Gigantic skeleton filmed on the ocean floor

[+DieChecker]

Poor dead leviathan. Probably the last one. 

Do whale sharks reach 30 meters?

[Marozi]

Intially, I thought this "sea serpent" could be a whale shark too due to the hourglass-shaped vertebra and the shape of what remains of the cranium. But then it wouldn't be the Mediterranean Sea and @DieChecker there aren't such long whale sharks... what actually is all just part of the so far unprovable eyewitness record and therefore has to be rated separate from its "bones" naturally. Anyway, it's not a whale shark.

As I've checked the sea life in the said region, I found the fin whale (with an average size between 18 to 24 meters) which has the largest size and therefore would match the rough estimation given. But from my point of view, as the ROV "claw" (about one or two times of a human hand I guess?) gives us an idea for the dimensions of one vertebra, thus this skeleton isn't 30 meters at all.

The skull - and also the cervic vertebra behind it - is nearly a give away. A look into cetacean anatomy points to a baleen or more specific rorqual whale skull with clearly visible squamosal bones (see my pic). But if it's a whale, where are the missing vertebral processes? As we know from for example fossil plesiosaur vertebrae, but also from whale vertebrae, under certain conditions they simply dissapear due to taphonomic processes in deep sea (what is called bioerosion). See here for another whale vertebral column without vertebral processes: https://www.latimes.com/science/la-xpm-2013-mar-18-la-sci-sn-antarctica-whale-fall-first-new-nine-species-20130318-story.html

Edited June 5, 2021 by Marozi

[Conrad Clough]

they actually look like fish vertebrae that are lacking the various processes, sometimes you'll see very similar shapes in cans of salmon that have been pressure cooked. The way the one crumbles when the claw tries to pick it up indicates to me that they are not fossils. My best guess would be some sort of shark (and probably not all that old, and much smaller than claimed).

[Grim Reaper 6]

Wow, there are a lot of ideas in this thread, but it appears that everyone is missing a very important point. All of the mammals that have been mentioned would have had addition bones like ribs, not just a vertebra. There were no additional bones and the vertebra were not disturbed as if the creature had been fead upon by a predator. I would really love to see a follow up of this video with trained an ichthyologist better known as a marine biologist, I am certain they would have a viable answer to what the creature was. 

That was really a cool video.

JIMO

[GlitterRose]

On 7/14/2021 at 2:43 AM, Manwon Lender said:

Wow, there are a lot of ideas in this thread, but it appears that everyone is missing a very important point. All of the mammals that have been mentioned would have had addition bones like ribs, not just a vertebra. There were no additional bones and the vertebra were not disturbed as if the creature had been fead upon by a predator. I would really love to see a follow up of this video with trained an ichthyologist better known as a marine biologist, I am certain they would have a viable answer to what the creature was. 

That was really a cool video.

JIMO

Addressed by Mirozi above. Bioerosion.