The family Ness: The world's scariest lake monsters

In 2014, the Icelandic government certified a YouTube video of the mythical Lagarfljótsormurin sea serpent as being real, but it's not the first legendary creature to make headlines in the 21st Century.

From a creature in Wales which attempted to eat a water-skier in 1999 to a sumberged Australian terror which may be a two-tonne wombat, these creatures are muscling in on Nessie's turf.

Some have even been the subject of more convincing sightings than Scotland's own monster - with one African serpent having yielded a supposed scale in 2006. Here are some of the world's scariest lake monsters...

Ninki Nanka, Gambia

The ferocious Ninki Nanka isn’t exactly a lake monster - it (supposedly) resides in swamps in West Africa, devouring the unwary, and terrifying everyone else with its horse face, mirror scales and crested head.

Evidence for the existence of the Ninki Nanka is sketchy, since everyone who sees it dies almost immediately.

In 2006, an expedition from Britain’s Centre for Fortean Zoology set out to find the beast, but returned with only one scale, supposedly from a Ninki Nanka.

It wasn’t.

'Gorsey', the Afanc, Llangorse Lake, Wales

Llangorse Lake in the Brecon Beacons in South Wales allegedly plays host to a monster far more terrifying than Nessie - one with an appetite for ducks, and even waterskiers.

‘Gorsey’ lurks beneath the surface, possibly in a network of caves, and has been there so long he (or she) is commemorated in verse in a 15th century poem.

The ‘afanc’ - Welsh for lake monster, allegedly devours swans whole, and  local fisherman Mike Davies claims, ‘There are a lot of one-legged ducks wandering around.’ In 1999, a local waterskier, Darren Blake, was bitten by a strange beast from the waters of Llangorse Lake, which left six tooth marks in his foot.

His attacker has never been traced.

Others point to the fact that the Welsh word for beaver is also, er, ‘afanc’ and suggest the creature may be much smaller, brown, and prone to building dams.

Storsjöodjuret, Sweden

Unpronounceable Swedish serpent storsjöodjuret was declared an endangered species in 1986 - only to have its status revoked in 2005, for possibly not being real.

The serpent has been sighted hundreds of times by enthusiastic locals - including YouTube footage showing a glowing red image on a thermal camera.

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The serpent, if alive, is very old indeed - it’s first mentioned in print in a folklore text from 1635, saying, ‘The monster enjoyed living in the lake, grew unbelievably larger and awakened terror among the people whenever it appeared.’

Bunyip, Australia

In a truly terrifying proof of how truth can be stranger than fiction, Aborigines used to share Australia with giant wombats just 46,000 years ago.

Some believe that the elusive bunyip might be a descendant, or a distorted memory, of these terror-wombats  - a lake monster described variously as being half-horse, half-alligator, and as having fur, feathers, crocodile-like heads and the body of a hippopotamus.

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Nineteenth century travellers wrote various accounts of bunyip encounters (both fatal and non-fatal), wiith one writer saying, All we saw of the ‘thing,’ which disappeared quickly was what appeared to be part of its body, a light brown, smooth surface, much like a saddle-flap in appearance.’

Some speculate that the lingering trauma of seeing a two-tonne wombat could have been passed down in Aboriginal mythology, and been immortalised in the strange, highly varied, but always ferocious form of the bunyip.

Lagarfljótsormurinn, Iceland

Researchers in Iceland found a gigantic sea serpent - and the government has ruled it is real.

Hjörtur E. Kjerúlf shot a video of a supposed sea serpent in February 2012, but despite also bearing a slight resemblance to a plastic bag, a monster-hunting commission ruled the creature was real last year.

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The huge beast in the video tallied with local folk tales regarding lake Lagarfljót near Egilsstaðir in east Iceland, which told of  a vast sub-surface monster which once rose to the surface and ate people.

The giant serpent, Lagarfljótsormurinn, has been the subject of folk tales since the fourteenth century.

The appearance of the serpent is (of course) supposed to foretell disaster.