Undulating humps break water surface
A motif, one of the traits figures share. All traits.
Sight and sound
6 figures
a large body with one or more humps visible above the water's surface
a long, undulating body breaking the surface of the lake
Some claim to have spotted multiple humps breaking the water's surface, while others describe a single, massive coil rising from the depths.
The composite description the sightings yield is distinctive: a dark creature up to forty feet long, most often likened to a long overturned canoe crossing the lake with a wake behind it — the parish priest's phrase from a 1957 sighting — with the head of a horse, cow, or dolphin, notably earless, a long neck, several humps, and a saw-toothed ridge down the back; circular tracks like a horse's are part of the shore lore, and some stories make the creature amphibious.
The serpent's presence in the world's oceans is said to be the cause of tides and tsunamis, its movements creating great disturbances in the waters.
Eyewitness descriptions of Champ are fairly consistent across the tradition: a large, dark-colored animal with a long neck, a small head, and a serpentine or humped body that breaks the surface in one or more arcs before submerging.