Kronosaurus Fossil at Harvard Museum

 

On display as of August 2022, at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA is the fossil of a short neck pliosaur called Kronosaurus queenslandicus (Longman, 1924) [MCZ 1285]. The creature swam in the early Cretaceous Period seas (135 million years ago). It was found by an Australian rancher R.W.H. Thomas and shown to a member of the 1931-1932 Harvard Australian Expedition William E. Schevill (1906-1994). They were able to dynamite the limestone nodules out and then ship them back to Harvard. After Godfrey Lowell Cabot (1861-1962) provided the financing to prep the fossil, it was put on display in 1959.

Part of the skull, backbone, and paddles had weathered away but were able to be restored. About 30% of the fossil is plaster restoration and original bones are coated in plaster to protect the fossil. It appears the reconstruction has too many vertebrate so the 12.8 meter (42 ft) display should probably only be about 9-10.9 meters (30-36 ft). Also genus and species of this fossil should now be Electus longmani (Noe and Gomez-Perez, 2022).

The Fossil Woman Book

 

Recently, I acquired a new book entitled The Fossil Woman A Life of Mary Anning by Tom Sharpe (published by The Dovecote Press, 2020). The subject of this book is perhaps one of the best known fossil hunters known for finding Jurassic age marine fossils in the 19th century. It is somewhat rare that I buy a modern book about fossils but I was intrigued enough to purchase this book from Blackwells of Oxford, England and have it shipped to the USA. An added incentive was the author is donating part of the proceeds to a campaign in Lyme Regis to create and display a statue of Mary Anning.

Lyme Regis Museum building as it looked in August 2016. Site of where house where Mary Anning was born, lived and had her fossil shop till 1826. Original house demolished in 1889 so museum could be built.

Lyme Regis England Coastline at high tide August 2016

 

The Cobb at Lyme Regis England in August 2016

The book is a creation of a lot of thorough research and contains modern images and events pertaining to Miss Anning. It clears up some of the myths and misinformation about this most famous paleontologist. As the author notes in his introduction, there is much information not known about Mary Anning due to a lot of her correspondence and journals are lost to time. Mr. Sharpe does a fine job with the material he does have to weave a story about her life. I would highly recommend this book if you are interested in learning more about Mary Anning, British paleontology in the 1800s, and the Jurassic coast of southern England.

Public domain image of William Buckland that is misidentified as Mary Anning on Wikipedia at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Anning.jpg

One piece of misinformation I learned was an sketch of person walking along a landscape in a top hat and holding a rock hammer. It misidentified as being Mary and drawn by De la Beche. Mr. Sharpe marked as image 40 in his book as being a Thomas Sopwith sketch of William Buckland in Snowdonia (Wales) in 1841. The image is on Wikipedia's entry for Mary Anning (as of this writing) and it references the image on page 78 of a document entitled "Nomination of the Dorset and East Devon Coast for inclusion in the World Heritage List" by the Dorset County Council in the year 2000 [LINK]. I also wondered about this image how it was so different from the others of Mary. I assumed since she lived in poverty she would be very thin and the person in the image look almost overweight (so I assumed it was a lot of padding for the cold, windy environment of Dorset).

More things I learned that Mary Anning was a shrewd fossil dealer and an accomplished fossil preparer. Also that she was well known in the field with a number of newspaper and journal articles mentioning her while she was alive.

Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus fossil found in 1824 at Lyme Regis, Dorset, England by Mary Anning. It was the first articulated plesiosaur skeleton ever found and lived during the Lower Jurassic Period (203-194 million years ago). Named by W. D. Conybeare and bought by the Natural History Museum of London in 1848 from the estate of the Duke of Buckingham. It was on display at the museum in August 2016.

Termnodontosaurus platyodon (Conybeare, 1822) ichthyosaur fossil found by Mary Anning on display at Natural History Museum of London August 2016. Skylight reflection in display glass in image, apologies for image.

Dapedium politum fish fossil probably collected by Mary Anning displayed at the Lyme Regis Museum in Dorset England on August 2016.

Ichthyosaurus communis fossil found by Mary Anning in 1820 and sold to Georges Cuvier. Displayed at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris France August 2016.

 

One sad item the books documents is so many of the Mary Anning fossils found were destroyed in World War II bombing of England and museum fires. The book lists the Bristol City Museum fossil collection destroyed in air raids on November 24-25, 1940 (in 1987 they a partial ichthyosaur skull fossil from Anning 1814 that survived the bombing) and on May 10, 1941 a night bombing of Royal College of Surgeons in London fossil reptile collection was mostly destroyed (396 of 400).  In the United States, the New York Lyceum of Natural History had Anning specimens purchased in 1827 by G.W. Featherstonhaugh. This collection was destroyed in a fire on May 21, 1866. The author documents a number of other museums that have or had specimens but lost the labels so it difficult to know if Anning fossils still exist at those institutions.

When I was at the Natural History Museum of London in August 2016 and waiting in line for it open, I took some pictures of the Victoria and Albert Museum across the street which shows shrapnel damage made during World War II bombings of London.

Which just re-enforces the need for museums to digitize their collections. These vast store houses are not immune to loss. Which re-enforces that natural history collections need to be digitized and the data distributed across geographical distance servers so some record will exist if the original specimen is lost.

 Image (Tab. 42) of watercolor of Squaoraja fish fossil found by Mary Anning December 1829. Louis Agassiz had image created for his book Poissons Fossiles, Atlas Tome III 1833-1845. He called it Spinacorhynus polyspondylus and image painted by J Charles Weber.The original fossil was destroyed in World War II at the Bristol City Museum however the tail section still exists in the Philpot collection at Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Again, I would encourage you to read this book if you are interested in the history of paleontology or if you plan on visiting Lyme Regis or the Natural Museum of History in London.

Opal Plesiosaur Vertebra Fossil

In August 2020, I visited The Field Museum of Natural History. It is an amazing place for any one interested in natural history. My main interests were the fossil and mineral collections on display. One specimen that really impressed me was in the Grainger Hall of Gems. It was an opal plesiosaur vertebra fossil from Australia. The Grainger Hall of Gems started off as a Tiffany & Company gem collection exhibited at Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. After the exposition was over, it was purchased and made part of the new museum when it opened in 1921.

Over hundreds and thousands of years silica-rich groundwater dissolve fossil remains and leave silica gel. Once the gel hardens it forms opal. Also included in the display are opal fossilized clam and snail fossils.

I have documented other Australian opal fossils at the Natural History Museum in London, England:
https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2020/02/opal-gastropod-fossils.html

and Muséum National D'Histoire Naturelle Minéralogie et Géologie in Paris France
https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2016/08/opal-belemnite-fossils.html

Thaumatorsaurus Marine Reptile Stamp

Here is a picture of the Thaumatosaurus victor marine reptile stamp. It was issued in 1965 by the small republic of San Marino (located on the Italian peninsula). The stamp was part of collection of nine issued that year.

The Thaumatosaurus victor was named in 1841 by the German palaeontologist Hermann von Meyer. His specimen was found in the Posidonia Shale of Holzmaden, Germany. The genus Thaumatosaurus ("wonder reptile") has been renamed Meyerasaurus in honor of Hermann von Meyer. The creature existed in the early Jurassic Period (183-180 mya).


Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_von_Meyer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyerasaurus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhomaleosaurus

Keichiosaurus youngi Marine Reptile

Keichiosaurus youngi primitive marine reptile fossil found in Guizhou Province in China. This creature swam during the Lower Triassic. The first fossil of this genus was discovered in 1957. Learn more at Wikipedia.

Keichousaurus hui drawn by Nobu Tamura (2007)
Found on Wikipedia
See more of Nobu Tamura's work at paleoexhibit.blogspot.com

Scale in the next picture is in inches.

Thanks to Mark Palatas for letting me photograph this specimen.

Pliosaur Fossil to Be CT Scanned

Skull fragments of a 10-16 m pliosaur marine reptile found in 2009 (Dorset, England) will be CT scanned at the University of Southhampton in the UK according to a December 22, 2010, BBC story.

This link leads to the story by Rebecca Morelle entitled, "Colossal pliosaur fossil secrets revealed by CT scanner". Learn more at that video link provided.

 Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni at British Natural History Museum 2005

photo by Niki Odolphie (Frome, England) 

Posted on Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attributions 2.0

The marine reptile known as the Pliosaur existed in the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods (learn more at this Wikipedia link).

Cryptoclidus oxoniensis

Pictures taken at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris, France.  Doing some research on the new movie that is now showing at the Louisville Science Center IMAX called Sea Rex: Journey to a Prehistoric World, I found these marine reptile images I took last year.  The natural history museum building is shown in the film in a re-creation of a historical paleontological event.  I need to see this film again and might have some future comments about some of the historical scenes shown in this movie.

The fossil of the marine reptile shown in these pictures are of the Cryptoclidus oxoniensis found in England.  It is a type of plesiosaur from the Middle Jurassic Period.  See this link on Wikipedia for more information.

Sea Rex Movie Review... Sort Of

Sea Rex 3D: Journey to a Prehistoric World opened at the Louisville Science Center IMAX theater on June 12, 2010.  The movie was not quite what I expected in that being more of a learning experience and less of an action movie.  My only comparison would be a the Sea Monsters IMAX movie which was action oriented and told from the point of view of a sea creature.  Going into Sea Rex, my big question was, "What actually is Sea Rex?"  By the end of movie, I knew the answer.

The movie takes an interesting tact by using a modern aquarium or museum setting with a visitor named Julie who takes a trip through time with a famous paleontologist Georges Cuvier.  Interspersed in the scenes of marine reptiles swimming in ancient seas, paleontologists give explanations of paleontological concepts.  Scientists need to do more presentations like this to help the general public try to understand the scientific research.  One should watch the credits as the scientists might be portrayed by actors [see this review at the smithsonian.com site].

Georges Cuvier

Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

The scientists highlighted the film are Dr. Nathalie Bardet who shows a Mary Anning discovery at the British Museum that becomes animated. Dr. Olivier Rieppel of the Rowe Family Curator at Chicago's Field Museum, Dr. Ryosuke Motani of the University of California Davis, Dr. Zulma Gasparini from La Plata Museum in Argentina, and Dr. Benjamin Kear of Australia's La Trobe University.  Dr. Kear's presentation in the film is definitely unique (he needs to eat more to put some meat on those bones).

Prognathodon solvayi

Marine Reptile - Late Cretaceous Period

Drawn by Dmitry Bogdanov

Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

The film really utilizes computer graphics to help the viewer realize geologic time, continent formation, and marine reptile structure/anatomy.  I did have to guess at some of the time periods in the graphics and I assume the major extinction events they refer to are Permian and the K-T.  You also get to see a lot of creatures rendered like the Shonisaurus, Pterodactyl, Prognathodon, Mixosaurus, Liopleurodon, Ichthyosaur, Parasaurolophus, Mosasaur, Rhomaleosaurus, Kronosaurus, and Tanystropheus.

Ichthyosaur Marine Reptile Fossil

Jurassic Period

Muséum National D'Historie Naturelle

Paris, France

Being a volunteer at the Louisville Science Center, one will get questions about the movies being shown.  Weekend visitors tend to be families with young children and one concern is will the movie scare young children.  As for this movie, I would say not.  It is rated for 4 year old children and up.  Predator-prey relationships are explored in the movie but not in gory detail.  Violent conflicts mostly take place off screen, leaving a good deal to the imagination.  So it is a good film to show children, the marine reptiles are not too scary in my opinion. 

If you like dinosaurs (and marine reptiles) or paleontology, the film is good to see. I enjoyed watching it and the educational topics and events they presented.  I definitely plan on seeing it again!

It would be nice if they would put the names on the screen of the marine reptiles they were showing because it was hard to remember their names or keep track of them.  The DVD with captions turned on should remedy this issue though.  Another issue is they never tell the exact names of the sharks that appear, they are just referred to as sharks.

SLIGHT SPOILER: One last piece of advice for the movie character Julie, don't leave the museum with that item still in your purse.  Security is not going to believe how you obtained it. :)