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60 free Loch Ness Monster trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 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.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which village sits at the south-western end of Loch Ness?
Fort Augustus
The northern end lies about 10 km south-west of Inverness.
Q 02What is the monster's name in Scottish Gaelic, the equivalent of its English nickname?
Niseag
The affectionate English nickname has been in use since the 1940s.
Q 03In which year did the Loch Ness Monster first come to worldwide attention?
1933
A newspaper report in May and the Spicers' road sighting in July set off the frenzy.
Q 04Which Irish monk is said to have confronted a 'water beast' in the River Ness in 565?
Columba
The story appears in Adomnán's Life of St Columba, written about a century later.
Q 05How did the monk stop the beast, according to Adomnán?
He made the sign of the cross and ordered it back
The creature fled as if pulled back with ropes.
Q 06Which newspaper's 2 May 1933 article about a 'whale-like fish' kicked off modern interest?
The Inverness Courier
It was written by the loch's water bailiff, who was also a part-time journalist.
Q 07Who was the water bailiff and part-time journalist credited with first applying the word 'monster'?
Alex Campbell
Some reports credit the editor Evan Barron with coining it instead.
Q 08Aldie Mackay, whose April 1933 sighting was the subject of that article, was doing what at the time?
Driving on the A82 with her husband
She reportedly yelled 'Stop! The Beast!'
Q 09What did George Spicer and his wife claim to see on 22 July 1933?
An animal crossing the road in front of their car
He described a long wavy neck and called it the nearest approach to a dragon he had ever seen.
Q 10The first alleged photo of the monster, taken by Hugh Gray in 1933, is suspected to show what?
His Labrador fetching a stick
Lantern slides from the negative later appeared to show an otter rolling at the surface.
Q 11Arthur Grant, who nearly hit the creature on his motorcycle in January 1934, was a student of what?
Veterinary science
He described it as a cross between a seal and a plesiosaur.
Q 12The famous 'Surgeon's Photograph' of 1934 is attributed to what kind of doctor?
A gynaecologist
Robert Kenneth Wilson was a London gynaecologist who enjoyed a good practical joke.
Q 13Which newspaper bought exclusive rights to the Surgeon's Photograph in April 1934?
Daily Mail
The same paper had earlier ridiculed a big-game hunter it employed over some fake footprints.
Q 21What Latin name did Sir Peter Scott give the creature in 1975?
Nessiteras rhombopteryx
It means Ness inhabitant with diamond-shaped fin, and was meant to get it legally protected.
Q 22Nicholas Fairbairn noted the creature's 1975 Latin name is an anagram of what?
Monster hoax by Sir Peter S
Rines replied that the letters could also be rearranged into a rebuttal.
Q 23What did the 1977 'Loch Ness Muppet' photographer, magician Doc Shiels, claim the creature was?
An elephant squid
The picture's lack of ripples and translucent look got it declared a hoax.
Q 14What was the 'monster' in the Surgeon's Photograph really?
A toy submarine with a putty head
Christian Spurling admitted the hoax in 1991; the sub was bought at Woolworth's.
Q 15Which big-game hunter masterminded the Surgeon's Photograph hoax as revenge on his newspaper employer?
Marmaduke Wetherell
He had been publicly ridiculed after his 'Nessie footprints' turned out to be a hoax.
Q 16What animal made the 'Nessie footprints' Wetherell found in the 1930s?
A hippopotamus
A prankster had used a hippo-foot umbrella stand.
Q 17What happened to the model used in the Surgeon's Photograph?
It was sunk in the loch when a bailiff approached
Wetherell sank it with his foot, and it is presumably still down there.
Q 18In what year did the toy-submarine hoax become widely accepted, after a book and confession?
1994
A 1975 Sunday Telegraph article had called it fake but was largely forgotten.
Q 19Chief Constable William Fraser wrote in 1938 that he doubted he could protect the monster from what?
A hunting party with a harpoon gun
The letter was released by the National Archives of Scotland in 2010.
Q 20What did aeronautical engineer Tim Dinsdale film in 1960?
A dark hump leaving a wake
Later analysis suggests he most likely filmed a boat in poor light.
Q 24Which encyclopaedia gave the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau a $20,000 grant in 1967?
World Book
The bureau's cameras covered about 80% of the loch surface from laybys.
Q 25How many boats swept the loch with echo sounders in Operation Deepscan in 1987?
24
Adrian Shine speculated that some contacts might be seals that had entered the loch.
Q 26How many sonar beams did the BBC's 2003 search use?
600
It could spot a small buoy but found no large animal, and the scientists called the monster a myth.
Q 27What kind of DNA turned up in abundance in the 2018 survey of Loch Ness?
Eel
Prof Neil Gemmell said he could not rule out eels of extreme size.
Q 28Which university led the 2018 DNA survey?
Otago
Researchers from Copenhagen, Hull and the Highlands and Islands took part too.
Q 29What was 'Lucy', which prompted about 600 reported sightings in 2004?
An animatronic plesiosaur built for a TV documentary
Lucy sank to the bottom of the loch at one point.
Q 30According to palaeontologist Leslie Noè, why could the monster not be a plesiosaur?
Its neck bones would not let it raise its head swan-like
There is also too little plankton in the loch to feed a family of them.