Free Republic

Hunting for shiny, rainbow-coloured gemstones, miners found a different kind of treasure — a wonderfully preserved fossil skeleton of an ancient sea monster. The marine reptile lived 70 million years ago — at the same time as the dinosaurs — and was unearthed from a part of Alberta, Canada, that used to be underwater. The skeleton of the fearsome predator has, rarely, been very well preserved, with only its flippers missing.

Popularized in the hit movie "Jurassic World," the mosasaur has come back to life after an 85 million-year-old fossil of a newborn creature was discovered in Kansas. A "neonate-sized Tylosaurus specimen" (a type of mosasaur), has been identified and examined, with researchers looking at broken bones, including its snout, braincase and upper jaw. "Despite its small size, a suite of cranial characters diagnoses FHSM VP-14845 [the fossil's identification] as a species of Tylosaurus, including the elongate basisphenoid morphology," the study's abstract reads. The creature, which could grow up to 42 feet when it reached adulthood, had an "estimated skull length...