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Mosasaurs may not be the strangest animals on this list, but they are certainly worthy of the name "sea monster." Before they fell to the same fate as the nonavian dinosaurs, this group of marine reptiles roamed the world's oceans, chowing down on almost anything that moved, including other mosasaurs. A 2014 study in the journal Proceedings of the Zoological Institute RAS estimated that the mosasaur Mosasaurus hoffmanni grew to be around 56 feet (17 m) long.

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Sea scorpions, or eurypterids, were a group of ocean-dwelling arthropods that resembled modern-day scorpions. What made them strange? Well, some were enormous compared with scorpions living today. For example, one eurypterid fossil found in New York is estimated to have come from a sea scorpion larger than a human. Members of this group could exceed 8 feet (2.5 m) in length, according to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in Connecticut. Sea scorpions terrorized the seas for more than 200 million years, until they went extinct at the end of the Permian period (298.9 million to 251.9 million years ago).

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Try to picture a reptilian version of a dolphin, and you won't be far off the appearance of an ichthyosaur. This diverse group of pointed-nose predators evolved to have dolphin- or fish-like bodies, but they looked far more menacing. Ichthyosaurs evolved around 250 million years ago and went extinct around 90 million years ago. While there were ichthyosaur species as small as 1 foot (0.3 m) long, the group was home to several giants in the late Triassic period. In 2018, researchers estimated that a fossilized jawbone from the U.K. belonged to an ichthyosaur that was more than 85 feet (26 m) long, which is nearly the size of a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus).

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Basilosaurus swam through the ocean like a giant sea serpent from 37.8 million to 33.9 million years ago, with a slender body that stretched up to 59 feet (18 m) in length. The name Basilosaurus translates to "king lizard" because the researchers who named it mistook the gigantic life-form for a marine reptile, like a mosasaur or ichthyosaur. But the species wasn't a serpent or a lizard; it was a mammal, and a relative of modern whales, according to the University of Michigan's Museum of Paleontology.

You can spend days walking the few city blocks in the Cathedral park area and enjoy every minute of it. The Miraculous Staircase in Loretto Church, LaFonda, farmer's market, rail depots, so good!! TwoLaneBlacktop made this a multi-scene expose with probably the most dialogue in the entire movie.

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Before noon on Nov 3 I had never heard of this sea creature. I was visiting the city museum in Courtney BC with our grandson and saw the skeleton remains of this Mameluke discovered on the banks of the Puntledge river in 1988. Estimated to be 80,000,000 years old it was discovered with other fossils.

The area was estimated to be 25-40 degrees warmer back then and it could have been tropical.

Check out the museum website.

https://www.courtenaymuseum.ca/