Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 11:19:34 -0700
This new discovery in Oregon of a Jurassic croc with a fish-tail and needle-like teeth is an exciting find for anyone interested in Native American traditions and artistic images of water serpents with fish- tails and needle teeth, and long bodies covered in scutes or scales and with fin or paddle-like appendages.
These notable features of the Jurassic crocodile (needle teeth, forked fish-tail, scales or scutes) are also the distinctive characteristics of water monster representations among the Kiowa, Sioux, the Pomo of northern California, and other tribes.
The 6-8 ft long croc skeleton in Oregon was fairly well preserved and weathering visibly out of rock, so in theory a similar fossil could have been noticed by untrained Indian observers in the past. The artist's illustration of the croc by Jon Hughes for the NARG has a remarkable resemblance to the Kiowa artist Silverhorn's sketch of a water monster with scales or scutes, long narrow head with needle teeth and a forked fish-tail, in the Smithsonian,