Kronosaurus

Common card · No. 235654

Kronosaurus ( KRON-oh-SOR-əs) is an extinct genus of large short-necked pliosaur that lived during the Aptian to Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous in what is now Australia. The first known specimen was received in 1899 and consists of a partially preserved mandibular symphysis, which was first thought to come from an ichthyosaur according to Charles De Vis. However, it was in 1924 that Albert Heber Longman formally described this specimen as the holotype of an imposing pliosaurid, to which he gave the scientific name K. queenslandicus, which is still the only recognized species nowadays. The genus name, meaning "lizard of Kronos", refers to its large size and possible ferocity reminiscent of the Titan of the Greek mythology, while the species name alludes to Queensland, the Australian state of its discovery. In the early 1930s, the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology sent an organized expedition to Australia that recovered two specimens historically attributed to the taxon, including...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Stephen F. Poropat, Phil R. Bell, Lachlan J. Hart, Steven W. Salisbury, & Benjamin P. Kear, CC BY-SA 4.0