After a 10-year drought, two new mosasaurs discovered at Morden fossil centre’s dig site

After a decade-long mosasaur drought in Morden, researchers at the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre have uncovered not one, but two.

They were discovered weeks apart in June by the centre’s field and laboratory technician Gerry Peters.

The first was found during a systematic search of a wide area Peters guessed would be rich in fossils.

The second was discovered essentially by accident, while Peters was digging a drainage trench with some heavy machinery in an area where fossils were suspected.

“The blade scraped over a fossil, just exposing the top of it, and I saw right away a different colour. Fossils are a slightly different colour than the surrounding rock,” Peters recalled in an interview with CTV News Winnipeg.

Gerry Peters snapped a photo of the second mosasaur he discovered in June while digging a drainage trench. (Source: Gerry Peters/Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre)

Peters could tell right away it was the vertebrae of a mosasaur, an extinct group of predatory marine lizards that lived during the Cretaceous period about 80 million years ago.

The centre is already home to a Guinness World Record holder for the largest displayed mosasaur named Bruce. He was discovered in 1974, and sprawls through the centre to this day.

But it had been about a decade since the centre had discovered a new mosasaur to add to its collection, let alone two in the span of a few weeks.

Bruce holds the Guinness World Record for the largest displayed mosasaur. (Source: Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre)

Peters, helped by cascades of museum visitors keen on playing paleontologists for the day, excavated the first mosasaur over the summer, eventually extracting over 300 bones.

With winter coming, Peters planned to hang up his chisel and paintbrush and leave the second mosasaur excavation for the New Year. But spring runoff concerns prompted a fall blitz to excavate the rest of the skeleton.

“We took out the ones that were kind of exposed and in danger of being washed away,” he said.

“We ended up with about three dozen bones, most of them vertebrae or backbones from the tail, really close to the tail, and then at the same time, lots of pieces from the skull, teeth and jaw pieces and that sort of thing.”

The hope is to uncover the rest of the mosasaur next year.

(Source: Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre)

During the cold months, Peters will begin preparing the bones they’ve excavated in order to be studied and displayed. The whole process could take two to three years.

As for the newest mosasaur names, Peters says they have been referring to them as Baratheon and Stark – a nod to the outlandishly popular book series and television show “Game of Thrones,” but they’re not set in stone yet.

They’re in fitting tradition with Bruce, who gets his named from a Monty Python sketch.

Overall, Peters says the dual discoveries were very exciting.

“Finding a single bone, I do a little jig. This one, I was dancing for most of the day because it’s just so exciting to find what looks to be, more or less, a complete skeleton. It’s really rare.”

Gerry Peters is seen working on removing dirt around massive mosasaur fossil that was recently discovered in the Morden area. (Aug. 2, 2023. Source: Jon Hendricks/CTV News)