Re: When dinos roamed

["Steve Brusatte" <dinoland@lycos.com>]

On Fri, 13 Jul 2001 23:35:44
 NJPharris wrote:
>In a message dated 7/13/01 7:39:46 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
>Danvarner@aol.com writes:
>
>>       Oh, brother! See:
>> 2
>
>Whoops!  My bad.  Seems I do remember hearing something about this guy.  But
>the B.C. specimen is Triassic (and frickin' huge!), so it's not
>_Ichthyosaurus_ per se...

This thing is definitely frickin' huge.  I remember hearing about the Rolex 
Awards, and the first thing that popped into my mind was "is this a large 
specimen of Shonisaurus?"  And, sure enough, Shonisaurus is mentioned on the 
Rolex page.

I take it nothing has been published on this new 23-meter ichthyosaur, but does 
anyone know how it may differ from Shonisaurus??  Both are from about the same 
time and from the same general area.  The problem with Shonisaurus is that it 
is known from no skull, and the fossils found in Berlin, Nevada are not 
preserved well.  The vertebrae of Shonisaurus are relatively well-known, 
though, so maybe a comparison should be done.

I have seen Shonisaurus reconstructed up to about 13-15 meters, but I recall 
reading somewhere that one scientist "predicted" that this ichthyosaur could 
reach sizes of 70 feet.  That would be relatively close to 23 meters...

Steve

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