Mystery of 'very odd' elasmosaur finally solved: fiercely predatory marine reptile is new species

Mystery Fossils of Fierce, Prehistoric Marine Predator with a 40-Foot Neck Identified

Learn why researchers identified some of North America's most famous fossils as Traskasaura sandrae.

Mystery of 'very odd' elasmosaur finally solved: fiercely predatory marine reptile is new species

A group of fossils of elasmosaurs -- some of the most famous in North America -- have just been formally identified as belonging to a 'very odd' new genus of the sea monster, unlike any previously known. This primitive 85-million-year-old, 12 meter-long, fiercely predatory marine reptile is unlike any elasmosaur known to-date and hunted its prey from above.

End to the mysterious sea creature discovered in 1988: it is a new species called Traskasaura sandrae

More than three decades after its discovery in 1988 on Vancouver Island, some unusual elasmosaur fossils - a long-necked marine reptile that lived during the Late Cretaceous

Fossil Mystery Reveals New Species Of 85-Million-Year-Old Sea Monster, And It’s “Very Odd”

“The fossil record is full of surprises.”

Fossils identified as “very odd” marine reptile as long as a bus with crushing teeth from the time of dinosaurs

Two individuals of Traskasaura sandrae hunt the ammonite Pachydiscus in the northern Pacific during the Late Cretaceous. Credit: Robert O. Clark. Fossils of a marine reptile that lived 85 million years ago have been formally identified as a new species, nearly 40 years after they were first discovered. Marine reptiles ruled the seas during the “Age of Dinosaurs” and died out 66 million years ago along with all the non-avian dinosaurs. The newly …

Discovered for the first time in 1988, strange elasmosaur fossils, a long-necked marine reptile, have just been determined to belong to a new species. 85 million-old fossils are part of a species officially named Traskasaura sandrae and have a strange mixture of primitive and derived traits like no other elasmosaur, according to a study published by Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. Research signed by scientists from Canada, the United States…