The dragon's lair was the Mississippi: a dinosaur fossil resembling a mythological creature is found in the great American river

The remains of a Mosasaurus hoffmannii, commonly known as a giant mosasaur, have been found in the Mississippi River, resembling a gigantic aquatic dragon from the Late Cretaceous, capable of measuring 15 metres long and weighing 9,000 kilograms.

According to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, it was found near Starkville in the Prairie Bluff Formation, a 'monster' that shared an era with Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor and Triceratops.

Mosasaurs were marine dragons, both large and small, and were the true predators that dominated the diverse marine environments of this time. While dinosaurs dominated the land, these Mesozoic era oceans were probably the most dangerous in the entire history of our planet," explain the department's geologists.

"This is a real sea monster," said James Starnes, of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality's Office of Geology, in a talk with the Hattiesburg American. "It's almost as big as the mosasaurs," he said.

One of the most important findings of recent years

George Phillips, curator of paleontology at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, explained in the Hattiesburg American that what has been found is a seven-inch-wide backbone, which is about 17 centimeters. The one discovered is about 9 meters (30 feet), but this species reached 15 (50 feet) at its peak.

"We find them from time to time, but to find one of this size is phenomenal. Its size left us stunned," he said. The remains were rescued from a large mass of mud, and a three-dimensional map of the geological layers of the site was then drawn up. The team believes it may have remained there for some 66 million years, since the species became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous.