making it twice as likely to have been discovered

If you follow the rules of genetics the creature would likely be horribly deformed and riddled with genetic diseases if that were the case.

To avoid that you would probably need a population of 50-100 creatures within the loch ness in order to sustain a somewhat viable population.

It's very unlikely that with how much attention has gone on, 50-100+ of those creatures would go undiscovered, let alone the sustenance needed to sustain that size of population.

So no, unless it's a single supernatural creature it's pretty much impossible I would say.

[–] ivanafterall@kbin.social 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So you're telling me there's a chance.

[–] tygerprints@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

I believe there are things out there we haven't discovered, so there's always a chance.

[–] tygerprints@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

We're finding more and more bizarre sea creatures in the ocean depths all the time. The thing is, the ocean's environment (until recently) hasn't changed that much over millions of years. So a prehistoric creature COULD theoretically still exist without having to evolve much at all down there.

Look at the Coelecanth....scientists really believed it was extinct for millions of years, and then a live specimen was caught by African Shark hunters not too long ago. And that thing really LOOKS primitive. I saw the specimin in a preservation tank at a museum in San Francisco, and it was jaw-dropping. I've never seen a creature that primitive, with hairy fins and scales the size of dinner plates. It was truly awesome and kind of scary.

So it's healthy to be skeptical but also I think it's important to be a little unsure and open minded.

[–] tygerprints@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Oh yeah I realize that, I mean I'm not saying I truly believe (or do I) that there is such a thing as a Loch Ness creature. I guess I'd have to be nuts to believe there could by cryptozoological oddities out there like a Mothman or a Yeti.

I guess I would pull a Mulder and say, "I want to believe." Or do I. I've been in places where I've seen some things I couldn't and wouldn't ever try to explain. And I know others wouldn't believe it anyway. Until it happens to you, and you see it yourself, you can't believe such things could exist....

But it's the same way with Santa, if you think about it. I believe it because, I want to believe. And I get what you're saying about population probability - if one such creature exists, others like it must also exist (and we'd probably have more proof by now).

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I mean, if it's too big to swim out of the Dochgarrot lock then it'd be easy to detect. If it isn't then what's keeping it in the lake instead of swimming out past Inverness and out into the Moray Firth?

[–] Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

It doesn't like Inverness it made the mistake of walking though the Ferry. After that straight back to the lock and never to the big city again. Plus it found Inverness Castle not that interesting.