‘The result is spectacular’: Manitoba fossil museum reconstructs massive mosasaur skull’

The reconstructed skull of a Tylosaurus Pembinensis is seenin Morden, Man.. (Source: Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre)

Meet Sid.

Or at least his massive skull—now on display at the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre (CFDC) in Morden, Man.

He’s a type of mosasaur known as Tylosaurus Pembinensis who swam through a shallow sea called the Western Interior Seaway about 80 million years ago during the Cretaceous period.

And if Sid looks familiar, that’s because he’s the same species as CFDC’s most famous mosasaur, Bruce.

“Sid was big, but not as big as Bruce,” CFDC’s executive director Adolfo Cuetera told CTV News on Friday. “We are talking about a 53-inch-long skull though, so it’s a big, big critter for sure.”

Sid’s fossil skeleton was found in the 1970s during bentonite mining operations near Miami, Man., but the bones were boxed up for the past 50 years.

“In 2017, I had the opportunity to clean up and do a preservation job with this specimen,” Cuetera said. “But one of the goals was to do the reconstruction of the whole skull.”

He explained only 30 to 35 per cent of the original skull was preserved, which created a bit of a challenge until the Discovery Centre acquired a 3D scanning system and a professional 3D printer two years ago.

Cuetera said the team scanned all the bones from the original skull, reproduced them. and ‘filled in the gaps’ with bones from other specimens in the CFDC collection.

“It took almost one year of work and more than 500 hours,” he said. “And finally, we were able to put it all together.”

The team also created two replicas of Sid’s skull out of silicon rubber moulds. One is the aforementioned model on display at the CFDC, while the other will be unveiled at the Miami Museum later this year.

Cuertera considers Sid, who was named after the landowner where the bones were found, as the best and most accurate reconstruction at the Discovery Centre, and marvels at how far technology has come in the past few decades.

He adds the year-long project involving around 38 different bones was a learning experience he won’t soon forget.

“You have to learn a lot of anatomy, as well as the shape and all the details of the bones,” Cuetera said. “We used top-notch technology, and the result is spectacular.”