Re: Oronosaurus

[bh480@scn.org]

From: Ben Creisler bh480@scn.org

Re: Oronosaurus
Here's an old news item dated 9/14/1999 from the Discovery 
Channel website with a few more details. This may turn out 
to be a species of Prognathodon after all:

"The fossil of a giant marine reptile, found in Israel's 
Negev Desert in 1993, has been identified as a new type of 
mosasaur, Danish scientists announced at a conference 
Monday. Dubbed Oronosaurus after the Oron phosphate field 
about 30 miles southeast of Be'er Sheva where it was 
found, the fossil was first thought to be an over-large 
example of a type of mosasaur called Prognathodon. But as 
the five-foot-long cranium and seven cervical vertebrae 
were worked out of the hard stone surrounding them, Per 
Christiansen of the Zoological Museum and Niels Bonde of 
the Geological Institute, both in Copenhagen, realized 
that it differed greatly from other known mosasaurs."