A SEA monster dubbed the “T-Rex of the Deep” from 70 million years ago has been discovered by a team of miners.
Miners digging for gems uncovered the incredible fossilised remains of the ancient predator in Alberta, Canada.
The crew found the bones of what is believed to be a Tylosaurus, a type of mosasaur, while digging in Lethbridge
Tylosaurus are believed to have grown to have lengths of 46ft, with up to 74 fearsome teeth in their massive jaws
The beasts are some fearsome they even earned the moniker “T-Rex of the Deep”.
When the world was mostly ocean, the sea monsters are believed to have been some of the top predators – eating sharks.
Miners were digging for ammonite when they came across the bones which were encased in rock.
The team were using track hoes to chip away at the rock one of them spotted the remains.
Knowing this find was something special, the miners then called the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology to take a look at the bones, reports CBC.
Palaeontologists have now removed the remains on the back of a truck to be studied at the museum.
Dan Spivak, from the museum, said: “It kind of looks a little bit like a swimming Komodo dragon, maybe with a bit pointier nose.
“The skull itself is about a metre long with sharp pointy teeth and a real mean look on its face.”
He explained the sea monsters were “apex predators” and there is nothing alive today like them.
Mosasaurs got their big Hollywood moment when one appeared in Jurassic World, but Spivak said they would not have grown quite that large.
“That was a really really big one. Those movies tend to put their animals on steroids. So yes it was mosasaur, but it was significantly bigger than a mosasaur would have been in real life,” he said.
He added: “These things would be swimming around in what would have been a shallow sea that covered a large part of Alberta 70, 72 million years ago, feeding on turtles and ammonoid and fish — and pretty much anything else that they could have got their teeth into.”
Tylosaurus’s ancestors in the modern day and believed to be monitor lizards and snakes.
The first example of the animal was discovered a dig at Monument Rocks in Kansas in 1868 – originally being named Rhinosaurus.