Dino card No. 0018 of 2,027

Acostasaurus

Say it: ah-KOS-tah-SORE-us

Name means: “Acosta's lizard”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursEarly CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Acostasaurus was a fierce marine reptile that swam in the warm seas of Colombia about 125 million years ago. It had a big head, sharp teeth, and flippers to paddle through the water. Even though it was not a dinosaur, it was a top predator in its ocean home.1

Fun fact: this sea reptile swam while dinosaurs walked on land. Everyone calls them dinos, but they were a different branch of reptiles.

Lived

126 to 121 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Paja Formation, Villa de Leyva, central Colombia1 3

Food

Meat1 2

Length

up to 4 m1

estimate based on a subadult specimen

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 4 dogs nose to tailas long as 22 bananas end to end

How big was Acostasaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Acostasaurus had very large eye sockets and big scleral rings, which helped it see in deep or murky water.1

Its skull was short and wide in the front, unlike many other pliosaurs that had long snouts.1

The only known fossil is a nearly complete skull and parts of the body, including a whole hind flipper and many vertebrae.1

Acostasaurus lived during the Early Cretaceous, a time when few plesiosaur fossils are known, called the 'Lower Cretaceous Gap'.3

It had a short lower jaw joint area with only five and a half pairs of tooth sockets, which is unusual for a pliosaur.1

The specimen was a subadult, because some bones in its skull were not fully grown together.1

AI-made picture of Acostasaurus — An AI-made picture of how Acostasaurus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

you asked

Most asked questions about Acostasaurus

?How big was Acostasaurus?

It was over 4 metres (13 feet) long. That is about as long as a small car.1

?Was Acostasaurus a dinosaur?

No, it was a marine reptile called a pliosaur, not a dinosaur. It lived in the ocean.1

?What did Acostasaurus eat?

It was a predator that ate other sea creatures. Its sharp teeth helped it catch prey.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Acostasaurus
Named by: Gomez-Perez and Noe 20114
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Pliosauridae4
Classification: Plesiosauria > Pliosauridae > Sauropterygia4
Age of the rocks: 126 to 121 million years (Barremian)4
Rock formations: Paja4
Countries: Colombia4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Acostasaurus was named by Marcela Gómez Pérez and Leslie F. Noè in 2011, based on a fossil found in the Paja Formation of Colombia. The species name is Acostasaurus pavachoquensis.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Acostasaurus belongs to the brachauchenine group of pliosaurs, because its teeth are different from theirs.1

Where the facts come from

Acostasaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Cranial anatomy of a new pliosaurid Acostasaurus pavachoquensis from the Lower Cretaceous of Colombia, South America - Palaeontographica Abteilung A Band 310 Lieferung 1-2, Schweizerbart science publishers (schweizerbart.de)
Acostasaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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