''Wapuskanectes'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of early

elasmosaurid Elasmosauridae, often called elasmosaurs or elasmosaurids, is an extinct family of plesiosaurs that lived from the Hauterivian stage of the Early Cretaceous to the Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous period (c. 130 to 66 mya). The taxo ...

known from

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, in the

Albian The Albian is both an age (geology), age of the geologic timescale and a stage (stratigraphy), stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the youngest or uppermost subdivision of the Early Cretaceous, Early/Lower Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch/s ...

aged Wabiskaw member of the

Clearwater Formation The Clearwater Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Early Cretaceous (Albian) age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in northeastern Alberta, Canada. It was first defined by R.G. McConnell in 1893 and takes its name from the Clearwater Riv ...

. ''Wapuskanectes'' is the oldest North American elasmosaurid to date, at around 112 million years old.

Etymology

The generic name is derived from ''Wapuska'',

Cree language Cree ( ; also known as Cree–Montagnais language, Montagnais–Naskapi language, Naskapi) is a dialect continuum of Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 86,475 people across Canada in 2021, from the Northwest Territories to Alberta to ...

for "a body of water with whitecaps on it" and also it is the etymology of the Wabiskaw Member, in which the holotype was found, and ''nectes'',

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

for "swimmer". The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

honors the late Dr. Elizabeth "Betsy" Nicholls, curator of marine reptiles at the

Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology (RTMP; often referred to as the Royal Tyrrell Museum) is a palaeontology museum and research facility in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada. The museum was named in honour of Joseph Burr Tyrrell, and is situate ...

, for enduring influence on research in Mesozoic marine vertebrates.

Discovery

''Wapuskanectes'' was named by Patrick S. Druckenmiller and Anthony P. Russell in

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

. The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

and only species is ''Wapuskanectes betsynichollsae''. The holotype is

TMP TMP may refer to: Arts and media * Tickle Me Pink, a rock band from Colorado, US (2005–2011) * Tiny Moving Parts, an emo band from Minnesota, US * Tom Malone Prize, an Australian glass art prize * Tsukuyomi -Moon Phase-, a 2000–2008 anime ...

98.49.02, an articulated partial

postcrania The postcranium ("behind the cranium"; plural: postcrania) or postcranial skeleton in zoology and vertebrate paleontology is the skeleton apart from the skull. The postcranium encompasses the axial skeleton, which includes the entirety of the verte ...

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of most animals. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is a rigid outer shell that holds up an organism's shape; the endoskeleton, a rigid internal fra ...

including an almost complete pectoral girdle. It was collected in the western side of the Syncrude Canada Ltd.'s

open-pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock (geology), rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially ...

oilsand mine (Syncrude Base Mine) near Ft. McMurray, from the Wabiskaw Member of the

, dating to the earliest

stage of the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous (geochronology, geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphy, chronostratigraphic name) is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 143.1 ...

, about 112

million years ago Million years ago, abbreviated as Mya, Myr (megayear) or Ma (megaannum), is a unit of time equal to (i.e. years), or approximately 31.6 teraseconds. Usage Myr is in common use in fields such as Earth science and cosmology. Myr is also used w ...

. This is the same rock unit that produced the leptocleidid '' Nichollsaura.'' Several specimens have been discovered, the most complete of which is TMP 2012.50.1, found 30 km away from the Syncrude mine where previous specimens were found. Unfortunately, it was discovered when a

grader A grader, also commonly referred to as a road grader, motor grader, or simply blade, is a form of heavy equipment with a long blade used to create a flat surface during Grading (engineering), grading. Although the earliest models were towed b ...

ploughed through the neck, resulting in the destruction of the skull and most of the neck. Additionally, there was no trace of the right forelimb, although this loss is interpreted to have occurred some time prior to the final burial of the animal in the early Cretaceous. Wapuskanectes betsynichollsae TMP2011

Gastroliths

Two potential specimens which were identified as

cf. The abbreviation cf. (short for either Latin or , both meaning 'compare') is generally used in writing to refer the reader to other material to make a comparison with the topic being discussed. However some sources offer differing or even contr ...

''Wapuskanectes'', TMP 2011.88.1 and TMP 2012.50.1, preserve

gastroliths A gastrolith, also called a stomach stone or gizzard stone, is a rock held inside a gastrointestinal tract. Gastroliths in some species are retained in the muscular gizzard and used to grind food in animals lacking suitable grinding teeth. In oth ...

. The former's gastroliths were primarily composed of black, polished chert pebbles with some minor quartzites, and the latter's were likely the same, although only a few of its gastroliths were visible, the largest of which weighed 14.5 grams. Gastroliths in TMP 2012.50.1 could be seen poking out of the dorsal side of the body between the ribs, as after death it had come to rest on the seabed on its back. Gastroliths were primarily spherical pebbles. Similar gastrolith composition is seen in the leptocleidid '' Nichollsaura'' from the same unit, despite ''Wapuskanectes'' having 10 times more mass than ''Nichollsaura''. The former did have larger gastroliths and an estimated 5 times the weight in gastroliths however. The gastroliths in both genera were found to have similar composition to the early

Aptian The Aptian is an age (geology), age in the geologic timescale or a stage (stratigraphy), stage in the stratigraphic column. It is a subdivision of the Early Cretaceous, Early or Lower Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or series (stratigraphy), S ...

aged conglomerate rocks in the Cadomin Formation, suggesting that the two genera collected stones from the same geographic area. These rocks are 8-10 million years older than the Wabiskaw member plesiosaurs, so it is hypothesized that they may have swum westward from the northern

Western Interior Seaway The Western Interior Seaway (also called the Cretaceous Seaway, the Niobraran Sea, the North American Inland Sea, or the Western Interior Sea) was a large inland sea (geology), inland sea that existed roughly over the present-day Great Plains of ...

to collect the Cadomin rocks eroding out of the beaches and river mouths of the Seaway's western coast.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3337066 Early Cretaceous plesiosaurs of North America Fossil taxa described in 2006 Elasmosauridae Sauropterygian genera Paleontology in Alberta