Rare Elasmosaur Fossil Found by Teenager in Rural Alabama

A small fossil found by a middle school student in Alabama turned out to belong to an ancient marine animal known as elasmosaur, according to the University of Alabama paleontologists who identified the fossil.

"Think Loch Ness monster," Dana Ehret, U.A. Museum paleontologist, said of the elasmosaur. "They have very large flippers for swimming and extremely long necks, consisting of up to about 70 neck vertebrae."

Elasmosaurs are a subgroup of the plesiosaurs.

Noah Traylor found the fossil June 20 during an annual summer excursion for middle school and high school students. Paleontologists later identified the piece as part of a neck bone from the ancient marine reptile that swam in the seas as long as 80 million years ago.

Because the fossil was found so recently, a complete excavation of the site is still underway. But to date, the site has yielded 15 large vertebrae, a few paddle bones and many bone fragments. Ehret said that because they are still unearthing new bones, he is uncertain how complete the elasmosaur skeleton is.

No matter the state of completeness, the find is rare for the fossil record in Alabama. Ruling out finds consisting of only one or two bones, the latest elasmosaur fossils are only the second set ever found in the state.

"We find a lot of the more common fossils here, but this is a macropredator that is not normally found in Alabama," Ehret said. "It's really interesting because it gives us a bigger picture of what was happening in Alabama at that time."

The bone specimens were found in a rural Alabama region commonly referred to as the Black Belt. The area is no longer near water, but represents the Late Cretaceous shoreline in the Gulf Coast.

"From a research standpoint, this is an important find. To have this many pieces, you can do an extensive comparative analysis," said U.A. Museum Director Randy Mecredy.

"But, it's also having the ability to take high-school and middle-school students in the field where they find these things. It inspires them to pursue science-related fields."