Experts have identified the 85-million-year-old giant monster fossil as belonging to a new species called Traskasaura sandrae.

A giant 85-million-year-old fossil has just been identified as belonging to a new monster species, Traskasaura sandrae, revealing unprecedented secrets about the prehistoric era.

Three fossils of a giant monster found on Vancouver Island, Canada have been identified by researchers as a new species called Traskasaura sandrae. Photo: Robert O. Clark.

Traskasaura sandrae could grow up to 12m long and had powerful teeth for crushing its prey. This giant beast lived around 85 million years ago on what is now Vancouver Island. Photo: The Courtenay and District Museum and Palaeontology Centre.

According to paleontologists, although belonging to the group of long-necked marine lizards (plesiosaurs), Traskasaura sandrae has many strange characteristics never seen in other species in the same group. Photo: Robert O. Clark.

Traskasaura sandrae had a long neck with at least 50 vertebrae and large, robust teeth. It was so different from other marine reptiles that researchers placed it in an entirely new genus, Traskasaura, within a subgroup of plesiosaurs called elasmosaurs. Photo: The Courtenay and District Museum and Paleontology Centre, Courtenay, British Columbia.

“This animal is truly extraordinary. Its shoulder is completely different from any plesiosaur I have ever seen – and I have done a lot of research,” Mr O’Keefe stressed in a press release. Photo: metro.co.uk.

Elasmosaurs, like other plesiosaurs, lived during the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago) alongside dinosaurs and shared the oceans with other marine reptiles, including ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs. Photo: metro.co.uk.

The first Traskasaura sandrae specimen was unearthed in 1988 in the Haslam Formation on Vancouver Island and formally described by scientists in 2002. The fossil was dated to between 86 million and 83 million years ago. This is the fossil of an adult individual. Photo: metro.co.uk.

Two later specimens of Traskasaura sandrae were found, which were younger. From there, experts analyzed the characteristics of the three fossils and determined that they all belonged to a new genus of elasmosaur. Photo: metro.co.uk.

Traskasaura sandrae was an excellent swimmer and hunted by diving from high altitudes. Its diet consisted of ammonites, which were abundant in the ocean at the time. Photo: metro.co.uk.

Readers are invited to watch the video : Discovering many new species in the Mekong River Region. Source: THĐT1.

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