Denialists, Behold Nessie!!!!

[Correa Neto]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/highlands_and_islands/6618995.stm

OK, not exactly what you expected...

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Cool.

Interesting additional clue here as well. If cold water and other factors like low O2 preserve what falls to the bottom of the loch, then either there are bone eaters down there or Nessie's relatives bury their dead. Or perhaps Nessie is a few million years old and that explains her/his (BTW, did someone say why it was a Nessie and not a Ned?) origin. Yeah yeah, don't bother me with the age of the loch details.

Show me the dead ones!

 

[Skeptic Guy]

Perhaps you are supposed to kiss the frog and it'll turn into Nessie?

 

[Beady]

MIT president Bob Rines will tell the Oceans 07 engineering conference in Aberdeen about the toad and the survey next month.

I think the secret is already out.

 

[Correa Neto]

Cool.

Interesting additional clue here as well. If cold water and other factors like low O2 preserve what falls to the bottom of the loch, then either there are bone eaters down there or Nessie's relatives bury their dead. Or perhaps Nessie is a few million years old and that explains her/his (BTW, did someone say why it was a Nessie and not a Ned?) origin. Yeah yeah, don't bother me with the age of the loch details.

Show me the dead ones!

You touched an issue conveniently ignored by the lake monsters folks- lack of oxigen. Deep narrow lakes tend to have only a shallow "productive" zone. Below this zone, its a reduced environment. Good for some bacteria, but bad for most fishes...

Cryptoexcuses:
-Nessies eat their dead
-Nessies bury their dead
-Nessies hide in deep caves when they feel death is near

 

[Civilized Worm]

That's a pretty amazing discovery, but I doubt the craptozoologists will feel the same way.

 

[Belz...]

You touched an issue conveniently ignored by the lake monsters folks- lack of oxigen. Deep narrow lakes tend to have only a shallow "productive" zone. Below this zone, its a reduced environment. Good for some bacteria, but bad for most fishes...

Cryptoexcuses:
-Nessies eat their dead
-Nessies bury their dead
-Nessies hide in deep caves when they feel death is near

I wonder if Bigfoot eat their dead, as well.

 

[Diamond]

98m is a long way - the pressure on that toad is huge. How does it do it without scuba?

 

[Jorghnassen]

Clearly Nessie's camouflage abilities include the power to instantly morph into other creatures and things.

 

[Correa Neto]

I wonder if Bigfoot eat their dead, as well.

Of course not! Bigfeet are bon sauvages!

98m is a long way - the pressure on that toad is huge. How does it do it without scuba?

No idea.
But at that depth, scuba tanks need Trimix or Heliox, maybe the poor toad had no money! Aniway I doubt a toad would suffer from nitrogen narcosis.

Well, I guess maybe by descending very slowly it managed to equalize internal and external pressures... But that's just a wild guess.

 

[Belz...]

Of course not! Bigfeet are bon sauvages!

"Bon" ? I'm not sure we can call them "good".

 

[Correa Neto]

"Bon" ? I'm not sure we can call them "good".

Oh, of course we can!

That's the beauty an immaginary entity, we can give it whatever role that suits better for it in our minds. Our imagination is the limit!

Now, a bit more seriously, I do think bigfeet for many footers is a variant of the "bon sauvage" myth. Wildmen roaring free in the woods minding their own business in harmony with nature, free from the evils of western civilization...

Nessie and the lake monsters (good name for a band) are roughly similar, a romantization of the mysteries of nature, of the things that lie outside the civilized and rational urban realms.

 

[William Parcher]

I'm basically at a loss for words to make any declarative statement on this toad. I can't imagine this being some kind of hoax, and at the same time I'm just stunned to see this. What a world!

I guess I'll just comment on other comments until I can fully gather my thoughts on the truckin'-toad-at-extreme-Scottish-depth.

You touched an issue conveniently ignored by the lake monsters folks- lack of oxigen. Deep narrow lakes tend to have only a shallow "productive" zone. Below this zone, its a reduced environment. Good for some bacteria, but bad for most fishes...

Forget Nessie. We have an active underwater toad at 98 meters. WTF? Again, forget Nessie and focus on this amazing toad. At 98 meters in Loch Ness, the water is cold and possibly contains a meaningful concentration of oxygen. Rather, I mean to say that the oxygen is possibly meaningful for a toad. We know that amphibians transport oxygen across their skin and respire using their dermis rather then their lungs. This leaves the door open for some possibly incredible observations (from an anthropomorphic viewpoint) of what toads can do in the real world.

This toad is almost certainly not located in a highly-reductive anoxic zone of Loch Ness (if such a zone even exists there). The water is cold (increasingly with depth), and may hold enough oxygen to support toad activity as long as the heart continues to beat. Toads are not like humans (mammals) in an important sense that is related to this video-taped encounter. We are shocked and stunned to learn that a toad was video-taped walking around at 98 meters below the surface of Loch Ness! We can't even know if this toad had filled its lungs with air before embarking on its underwater journey. It might not matter to the toad if the water conditions are within a certain range.

How long can this toad bop around at that depth? If dermal respiration allows, this toad might be able to stay alive down there until it starves from lack of food. Did you hear that speculation? I'm scaring myself with the thought. If Toady wants to resume a normal life, he is going to have to somehow deliberately ascend 98 meters of water column. "How did I get myself into this predicament?" He is negatively bouyant (he sinks) in Loch Ness in the first place, so he could have simply experienced a circumstance where he began sinking near the surface and just never stopped until he hit the substrate at about 98 meters. It was probably a slow and boring descent.

Correa & others, this is too much of a real yet fantastic story to stain it with sarcastic comparisons to Nessie and Bigfoot. There's no reason yet to believe that this is a hoax. Toads are known animals and we obviously do have the technology to observe them if found at 98 meters in Loch Ness. This does not appear to be a scam, or stark human error of interpretation being perpetuated upon gullible people (which is what Nessie & Bigfoot are).

I might lose some sleep tonight thinking about this toad.

98m is a long way - the pressure on that toad is huge. How does it do it without scuba?

No kidding. I guess it can do it because it's a toad.

Now, a bit more seriously, I do think bigfeet for many footers is a variant of the "bon sauvage" myth. Wildmen roaring free in the woods minding their own business in harmony with nature, free from the evils of western civilization...

You are talking about the Myth of the Noble Savage.

This whole thing needs to be named Deep Toad Project (DTP) right away.

 

[ChristineR]

I agree with William Parcher. No amount of dumb Nessie legends can match up to the amazing fact of this toad. All those drunk guys and their toy monster heads are nothing compared to the reality of nature and her incredible toads.

 

[William Parcher]

All hail the common toad.

 

[fsol]

Clearly Nessie's camouflage abilities include the power to instantly morph into other creatures and things.

It is just the same everyday transdimensional shapeshifting bigfoot that we all know and love.

 

[Correa Neto]

I'm basically at a loss for words to make any declarative statement on this toad. I can't imagine this being some kind of hoax, and at the same time I'm just stunned to see this. What a world!
...snip...

Yep, that toad rocks!

It raises so many questions, like was this an accident or not? If it was an accident, how common these events are?

Back in my woo days, my "theory" was that Nessie and other lake monsters are not reptiles, but giant scavenging amphibians (giant salamanders or caecilian; perhaps even descendents of labirynthodonts). This would explain how nessies survided cold waters, rarely went to the surface and the survival at lakes with relatively small biomass. Just like many of the bigfoot defenders we see here, I considered my "theory" a great and unconstestable insight. Guess I would be more than welcome by then at Cryptomundo and similar places.... After the appearance of this toad, I bet sooner or later a cryptozoologist will come out with a similar "theory".

Correa & others, this is too much of a real yet fantastic story to stain it with sarcastic comparisons to Nessie and Bigfoot. There's no reason yet to believe that this is a hoax. Toads are known animals and we obviously do have the technology to observe them if found at 98 meters in Loch Ness. This does not appear to be a scam, or stark human error of interpretation being perpetuated upon gullible people (which is what Nessie & Bigfoot are).

Uhm...
Is my English so bad that somehow I gave the impression I think its a hoax?

If this is so, then all my bases are belong to you

You are talking about the Myth of the Noble Savage.

Yep, but (partially) in French. Its an attempt to achieve a cool pedantic blasée look.

How do you say "all my bases are belong to they" in French?

 

[William Parcher]

Yep, that toad rocks! It raises so many questions, like was this an accident or not? If it was an accident, how common these events are?

Mister Toad, I presume,
Hopping out of the Loch Ness gloom
Into the midday sun.
What did you find there?
Did you stand awhile and stare?
Did you meet anyone?

"I've seen detritus galore,
I've seen fishes big and small,
I've still not found what I'm looking for."

Uhm... Is my English so bad that somehow I gave the impression I think its a hoax?

Nah. I never thought you thought this was a hoax.

If this is so, then all my bases are belong to you How do you say "all my bases are belong to they" in French?

You can't start out wrong before converting to French. The beginning statement must retain its full original character and bankrupt English grammar...

All your base are belong to us.
All my base are belong to you.
All my base are belong to them.

...and so on, for great justice.

 

[Modified]

What's 98m deep in Loch Ness that would be of interest to a toad?

 

[ChristineR]

What's 98m deep in Loch Ness that would be of interest to a toad?

Other toads? MIT robots?