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by F. W Holiday 
Fascinating, perhaps not for reasons the author intended
I must say that I enjoyed this book very much, and I learned from it quite a number of things about the animal kingdom and folklore that I didn't expect to learn when I picked it up. The chapter on giant mollusks was particularly interesting, and the history of worms and dragons in folklore was also diverting. Finally, I am grateful to the author, F.W. Holiday, for providing information about Tullimonstrum gregarium, a fascinating invertebrate which flourished 280 million years ago, and which is part of the Mazon Creek fauna of Illinois. That said, the author does not prove his point that the creature in Loch Ness is a species of gigantic Tullimonstrum hitherto unknown to the world. There is a marked similarity between the Tullimonstrum and certain descriptions of the Loch Ness creature, but one cannot derive from that fact that an unknown Tullimonstrum, titanic in its proportions, exists today in Loch Ness. The idea is appealing, but ultimately unproven by the evidence he provides in the book. Holiday has taken the spirit but not the letter of the discipline of comparative anatomy, and applied it to what is known of the unknown organism in Loch Ness, and the fossils we have of Tullimonstrum. He finds further evidence in folklore and ancient representations of dragons, which seem to have even less to do with Tullimonstrum than do the creatures in Loch Ness. These diverse bits of information, while fascinating, do not add up to a conclusive case. Still, one has to admire Holiday for his conviction. Despite a warning to himself that "to create a theory and fall in love with it serves no useful purpose," he persisted in his belief that the Loch Ness creature is an invertebrate of some sort, coming to believe that the creature was Tullimonstrum as soon as he became aware of the fossil. If one allows such conviction in the driver's seat, it can eventually lead to discovery. Nature is jealous of her secrets, however, and despite the efforts of individuals such as Holiday, we still do not know for certain what lives in Loch Ness. Still, it is more likely that it is indeed an unknown giant invertebrate than an unknown species of seal with a long neck, as some have proposed. Though the book does not succeed in its effort to convince us of the existence of the Loch Ness Tullimonstrum, it is nonetheless an enjoyable read, and may lead other researchers to consider the data we have about the creature in a different light, which may lead to the discovery of its true identity. |
