Adorable Newborn Sea Monster from the Dinosaur Age Discovered in Kansas

[Judi Lynn]

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | October 11, 2018 07:27pm ET

About 85 million years ago, when a vast sea covered Kansas, a wee, little sea monster died almost immediately after it was born.

Despite its short life, this newborn, which head to tail, was as long as André the Giant was tall (well, it was tiny compared to its parents) is making waves today; a new analysis of its fossils reveals that it's the smallest Tylosaurus — a type of mosasaur, a fearsome marine reptile that lived during the dinosaur age — on record.

But it took years and meticulous detective work for researchers to identify this creature as a Tylosaurus. Paleontologists made the ID by examining tiny broken pieces of the creature's snout, braincase and upper jaw, the only fossils of the animal they could find, a new study reports. [T-Rex of the Seas: A Mosasaur Gallery]

When the tiny leviathan's remains were found in the Smoky Hill Chalk Member of western Kansas, in 1991, researchers thought it was a Platecarpus. This medium-size genus of mosasaur had a short, rounded snout and could grow to almost 20 feet (6 meters) long.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/63811-ancient-baby-sea-monster-found.html?utm_source=notification

[eppur_se_muova]

1. For comparison, here's what papa Tylosaur might look like ...

caption: "Feathers and all" - It's hard to imagine the scale of this picture.... the little swimming birds (Hesperornis) are about 5 feet long and the Tylosaurus ... well, it's huge. Modeled after the largest specimen on exhibit (The Bunker Tylosaur), this beast was at least 45 feet long and had a skull that was 6 feet in length. Read about "A day in the life of a mosasaur" here.

more: http://oceansofkansas.com/varner.html