Geologists recently discovered the fossil of a Cretaceous-era mosasaur vertebra near Starkville, Mississippi. The experts believe the apex predator of the ancient seas could have weighed 20,000 pounds and been 50 feet long. Geologists in Mississippi recently discovered the vertebra of the Late Cretaceous-era water dinosaur, which could reach up to 50 feet long and weigh 20,000 pounds at its largest. “This is a true, true sea monster,” James Starnes of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality’s Office of Geology, told the Hattiesburg American. “The sheer size of this thing blew us away.”The team located the vertebra in mud while building a three-dimensional map of the site’s geological layers.