Southern Manitoba museum unveils Suzy the mosasaur

A lonely extinct underwater giant in a southern Manitoba museum just got a new friend.

The Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre (CFDC) in Morden, Man. just unveiled Suzy the mosasaur, its newest marine reptile fossil.

Suzy's skeleton measures in at over nine metres in length. She was introduced to the public Sunday and has taken a place alongside another aquatic behemoth, Manitoba's star of the Cretaceous, Bruce.

Bruce holds the Guinness World Record for the largest publicly displayed mosasaur fossil in the world and comes in at just over 13 meters long.

• Morden's mosasaur Bruce makes Guinness World Record
• Bruce the mosasaur in Manitoba now largest on display in the world

“The addition of Suzy creates an exhibit that is second to none in terms of mosasaurs and it allows our visitors so see two specimens side-by-side and up close and personal in a spectacular space,” Peter Cantelon, CFDC executive director, said in a release Sunday.

“Bruce and Suzy have been alone for 80 million and 40 years, give or take a few, and we think it is awesome that we were able to bring them together in this way.”

Fern Saurette, University of Saint Boniface biology professor, said that while Bruce may hold a world record, Suzy is in better shape.

"The interesting thing with Suzy is that she brings in new anatomical features that were not obvious on Bruce, like the quadrat near the jaw bone,” said Saurette. “For science, it's very important to show a specimen as it was in the oceans."

Suzy was discovered in 1977 not far from where Bruce was discovered, just a few kilometres northwest of Morden.

Suzy has a massive shark like tail fin and biologists said the skeleton represents the most accurate depiction of a mosasaur skeleton on display anywhere.

While mosasaurs were aquatic species, they also breathed air. They marauded the shallows in search of prey in the Cretaceous period.