#albertonectes

[critter-creature-or-beast]

This was a...

critter

creature

beast

Voting ended onJul 13, 2025

Submitted for classification by @riso-wizo

"Which designation is albertonectes?"

[autisticsquidward]

Today’s plesiosaur of the day is the Albertonectes! The Albertonectes (Albertonectes vanderveldei) is the longest plesiosaur! It has 76 cervical vertebrae, the most of any known species of animal!

[eggcrumbb]

Ranting about him (more specifically my favorite prehistoric reptile)

(My drawing and picture)

Albertonectes vanderveldei

(Genus)

Superorder- sauropterygia

Order-plesiosauria

Family-elasmosauridae

Subfamily-elasmosaurinae

Campanian Late Cretaceous 100.5-66 Ma

Alberta, Canada

Name deriving from Alberta and nectes is a Greek word for "swimmer"

Carnivores, specifically piscivores, eating fish with their long necks

Total length of ~37 ft and their necks themselves were ~23 ft with 76 neck vertebraes making it the longest necked animal of elasmosaurs

Discovered by Tai Kubo, Mark T. Mitchell, and Donald M. Henderson in 2012

I researched for a while and have been reading on them for a while now and this is all the informatiom I could find :( if you know anything else i would love to collect more facts to know !!

I love them because of their long necks and ive always been drawn to aquatic creatures !!!!

[kryllek]

October begins...

[crownedrose-blog]

Albertonectes vanderveldei : An Extreme Elasmosaur Photo Above Credit: Albertonectes. From Kubo et al., 2012.

A new animal has been discovered/described in the latest Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology. It's a new type of plesiosaur (marine reptile; not a dinosaur) that has a wicked amount of cervical bones; 76 to be exact! The neck alone comes out to be a length of around 23 feet. Pretty awesome, right? It's even cooler because - if true - this animal has the highest count of cervical vertebra ever!

The animal comes from Alberta, Canada - hence the name Albertonectes vanderveldei. It's practically complete, but unfortunately missing the skull. It apparently measures out to be just under 40 feet in length.

Since it's a new discovery, there is much more we still do not know just yet. This is all very exciting. It sure makes you wonder how many other species are still in the rocks just waiting to be discovered.

Want to know more? Read up on the paper released on this animal below:

Paper: Kubo, T., Mitchell, M., & Henderson, D. (2012). Albertonectes vanderveldei , a new elasmosaur (Reptilia, Sauropterygia) from the Upper Cretaceous of Alberta. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 32 (3), 557-572 DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2012.658124.

You can also read the article on Wired (where I got the released information from).