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Luskhan

Say it: loose-KHAN

Name means: “water spirit chief”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursEarly CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Luskhan was a plesiosaur, a marine reptile that lived in the ancient seas of what is now Russia. It had a long, slender snout and small teeth, perfect for catching soft, squishy prey like squid. Unlike many other pliosaurs, Luskhan was not a giant apex predator but a specialized hunter of small animals.1 2

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

Lived

133 to 126 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Ulyanovsk region, western Russia, on the right bank of the Volga River1 2

Food

Meat1 4

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Luskhan is known from a nearly complete, three-dimensionally preserved skeleton, which is rare for pliosaurids.1 2

Its name comes from Mongolian and Turkic mythology: 'luus' means water spirit and 'khan' means chief.1

Luskhan lived about 128 million years ago, during the Hauterivian stage of the Early Cretaceous.1

Unlike most other pliosaurs, Luskhan had a long, slender snout and small teeth, similar to the distantly related polycotylid plesiosaurs.1 2

Luskhan evolved its fish-eating features independently from polycotylids, more than 10 million years later.1

The only known specimen was discovered in 2002 by Russian paleontologist Gleb N. Uspensky on the banks of the Volga River.1

Luskhan is an early-diverging brachauchenine, meaning it shows a mix of traits from earlier and later pliosaurs.1 2

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

?How big was Luskhan?

Luskhan was about 6.5 metres (21 feet) long, which is roughly the length of a large boat.1

?What did Luskhan eat?

Luskhan ate small, soft prey like squid. Its slender snout and small teeth were perfect for catching soft animals, not large prey.1 3

?Was Luskhan a dinosaur?

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

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Luskhan
Named by: Fischer et al. 20174
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Pliosauridae4
Classification: Plesiosauria > Pliosauridae > Sauropterygia4
Age of the rocks: 133 to 126 million years (Hauterivian)4
Countries: Russia4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Luskhan was named in 2017 by a team led by Valentin Fischer, based on a skeleton found in 2002 by Gleb N. Uspensky in western Russia.1 4
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how large Luskhan grew, because no complete length estimate has been published.1

Where the facts come from

Luskhan (en.wikipedia.org)
Anatomy and relationships of the bizarre Early Cretaceous pliosaurid Luskhan itilensis | Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society | Oxford Academic (academic.oup.com)
Plasticity and Convergence in the Evolution of Short-Necked Plesiosaurs: Current Biology (cell.com)
Luskhan 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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