Dinosuars 101

The Kronosaurus

Name:
Kronosaurus (Greek for "Kronos lizard"); pronounced CROW-no-SORE-us
Habitat:
Oceans worldwide
Historical Period:
Middle Cretaceous (110 million years ago)
Size and Weight:
About 33 feet long and 7 tons
Diet:
Fish, mollusks, and other marine reptiles
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Enormous head with short neck; numerous sharp teeth

About Kronosaurus:
Kronosaurus was a classic example of a pliosaur, marine reptiles characterized by their thick heads, short necks, stocky trunks and outsized flippers.
The middle Cretaceous Kronosaurus appears to have made its living much like a modern Great White Shark, simply eating anything--fish, squids, and other marine reptiles--that swam across its path. As big as it was, though, Kronosaurus didn't approach the bulk of the most massive pliosaur of all time, Liopleurodon, which may have weighed as much as 35 tons (compared to about 10 tons for the largest Kronosaurus individuals). And both of these reptiles were outclassed by the giant shark Megalodon, which lived tens of millions of years later and attained weights in the 50 ton range.
The fragmented remains of Kronosaurus were discovered fairly early in paleontological history, in 1899 in Queensland, Australia. A much more complete specimen was unearthed three decades later, during a fossil-hunting expedition to Australia sponsored by Harvard University, and a few decades after that, a second Kronosaurus species was discovered in Colombia, South America, proof that this fearsome reptile attained an especially wide distribution during the Cretaceous period.