Megalneusaurus rex

[Colin McHenry <s172579@student.uq.edu.au>]

Once upon a time, when most of North America was under water (those were the
days!), there lived a monstrously large beast by the name of _Megalneusaurus
rex_.  It was a giant pliosaur, a member of the tribe that for millenia used
to plunder the largest predators that the dinosaurs could come up with from
the beaches and rivers, spiting their puny bones and teeth out as they wiped
out herds of megafauna....

..Trouble is, no-one seems to know much about it.  It first got a mention
in 1895, when W. Knight (one of Sam Williston's colleagues?) wrote a very
brief letter to the (then) brand new journal Science, saying that it was
from the Upper Jurassic of Wyoming.  The implication is that there was quite
a bit of material.  Initially  he called it _Cimoliasaurus rex_, but it is
mentioned in Longman's 1930 discussion of _Kronosaurus_ (where he compares K
with other large pliosaurs)as _Megalneusaurus_. Longman refers to a
(presumably more informative) 1895 article by Knight in J American Science,
but unfortunately none of the libraries over here have this issue (I have
also seen this paper refered to as 1898, so the date is not very reliable).
It then gets a mention in Romer's Osteology of the Reptiles as _incertae
sedis_ - and that, as far as I can tell, is it.  I find this amazing, for
the following reason; in the 1895 Science letter Knight describes
a femur which is 1200 mm long.  For comparison, the only complete femur that
I have of (a not particularly small) _Kronosaurus_ is 900mm in
length...Irrespective of which species is the larger, this means that there
was a very big pliosaur swimming around the N. American seas in the late
Jurassic (is this why none of the dinos managed to get off the island in
JP..?).  How such a beast can be ignored is beyond me, but I suppose that
the sauropterygians have always been eclipsed by their furry and feathered
food animals...

So, does anyone know anything at all about this beast?  Like, are there any
specimens in any of the museums in or around Wyoming?  Has anyone ever read
the 1895/7 paper by Knight? I've written to Sam Welles about it, but perhaps
somebody out in the ether has additional information.  Thanks in advance.

BTW, with regard to the etymology of names, Kronosaurus does not mean 'time
reptile' (although this PhD will take forever) as I've seen it written
somewhere (John Long's book?).  It is named after the Greek Titan Kronos
(known to the Romans as Saturn), the father of Zeus who reputedly ate most
of his offspring (and yes, one popular account over here even said that the
beast got its name because it too ate all its offspring).  Or perhaps, as
some people maintain, the name comes from source of Klingon mythology that
inspired the name for their flagship battle cruiser....


A pleasant 1996 to all

Colin


references:

H.A. Longman, 1930, Kronosaurus queenslandicus, a gigantic Cretaceous
pliosaur, Mem. Qld. Mus., 10 (1): 1-7.

W.C. Knight, 1895, A new Jurassic plesiosaur from Wyoming, Science, 2: 449. 

W.C. Knight, 1895/8(?), Amer. Journ. Sci., 4th ser., vol 5, p. 378.
 *( ^ I haven't been able to get this one ^ )*

A.S. Romer, 1956, The Osteology of the Reptiles



Colin McHenry

P.A. Swamps
Dept Zoology
Uni Qld
Qld 4072
Australia