Serendipity with a backhoe

This is a story of what happens when construction workers have some appreciation for interesting rocks and fossils they come across in the course of their daily tasks:

While excavating oil sands in a mine near the town of Ft. McMurray, Alberta, Canada, a heavy machinery operator uncovered the skeleton of a plesiosaur, the extinct, long-necked reptile that inhabited Mesozoic seas.

The skeleton had been fragmented by its excavation by backhoe rather than small hammers, chisels and brushes, but when pieced back together, it was judged to be 80% complete.

The find is significant because it is the earliest North American occurrence of a plesiosaur, extending the known geologic range of these animals to the early part of the Cretaceous Period and this find also expands the known geographic range of plesiosaurs in North America.

Reference: Journal of Paleontology November, 2009, Earliest North American occurrence of a plesiosaur

Photo credit: http://www.dinosaurjungle.com/focus_plesiosaur.jpg. For more on plesiosaurs, go to this site or click on today's title.