Less celebrated than her well-established rival in Loch Ness, undoubtedly due to the remoteness and inaccessibility of her home, Morag is the name now affectionately attributed to the Loch Morar Monster.

It wiz a big bugger

It was only as recently as 1969 that Morag first surfaced to public attention and began to steal some of Nessie's limelight.

Two local fishermen were on the loch when their small boat was nearly capsized by what they described as a "a large brown creature, around 25 feet long, with a snake-like head and an undulating, humpy back."

Both men deny taking LSD at the time.

Having beaten the beast off with their oars, they watched it circle for some five minutes before swimming off into the black depths.

No wonder it's nearly extinct. Who'd shag it ?

Two prehistoric monsters living in different parts of Inverness-shire? Or just one with a holiday home? Certainly, one explanation put forward for the similarity in the two monsters' descriptions is that they are indeed one and the same.

Some monster experts argue that an underground and as yet undiscovered passage links the two deep lochs, and that Nessie simply swims between one and the other.

Well, I suppose if you can believe in the existence of plesiosaurs, anything's possible. Whatever your views on Morag, Loch Morar is a monstrously beautiful stretch of water with but a single-track road to Mallaig alongside, that has, as yet, been spared the intensive investigation and commercialisation that has turned the shores of Loch Ness into a Highland Theme Park. With luck, its remoteness should ensure that it stays that way.

It's no wonder Nessie buggers off to Loch Morar once in a while. The poor wee plesiosaur just wants some peace.