It is by far the most famous monster in the world, and as is so often the case, it exists in the most totally unlikely place for a huge animal to be. Loch Ness is the most famous of Scotland's highland lakes.  The water is very cold year-round and is relatively barren of fish.  The most common mammals seen are otters and seals. The water, because of suspended peat particles, is the color of weak coffee and visibility underwater is limited to just a few feet.  Loch Ness is part of the Caledonian Canal system, and is blocked off from the sea by actual canal locks!  Thus any large animals would be stuck in the Loch year-round; they have no means to gain the open sea. By the time the river gets to the large city of Inverness, the water is only a few feet deep.

<The monster was first reported in late 1933, immediately after a new road was finished, which made it possible for the area to handle tourists. Tourist traffic to the Loch since then has entirely been based on hope of a view of the monster. If you want to watch from the comfort of your usual chair, there is a live video feed of the Loch that you can view at any time... of course it doesn't show anything at local nighttime! Since sonar systems became readily available, there have been several complete sonar scans of the Loch. These do not reveal any living thing more than a meter long... a few bigger fish. The scans did reveal a prop monster lost in the Loch during the filming of THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1970), and a World War II bomber which crashed in the Loch during the war. The bomber has since been raised to the surface, and placed in a museum!

By far the most famous photo of the monster was one of the very first ones taken, supposedly on April 1, 1934 (ahem). If you search on "Loch Ness Monster Photos" it will be about the only one that turns up, over and over, on site after site.