BRAGGS, Ala. -- When University of Alabama geologists told Catherine Hollingshead they had found the fossilized remains of a gigantic sea creature in her rural front yard, she was just dying to spill the beans.
'I wanted to tell everyone they found bones 70,000 years old right out front of the house but I had to keep it a secret for 10 days,' she said.
She let the secret out -- just a little bit early -- back in March. Then she got a bigger surprise.
First, the bones are the remains of either the largest sea creature of its type ever found or were from an entirely new species, officials said. Secondly, in Hollingshead's excitement she got the age of the bones wrong by a few thousand centuries.
'When the geologists came back I remarked about the 70,000-year-old bones and they said, 'Mrs. Hollingshead, that's 70 MILLION years old.''
Alabama Museum of Natural History curator Kenneth Gaddy said the fossilized bones belong either to a 60-foot mosasaur or to an entirely new species of seagoing reptile that swam the seas of what today is gently rolling Lowndes County farmland, about 50 miles southwest of Montgomery, Ala.
Gaddy said scientists believe the fossil is between 60 million and 70 million years old because of the age of the sediments that surrounded it. 'And we're pretty sure it's a mosasaur,' said Gaddy, who, along with University of Alabama geologist Doug Jones, is supervising the dig.
'It's either the largest one of its kind ever found, based on everyone we've ever talked to, or it's a completely new find,' Gaddy said.
'Saying mosasaur is like saying monkey,' said Gaddy. 'You got monkeys of all types.' Remains of mosasaurs have been found in Texas, New Jersey and in France.
The nearly complete six-foot skull and jaw of the slender sea creature found near Hollingshead's home weighed about 10,000 pounds and cropped up at a spot where the state Highway Department excavated fill dirt for a nearby highway.
The excavation two years ago created a gently sloping geological picture of the last 70 million years, including 20 million years' worth of history from an age when warm, shallow seas covered the area. The waters began receding from the Southeast about 50 million years ago.
Layering the excavation site are thousands of sea shells from that time, and near the surface of the excavation is the ancient shoreline and 50 million years of dry land. The mosasaur remains were found at the bottom of the excavation site.
The site was found by Jones who was looking for geological areas to show to his students.
'I saw two men down there trespassing when they found it and they came up to talk to me. I knew one of them because his family lived around here,' Hollingshead said.
The three took a walk down her gravel road to the excavation site. The skull of the creature was exposed and when Hollingshead saw it, her interest in geology immediately soared.
'They said they had found a dinosaur, a sea dinosaur, and when they were walking around, they picked up a tooth as big around as a baseball,' said Hollingshead. 'When they come back I may get out there and dig.'
Mosasaurs, which lived from about 225 million years ago to as recently as 60 million years ago, were the terror of the seas, with gigantic jaws and teeth.
'It had four flippers and a long tail,' Gaddy said. 'It was pretty agile for its size. There were probably things as big around as it, but not as long.'
The reptile, whose closest living relative is the rare 9-foot Komodo dragon lizard of the East Indies, was a carnivore.
'If you were out there water skiing 70 million years ago, you would be lunch,' he said.
Gaddy said the creature died, sank to the bottom of what was then 200 feet of ocean, was quickly covered by mud and then over the years became fossilized.
Geologists in two digs have recovered most of the head and neck and will return next month to the site with college students to try to recover as much of the rest of the creature as they can.
The bones that have been recovered are at the Alabama Museum of Natural History in Tuscaloosa awaiting cleaning. Officials want to assemble the animal's skeleton as an exhibit.