Brachauchenius

Brachauchenius chasing Hesperornis

• North America (Kansas, Texas)
• South America ( Colombia)

Brachauchenius ( Gr. brakhys "short" aukhen " neck ", ius ) was a great Pliosaur and together with the genus Polyptychodon one of the last representatives of this group in the North American Western Interior Seaway.

It is known from three skulls, fins and two skeletons partially preserved almost perfectly preserved. It was only described a way that the type species Brachauchenius lucasi.

Features

Brachauchenius was a huge Pliosaur and reached a length of eleven meters, of which the skull occupied 1.5 meters.

The fins were about 1.8 meters long. He had only 13 very short cervical vertebrae lacking the ventral openings that existed at most other Pliosauriern. You are connected to single-headed ribs, while the other Pliosaur had double-headed cervical ribs. The neck reached 75 % of the skull length, making it the relatively shortest of all plesiosaurs. The skull is triangular, wide rear and construction for all pointed.

He is more like a mosasaur than the other Pliosaur whose snouts were graded before the nostrils. The large teeth were structured by grooves, branching out to the tooth the base.

System

Brachauchenius is counted to the family of Pliosauridae, made ​​by some scientists but along with Kronosaurus in their own family Brachauchenidae.

Swell

• Richard Ellis: Sea Dragons: Predators of the Prehistoric Oceans. Page 192, University Press of Kansas, 2003, ISBN 0-7006-1269-6
• Ben Creisler: Plesiosauria Translation and Pronunciation Guide Brachauchenius