Dino card No. 0347 of 2,027

Carentonosaurus

Say it: ka-REN-toh-no-SORE-us

Name means: “lizard from the Charente region of France”3 1

Ate: MeatMosasaursLate CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Carentonosaurus was a marine lizard that swam in warm, shallow seas during the time of the dinosaurs. It had a strange, heavy backbone that made it extra dense, like a living anchor in 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

100 to 94 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

France (Charente-Maritime and Poitou-Charentes), Portugal, and Spain (Asturias and Guadalajara)2

Food

Meat1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Carentonosaurus had very thick, heavy bones in its back, a condition called pachyostosis, which helped it stay underwater without floating up.1

Its neck bones were not thickened, only the back bones were pachyostotic, which is unusual among marine lizards.1

This lizard lived about 100 to 94 million years ago, during the Cenomanian stage of the Cretaceous Period.3

Carentonosaurus fossils have been found in France, Portugal, and Spain, showing it lived in the warm Tethys Sea.2

It is part of a group called aigialosaurs, which are close relatives of the giant mosasaurs.3

The first fossils were discovered in western France, in rocks that were once a shallow, warm sea near a coast.1

AI-made picture of Carentonosaurus — An AI-made picture of how Carentonosaurus 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.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Carentonosaurus
Named by: Rage and Néraudeau 20043
Group: Mosasaurs
Family / clade: Aigialosauridae3
Classification: Mosasauroidea3
Age of the rocks: 100 to 94 million years (Cenomanian)3
Rock formations: La Cabaña, B3/C1, Tentúgal3
Countries: France, Spain, Portugal3
Fossil records: 8 in the Paleobiology Database3
Also known as: Carentonosaurus (older names now counted as the same animal)3
Discovery: Carentonosaurus was named by paleontologists Jean-Claude Rage and Didier Néraudeau in 2004, based on fossils found in the Charente region of France.3 1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if Carentonosaurus lived only in the early part of the Late Cretaceous or if it also appeared in the early Cenomanian.1

Where the facts come from

A new pachyostotic squamate reptile from the Cenomanian of France (exa.ai)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Carentonosaurus 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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