Kronosaurus
Name:
Kronosaurus
(Kronus lizard - after the king of the Greek Titans).
Phonetic: Krow-no-sore-us.
Named By: Longman - 1924.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia,
Sauropterygia, Plesiosauria, Pliosauroidea, Pliosauridae.
Species: K. queenslandicus (type),
K. boyacensis.
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Estimated between 9 and 10 meters
long. Skull 2.7 meters long.
Known locations: Australia. Colombia.
Time period: Aptian to Albian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Two sets of remains and
associated individual teeth.
Kronosaurus
is one of the more famous fossil discoveries to come from Australia,
and as a huge short-necked pliosaur, Kronosaurus
would have been an
apex predator of the waters it swam in. The teeth of Kronosaurus
are
conical and up to thirty centimetres long, although most of that was
root with up to twelve centimetres making up the exposed crown.
Interestingly the teeth of Kronosaurus are quite
different to other
pliosaurs in that they are not serrated and do not have three facets.
The teeth may suggest that despite its large size Kronosaurus
may have
seized smaller to medium sized prey which could then be manipulated to
be swallowed. The only way that Kronosaurus could
have fed from
larger prey would be to clamp on with its jaws and then use brute
strength from its body to tear off a chunk of flesh by twisting or
rolling. Either way it seems that Kronosaurus may
have eaten in a
similar manner to a crocodile.
One
prey type for Kronosaurus seems to have been the
long necked
elasmosaurid plesiosaurs that were quite common in the southern oceans
of the Cretaceous. Evidence for this predation comes from the skull
of an Eromangasaurus
that seems to have Kronosaurus bite marks. Also
the fact that Eromangasaurus is only known from a
skull might suggest
that the head was torn off in the Kronosaurus
attack.
Initial
size estimates for Kronosaurus placed it at just
under thirteen meters
long. However further study combined with a better understanding of
pliosaur remains in general resulted in a reduction in this estimate to
somewhere in the region of nine to ten meters long. This estimate is
universally accepted as being more accurate, and although the upper
size is reduced to ten meters, Kronosaurus was
still big for a
pliosaur and was much bigger than Liopleurodon
which is often
incorrectly credited as the biggest pliosaur ever. An even bigger
pliosaur than Kronosaurus however is the one that has been dubbed 'Predator
X'.
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