Dino card No. 0328 of 2,027

Callawayasaurus

Say it: KAL-uh-way-uh-SORE-us

Name means: “Callaway's lizard”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursEarly CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Callawayasaurus was a long-necked marine reptile that swam in the seas of what is now Colombia. It was not a dinosaur, but a plesiosaur with a small head and a very long neck. It used its four flippers to paddle through the water.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

121 to 120 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Colombia (Boyacá)2

Food

Meat2

Length

7.4 to 8 m1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 8 dogs nose to tailas long as 44 bananas end to end

How big was Callawayasaurus compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

Callawayasaurus had a skull only 35 centimetres (1 foot 2 inches) long, but its whole body was about 7 to 8 metres (24 to 26 feet) long.1

Its neck contained 56 vertebrae, which is a lot, but they were shorter than the neck bones of other elasmosaurids.1

The nostrils of Callawayasaurus were long and positioned above the upper jaw bone, which had 3 to 5 teeth.1

It lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 125 to 112 million years ago.1

The first fossils were found in the Paja Formation near Villa de Leyva, Colombia.1

A second, nearly complete skeleton was slightly more robust than the first, which might mean males and females looked a bit different.1

Callawayasaurus was named after paleontologist Jack M. Callaway, who studied ancient marine reptiles.1

AI-made picture of Callawayasaurus — An AI-made picture of how Callawayasaurus 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 Callawayasaurus

?Was Callawayasaurus a dinosaur?

No, it was a plesiosaur, a marine reptile that lived in the sea. It is not a dinosaur.1

?How big was Callawayasaurus?

It was about 7.4 to 8 metres (24 to 26 feet) long. Its skull was 35 centimetres (14 inches) long.1

?What did Callawayasaurus eat?

It was a carnivore that lived in the sea. It probably opened its mouth and raked the seafloor to catch small animals.3 4

Ask Rex about Callawayasaurus

Rex only answers questions about this page. 3 questions a day.

Rex is an AI and can make mistakes. He runs on servers in the EU and questions are never saved. Never type your name or other personal things.

For dino experts

Scientific name: Callawayasaurus
Named by: Carpenter 19994
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Elasmosauridae4
Classification: Plesiosauria > Elasmosauridae > Sauropterygia4
Age of the rocks: 121 to 120 million years (Aptian)4
Countries: Colombia4
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: The first fossil was described by Samuel Paul Welles in 1962, who called it Alzadasaurus colombiensis. In 1999, Kenneth Carpenter moved it to its own genus, Callawayasaurus.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if the slightly more robust skeleton is a different species or just a male or female of the same species.1

Where the facts come from

Callawayasaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Callawayasaurus (www2.sgc.gov.co)
Callawayasaurus 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.

Rex is hungry! Dino Wiki is a dad's project for his dino-loving son, free with no ads. Grown-ups can feed Rex a snack to help keep it online.Feed Rex