#createceous

Kronosaurus

Mounted specimen on display at Harvard Museum of Natural History

Reconstruction by Jaime Chirinos

When: Cretaceous (~ 125 - 99 million years ago)

Where: Australia

What:Kronosaurus is an australian plesiosaur. Yes, it is a plesiosaur even though it lacks the long neck that many people associated with the group. Plesiosauria is roughly divided into two groups;  Plesiosauroidea - the long necked forms and Pliosauroidea - the short necked forms. Kronosaurus is an example of the latter clade, and shows many of the defining features of this group - such as an enormous head with massive jaws, a short neck, and a relatively short tail- the opposite in many ways of their cousins the plesiosauroids. This australian sea monster was one of the largest of its clade, with estimates of up to 33 feet long (~10 meters). Its teeth reach almost 5 inches (~12 cm ) long in crown length - the part above the gumline. The total tooth would have been over double in size. The large size of its teeth, combined with distinct shape and the lack of clear cutting surfaces also  for their easy identification if they are found as isolated material. 

The Kronosaurusspecimen seen above was found in on private property in central Queensland, Australia in the 1920s. A crew from Harvard was shown where the specimen was weathering out, and set about excavating the fossil. After years of work, the specimen was boxed up into over 80 crates, weighing in at over 6 tons and shipped to the states, where it was mounted at the Harvard museum. Decades later the original discoverer of the material finally got the see the results of the preparation and mounting of what he termed ‘his dinosaur’ at the age of 93. In life Kronosaurus was a top predator; there are fossils of Elasmosauridae plesiosaurs that show bite wounds that could have come from Kronosaurus! No fish for this animal, it was after much bigger prey, leading to amazing plesiosaur vs plesiosaur encounters. Or so I like to imagine!