Summary: <p>There’s more in Loch Ness than one big mystery animal. This week we look at a few <em>smaller</em> mystery animals lurking in the cold depths of the lake.</p> <p><strong>Further reading:</strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Heres-Nessie-Monstrous-Compendium-Loch/dp/1909488453"><em>Here’s Nessie: A Monstrous Compendium from Loch Ness</em> by Karl P.N. Shuker</a></p> <p>The goliath frog:</p> <p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-412" src="http://strangeanimalspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/the-largest-frog-in-the-world-300x192.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="192"></p> <p>The Wels catfish (also, River Monsters is the best):</p> <p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-413" src="http://strangeanimalspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/killer-fish-wels-catfish-pictures0-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200"></p> <p>An amphipod:</p> <p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-414" src="http://strangeanimalspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Abyssal-Amphipod-300x136.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="136"></p> <p><strong>Show transcript:</strong></p> <p>Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw.</p> <p>Back in episode 29, I dismissed Nessie, the Loch Ness monster, as probably not a real animal. But this week we’re heading back to Loch Ness to see what <em>other</em> monsters might lurk in its murky depths.</p> <p>WHAAAAA? Other Loch Ness monsters???</p> <p>Yes, really! See, ever since the first sightings of Nessie in the 1930s, Loch Ness has been studied and examined so closely that it would be more surprising if no one had ever spotted other mystery animals.</p> <p>The source of most of the information in this episode is from zoologist Karl Shuker’s book <em>Here’s Nessie! A Monstrous Compendium from Loch Ness</em>. Check the show notes for a link if you’re interested in buying your own copy of the book.</p> <p>Our first non-Nessie mystery dates from 1934, but it happened, supposedly, sometime in the 1880s. It appeared in the <em>Northern Chronicle</em>, an Inverness newspaper, on January 31, 1934. The article relates that a ship in Loch Ness hit a submerged reef called Johnnie’s Point and sank one night. Luckily no one died. The next day a local diving expert named Duncan Macdonald was hired to determine if the wreck could be raised, but he couldn’t spot the wreck during his dive.</p> <p>Later that evening, some of the ship’s crew who had heard stories about strange creatures living in Loch Ness asked Macdonald whether he’d seen anything unusual. After some urging, Macdonald finally admitted that he had seen a frog-like creature the size of a good-sized goat sitting on a rock ledge some 30 feet, or 9 meters, underwater. It didn’t bother him so he didn’t bother it.</p> <p>There are a lot of problems with this account, of course. For one thing, we don’t know who wrote it—the article has no byline. It’s also a secondhand account. In fact, the article ends with this line: quote “The story, exactly as given, was told by Mr Do</p>
