13 metre-long sea monster skeleton cast installed at UBC

The elasmosaurus isn't technically a dinosaur, but it certainly looks close.

A cast skeleton of the ancient marine reptile has been installed at the University of British Columbia, with 13 metres of brown bone suspended across the atrium of the Pacific Museum of the Earth.

Nine of those 13 metres are in the creature's neck.

Scientists say the elasmosaurus which lived alongside the dinosaurs 80 million years ago likely wouldn't have been able to lift its own head above the water because of the sheer weight of its neck.

The reptileslikely lived in the continental sea that covered North America during the late Cretaceous period.

The first elasmosaurusspecimen found west of the Rockieswas near Courtenay, B.C., in 1988.

Only one confirmed, complete skeleton has ever beenunearthed. The cast on displayat UBCis modelled after a skeleton found in Kansas.

The university is already home to a lambeosaurusskeleton and the largest blue whale skeleton in Canada.

The blue whale washed ashore and was buried in P.E.I. in 1987. It was exhumed and shipped to Vancouver in 2010.

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