A mysterious sea creature washed up on the shore in Orkney two centuries ago could be identified by new DNA techniques.
The remains of the creature, dubbed the Stronsay Beast, were found in 1808.
Some have suggested it was a basking shark, but this has been disputed because of its unusually large size.
Geneticist Yvonne Simpson, who has been studying the remains since 2001, believes that the newly recovered bone fragments may hold the key to solving the mystery.
Dr Simpson says that, thanks to the well-preserved nature of the fragments — which were given to her by a private collector this year — she may be able to extract DNA samples from them.
She then hopes to send the samples to a recently established laboratory in Florida which holds a database of shark DNA.
It is hoped that the Orkney creature’s DNA can then be matched to a specific type of shark.
Dr Simpson works in Edinburgh but comes originally from Orkney.
Her work is in the increasingly popular field of archaeogenetics — the analysis of DNA recovered from archaeological remains.
She said: “Until these DNA sequences of sharks became available in America this would not have been possible. The DNA extraction techniques have been available for some time, but this is forensics being applied in a new way.
“At 55ft this would be an unusually big basking shark, and it’s far more likely to belong to another member of the shark family.
If I get permission from America for this to go ahead, we could know the answer within a couple of months.”
Some fragments of the creature are preserved at the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, but other parts of the carcase were taken away after it washed up on Stronsay.
Dr Simpson said the fragments she had been recently given were “very well looked after”.
She will give an update on her progress at a talk at Stronsay next Friday — exactly 200 years after the creature was found. The talk is part of the Orkney International Science Festival, which opens today.