Gem Miners Hit a Sea Monster in Alberta — Its Neck Had More Bones Than Any Animal Ever Found

Ancient Canada reveals one of the strangest marine reptile discoveries ever made in Alberta: an almost complete 74-million-year-old plesiosaur uncovered by gem miners while searching for ammolite near the Saint Mary River. In 2007, an excavator working in a southern Alberta gem mine broke into something that was not shell or stone. The crew had exposed ribs, vertebrae and dozens of smooth rounded rocks surrounding the remains of an enormous marine reptile. The animal was an elasmosaur, a long-necked relative of other plesiosaurs that lived in the shallow sea covering much of central North America during the Late Cretaceous. Its preserved skeleton measured more than 11 metres long, and over half of that length was neck. Then scientists counted the vertebrae. Its neck contained 76 separate bones — more neck vertebrae than have ever been confirmed in any other known animal, living or extinct. The neck alone stretched roughly 6.5 to 7 metres, making it longer than the rest of the body and tail combined. The skeleton was remarkably complete, preserving 132 vertebrae in sequence from the base of the missing skull to the end of the tail. Because the neck bones remained largely in order, researchers could count them with unusual confidence. But another mystery was preserved inside the ribcage. Scientists recovered at least 97 smooth stones, some as large as softballs. These gastroliths had apparently been swallowed deliberately, and their geology suggests the animal may have collected them hundreds of kilometres away near an ancient shoreline or river mouth. Scientists still debate exactly why long-necked plesiosaurs swallowed stones and how they used their extraordinary necks. The stones may have helped with digestion or stability in the water, while the long neck may have allowed a small head to approach fish without the massive body frightening them away. In this video, we explore how gem miners uncovered one of the most extraordinary plesiosaur skeletons ever found, why its 76-vertebra neck holds a world record, what dozens of stones were doing inside its body, and how an animal from an ancient Canadian sea ended up buried beside the shells that later became ammolite. #AncientCanada #CanadaHistory #PrehistoricCanada #Fossils #Paleontology ⚠️ Some visuals are illustrative. Certain materials may be used under Fair Use for commentary and educational purposes. Sources and references are listed at the end of the video.