Loch Ness Monster Trivia
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59 free Loch Ness Monster trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Loch Ness Monster trivia quiz covers Nessie from a 7th-century saint's biography to thermal drones and DNA sampling. The easy questions are the ones everybody knows: which country the loch is in, the monster's nickname, the famous photograph and what it turned out to be, and the prehistoric reptile people like to compare it to. From there it moves into the 1933 season that started the modern legend: the water bailiff's newspaper article, the couple who saw something cross the road, the first photograph, and the veterinary student on a motorbike. The harder end is for cryptid enthusiasts and sceptics alike: the big-game hunter behind the hippopotamus footprints and the toy submarine, the naturalist who gave the creature a Latin name that turned out to be an anagram, Operation Deepscan, the BBC's 600 sonar beams, the 2018 DNA survey that found lots of eel, the animatronic plesiosaur named Lucy, and the physical facts of Loch Ness: its depth, its volume, its peat-dark water and its place on the Great Glen Fault. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the monster and the loch before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Scotland, Bigfoot and unsolved mysteries quizzes next.
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Q 01Which village sits at the south-western end of Loch Ness?
Fort Augustus
Fort Augustus went by its Gaelic name, Cille Chuimein, until a government fort built after the 1715 rising was named for George II's son William Augustus, and the village took the fort's name.
Q 02What was the 'dead Nessie' that a zoo's education officer planted in the loch as a 1972 April Fools' joke?
A bull elephant seal
A bull elephant seal: he shaved its whiskers, froze it and dumped it for his colleagues to find, and police chased down the van that was carrying 'Nessie' away.
Q 03Researchers link George Spicer's 1933 'dragon' sighting to which hit film?
King Kong
King Kong shows a long-necked creature rising from a lake, and the film had come out only months before Spicer reported his 'dragon'.
Q 04Which Irish monk is said to have confronted a 'water beast' in the River Ness in 565?
Columba
Columba had just watched locals bury a man the beast had savaged, yet still sent a companion swimming across for a boat; the Life that tells the story dates from the following century.
Q 05How did a sixth-century saint halt a 'water beast' in the River Ness, according to Adomnán?
With the sign of the cross
With the sign of the cross and an order to go back: the beast fled 'as if pulled back with ropes', a spear's length short of the man swimming across the river.
Q 06Which newspaper's 2 May 1933 article about a 'whale-like fish' kicked off modern interest?
The Inverness Courier
The Inverness Courier did not name the couple, and it emerged only later that the woman who had seen the 'whale-like fish' managed a local hotel.
Q 07Which Loch Ness water bailiff and part-time journalist wrote the May 1933 newspaper report that launched the modern legend?
Alex Campbell
Alex Campbell got the story second-hand from the witness's husband, and his editor, Evan Barron, is said to have insisted on calling the creature a 'monster'.
Q 08What was Aldie Mackay doing when she made the April 1933 sighting that started the Nessie craze?
Driving along the shore
Driving along the shore with her husband, she saw something 'rolling and plunging' in calm water, and it was he, not she, who passed the story to the local water bailiff.
Q 09What did George Spicer and his wife claim to see on 22 July 1933?
An animal crossing the road
An animal crossing the road, he said, with a long wavy neck: although he put his foot down, it had vanished into the loch before the car reached the spot.
Q 10The first alleged photo of the monster, taken by Hugh Gray in 1933, is suspected to show what?
His Labrador fetching a stick
His Labrador fetching a stick is one sceptical reading of the blur: they make out a dog swimming with a stick in its mouth, while others take the same shape for an otter rolling at the surface.
Q 11What was Arthur Grant riding when he claimed he almost ran into the monster one moonlit night in January 1934?
A motorcycle
A motorcycle: Grant, a veterinary student riding home in the small hours, said a long-necked creature bounded across the road in front of him and plunged into the loch.
Q 12The famous 'Surgeon's Photograph' of 1934 is attributed to what kind of doctor?
A gynaecologist
A gynaecologist: Robert Kenneth Wilson refused to have his name attached to the picture, which is why it has been known ever since simply as the Surgeon's Photograph.
Q 13Which newspaper bought and published the Surgeon's Photograph in April 1934?
Daily Mail
Q 21What does Sir Peter Scott's 1975 name Nessiteras rhombopteryx describe?
A diamond-shaped fin
A diamond-shaped fin, the 'rhombopteryx' of the name, had shown up in a 1972 picture; Scott wanted a formal name so that a new conservation law could protect the animal if it proved real.
Q 22In 1975 an MP noticed that Nessiteras rhombopteryx is an anagram of what?
Monster hoax by Sir Peter S
Monster hoax by Sir Peter S, a Scottish MP pointed out that December; Scott's co-author Robert Rines hit back that the same letters also spell 'Yes, both pix are monsters, R'.
Q 23What mocking nickname did stage magician Doc Shiels's suspiciously sharp 1977 monster photo earn?
Daily Mail: months earlier the paper had hired a big-game hunter to find the monster, only for his 'footprints' to prove fake; the doctor's picture then made an international sensation.
Q 14What was the 'monster' in the Surgeon's Photograph really?
A toy submarine with a putty head
A toy submarine with a putty head, bought at Woolworths: the famous print was cropped tight, and the full frame shows the far shore of the loch and a much smaller 'monster'.
Q 15Which big-game hunter masterminded the Surgeon's Photograph hoax as revenge on his newspaper employer?
Marmaduke Wetherell
Marmaduke Wetherell had a model monster built and a respectable doctor front the picture, which was sold to the very paper that had humiliated him over his fake 'footprints'.
Q 16What animal's foot made the 'Nessie footprints' a big-game hunter found on the shore in December 1933?
A hippopotamus
A hippopotamus: museum zoologists found the prints were identical, made with a stuffed foot that was the base of an umbrella stand or ashtray, and whether the hunter was hoaxer or victim was never settled.
Q 17What happened to the model used in the Surgeon's Photograph?
Sunk in the loch on the spot
Sunk in the loch on the spot: the hoaxer pushed it under with his foot when he heard a water bailiff coming, so the most famous Nessie ever photographed is presumably still down there.
Q 18Whose little-noticed 1975 newspaper confession revealed the Surgeon's Photograph was staged?
The ringleader's son
The ringleader's son told the Sunday Telegraph how the shot was set up, but the piece drew little notice, and only in the 1990s did two researchers follow it up and find the model maker still alive.
Q 19In 1938 Inverness-shire's chief constable doubted he could protect the monster from what?
A hunting party with a harpoon gun
A hunting party with a harpoon gun: a Londoner said he was having one specially made and would be back with twenty men, and the police chief wrote that a strange creature in the loch 'seems now beyond doubt'.
Q 20What did aeronautical engineer Tim Dinsdale film in 1960?
A dark hump leaving a wake
A dark hump leaving a wake: military photo analysts judged it 'probably animate', but later studies argue he filmed a small boat in poor light.
The Loch Ness Muppet
The Loch Ness Muppet was the clearest Nessie picture yet taken, but the water around its neck showed no ripples and the beast looked translucent, so few experts took the magician's monster seriously.
Q 24What did American Dan Taylor build himself and pilot through Loch Ness in 1969, hunting the monster?
A submarine
A submarine: his 20-foot yellow fibreglass Viperfish had a seven-horsepower engine and a top speed of 8 mph, too slow to catch whatever he said had made it turn and yaw.
Q 25What did Operation Deepscan's boats sweep Loch Ness with in 1987?
Echo sounders
Echo sounders on a line of hired boats swept the loch like a curtain and logged three big contacts, which may have been nothing stranger than seals.
Q 26Tourists sketched a monster's head after a BBC team raised what?
Fence post
A fence post: in 2003 most of the coach party said they had seen something square, yet several drew monster-shaped heads, and the team's 600 sonar beams found no trace of a large animal.
Q 27What kind of DNA turned up in abundance in the 2018 survey of Loch Ness?
Eel
Eel DNA turned up at almost every spot sampled, so the survey's leader said he could not rule out a giant eel, while finding no trace at all of any reptile, shark or sturgeon.
Q 28Which country's university led Loch Ness's 2018 DNA survey?
New Zealand
New Zealand: Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago took 250 water samples from the loch, and the DNA in them came from people and their dogs among much else, but from no giant reptile.
Q 29What was 'Lucy', which a TV channel slipped into Loch Ness for two weeks to test tourists' reactions?
An animatronic plesiosaur
An animatronic plesiosaur, 16 feet long and built by a special-effects firm: Channel Five filmed more than 600 sightseers looking out for it, and some swore they had seen a green hump.
Q 30Which fish did long-time watcher Steve Feltham suggest in 2015 might explain the monster?
Wels catfish
Wels catfish was the verdict of a man who sold up in 1991, quit his job and has watched the loch ever since from a former mobile library van parked beside the beach at Dores.