W B Meet the 10 largest marine dinosaurs that inhabited the planet. It is worth mentioning that these are not exactly dinosaurs but marine reptiles, but they are known because they shared the same period as the dinosaurs, they even have the saurian ending in their names.
#10 KRONOSAURUS
It measured from 29.5 to 34.4 feet in length and was approximately 6.5 feet in height. In total, it could weigh eleven tons. It lived between 125 and 99 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period. It is estimated that its habitat may have been extensive because of two fossil remains that have been found, one in the Australian territories and another in Colombia. Paleontologists recognize it easily due to its short neck, bulging body and rear fins larger than the front ones. Its teeth exceeded 2.7 inches in length which made him a terrible carnivore. Kronosaurs are a genus within the pliosauridae family. The pliosauridae, plesiosauridae and the elasmosauridae families form the Plesiosauria order. The difference is that plesiosauridae and elasmosauridae have long necks and, on the other hand, pliosauridae have short necks looking more like sharks. The kronosaurus clearly belongs to the latter.
#9 ALBERTONECTES
His name means Alberta swimmer. It was discovered thanks to mining excavations that were being carried out in the Bearpaw formation, in Alberta, Canada. The albertonectes is a elasmosauridae family genus, of the Plesiosauria order. It lived in the waters of the Western Interior Seaway, an ocean that covered from North to South a large part of the territory of North America, between 76 and 70 million years ago during the Cretaceous period. It was 38 feet long. Of these 38 feet, 22.9 responded to its long neck composed of 76 vertebrae. In addition, among its fossil remains, 97 stones that it swallowed digest its food, called gastroliths have been found. These measure up to 5.3 inches and, by their shape, paleontologists determined that they came from areas near the coasts.
#8 STYXOSAURUS
It is a Elasmosauridae family genus of the Plesiosauria order. It lived between 85 and 71 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, in the seas that crossed and surrounded what is now the United States. Its length was about 39 feet, of which 16.4 feet corresponded to its neck. This was a notorious difference with the other members of the Elasmosauridae family, whose necks were not equal to at least half the length of their bodies. The Styxosaur’s teeth were conical and were made to catch more than to cut. In fact, this animal swallowed its entire prey. 250 gastroliths have been found in the stomach cavities of a specimen, mixed with fish bones that he ate shortly before dying.
#7 THALASSOMEDON
It is a genus of Elasmosauridae, of the Plesiosauria order. It lived 95 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, in what is now North America. His name, which means Lord of the Seas, was inspired by its large size: 39.3 feet, much like a four-story building. Its neck, which had 62 vertebrae, was half its size measuring 19.6 feet. Its skull was extremely small compared to his body: it was only 18.5 inches. Inside it had teeth up to 1.9 inches in length. However, like its other relatives, it needed stones in its stomach to digest food. As the gastric walls moved, the stones would collide with each other and crush the food.
#6 HAINOSAURUS
It was a marine lizard genus that was part of the mosasauridae family. It lived at the end of the Cretaceous period. Its skull measured 4.9 feet and had jaws with more than 60 teeth. Every so often they replaced their teeth like sharks. These served to catch plesiosaurs, fish and other specimens of the mosasaurs family. It is thought that it ate the pterodactyls that were approaching to the surface of the ocean to fish. In addition to being deadly, it was an excellent swimmer who curved its tail and fins when moving. Its size has been a continuous controversy. The latest studies indicate that it measured 40 feet in length, which places it as one largest marine animals in the time of the largest dinosaurs.
#5 TYLOSAURUS
It is a genus of marine animals that belongs to the mosasauridae family. Its name means lizard of great protuberance. It is characterized by its elongated snout used to catch its prey and also for interspecific combat, i.e. for fights that take place within the same species, most of the time to know who the boss is. Another of the most noticeable features of the Tylosaurus is that it had a series of small crests on its back. It was the dominant predator in the Western Interior Seaway. Of all the genus of Tylosaurus, the specific species Tylosaurus proliger was the largest, reaching 44.9 feet in length.
#4 ELASMOSAURUS
It is a genus of dinosaur that belongs to the Elasmosauridae family and the Plesiosauria order and that lived eighty million years ago, during the Cretaceous period in the Western Interior Seaway. It was 45.9 feet long and weighed two tons. Its neck had 71 vertebrae and was used to get its head to the surface and take a breath, but according to some paleontologists, it had limited mobility and it was impossible for it to bend like the neck of a swan. Its large fins suggest that it lived in open sea and that it was therefore difficult for it to approach the coasts to lay its eggs. This suggests that it was a viviparous animal. Its teeth were thin and needle-shaped, the mollusks that he ate went whole into its stomach where they were digested with the help of gastroliths. The elasmosaurus had a very sophisticated technique to catch fish. It was placed under the shoals, so that he could see them thanks to the sunlight, while fish could not see it because of the darkness of the depths. Its head was as light and small as a fish. When it wanted to eat, it stretched its neck, went after the school, and caught its prey without raising terror.
#3 PLIOSAURUS
It is a genus of the Pliosauradae family and the Plesiosauria order composed of six species that lived between 155 and 147 million years ago, in the middle and late Jurassic periods in the seas surrounding what is Europe and South America today. Its name means “closest to lizards” and refers to an ancient and erroneous theory that argued that ichthyosaurs evolved into pliosaurs and that these in turn evolved to crocodiles. Of all the species, the pliosaurus funkei, could have a length of 49.2 feet. Its remains were found in the Svalbard Islands in Norway. At first it wasn’t known what species it belonged to, Predator X was its suggestive name, which attracted everyone’s attention. Its bite was very strong, with a fifteen tons power, that is four times more than the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The causes of its disappearance are unknown.
#3 SHONISAURUS
It was a genus of the Shastasauridae family that belonged to the Ictiosauria order that, like the order of the Plesiosauria, descended from reptiles. It lived 215 million years ago, during the Triassic period and 37 of its remains have been found in the Luning formation of the state of Nevada. It had an elongated skull that measured 6.5 feet and a muzzle similar to that of a dolphin. Its sharp teeth served as harpoons to hold its prey before swallowing it. Its body was plump and topped by a caudal fin. In addition to that, it had a pair of front fins and a pair of back fins, these last ones served to him to gain an extra impulse and to hold on to during mating. Since the ichthyosaurs descended from the lizards, these two pairs of fins were the ancient hind legs of their ancestors.
#2 MOSASAURUS
The mosasaur or mosasaurus is a genus of the mosasauridae family, a group of extinct aquatic lizards and carnivores that, as we have seen, also involved the Tylosaurus and the hainosaurus. It owes its name to the fact that the first specimen was found near the Maas River. It inhabited the Earth between 77 and 66 million years ago, during the Maastrichtian, that is to say the final part of the Cretaceous, which ended when the famous asteroid fell and killed them all. Its remains have been found in Europe and North America. The mosasaurs had a barrel-shaped body, poor vision and poorly developed sense of smell. Paleontologists believe that it lived on the surface of the sea expecting to eat fish, molluscs and plesiosaurs. A curious fact is that it had fingers on its fins, five on the front, which were also the largest, and four on the back. The mosasaur genus was the most voluminous of the mosasaurid family and the largest remains, those of the Mosasaurus Hoffmani species, measure 57.7 feet, which places it on the second post on the list.
#1 SHASTASAURUS
This genus of the Shastasauridae family and the ichthyosaurs order, it is the largest marine reptile ever found. It lived during the Late Triassic around 210 million years ago. Several of its remains have been found in places as distant as Canada, the United States or China. The species shastasaurus sikanniensis, found in Columbia, Canada, is the one that is the largest size with 68.8 feet in length. If one of this was to stand, it would be as tall as a seven-story building. The structure of the shastasaurus differs from that of the other members of the order of the ichthyosaurs. The shastasaurus is slender and its ribcage only measures 6.5 feet tall. Due to its lack of teeth and the shortness of its snout, it is thought that it was fed by suction and that their preys were invertebrate animals such as octopuses and jellyfish. It is impossible not to relate it to whales. Just like them, it was big, but by no means a fearsome predator.
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