New Styxosaurus exhibit unveiled at southern Manitoba museum

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What’s got sharp teeth, an extremely long neck and is now on display in southern Manitoba?

The Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre in Morden unveiled its new Styxosaurus exhibit on Friday, showing off large reconstructions of the long-neck plesiosaur that swam tens of millions of years ago during the Cretaceous period.

Adolfo Cuetara, the museum’s executive director, said the specimen at the centre of the new exhibit was unearthed during mining work at North Cox farm near Miami, Man., back in 1983.

The original bones — on display in a glass case — were used to reconstruct the full skeleton using 3D technology. It took months to print out more than 400 bones and put it all together, he said.

“It’s not the first time that we used 3D printing to reconstruct, but this is the first time that we used it for a whole complete skeleton,” Cuetara said, adding artificial intelligence was also used to create a separate life-like sculpture of the plesiosaur — a type of marine reptile that went extinct with the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

A man wearing a beige plaid shirt stands inside a museum with an aquatic, long-necked dinosaur skeleton behind him — Adolfo Cuetara is the executive director of the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre in Morden, Man. (Jura Mcilraith/CBC)

An adult Styxosaurus could reach up to 12 metres (nearly 40 feet) in length and weigh up to 4,000 kilograms (over 8,800 pounds). Half of its length came from its neck alone, which could have between 60 to 72 vertebrae.

Its small, eel-like head had large, protruding teeth with a conical shape to puncture its prey.

This specimen would have swam in the former Western Interior Seaway — an ancient inland sea that once split the North American continent in half and covered land across the present-day Prairies.

Twelve-year-old Jorja Doerksen loves ancient creatures like dinosaurs, but said she had never heard of a Styxosaurus before visiting the museum for the first time on Friday.

The face of an eel-like dinosaur with long, sharp teeth that protrude from its mouth — The adult Styxosaurus could grow to up to 12 metres in length, half of which was made up by the plesiosaur’s long neck. (Submitted by the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre)

“I thought it was really really cool. I really liked the skeletons and how there’s a skin model there too,” Doerksen said, adding she thinks it’s really cool that the bones were discovered in Manitoba too.

She said she especially likes plesiosaurs because they resemble the mythical Loch Ness monster.

The exhibit also includes a box for visitors to submit their name suggestions for the Styxosaurus.

Cuetara said it’s a common practice for paleontologists to give nicknames to specimens, like the fossil centre’s Bruce the mosasaur, who was named after a Monty Python comedy skit.

A name for the specimen will be selected from the box at the end of the summer and the winner will receive a Styxosaurus-themed prize, he said.

Doerksen told CBC News that she’d like it to be called Apollo — a fitting name because the Styxosaurus is named after the River Styx in Greek mythology.