Dino card No. 1462 of 2,027

Portunatasaurus

Say it: por-TOO-nah-SORE-us

Name means: “Dugi Otok lizard”1

Ate: MeatMosasaursLate CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Portunatasaurus was a small marine lizard that swam in warm seas during the time of the dinosaurs. It was only about 1 meter long, as long as a big skateboard, and had a long body and special flipper-like arms.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

100 to 90 million years ago4

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Dugi Otok island, Croatia1 2

Food

Meat2

Length

1 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 2 house cats nose to tailas long as 6 bananas end to end

How big was Portunatasaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Portunatasaurus had 10 small bones in its wrist, like land lizards, but also a flattened first finger bone like later sea lizards.2

Its arm was a mix between a walking leg and a swimming paddle, showing how lizards slowly turned into sea swimmers.2

The only skeleton found was almost complete from the neck to the hips, with a perfectly preserved right arm.2

It lived about 100 to 90 million years ago, during the Cenomanian and Turonian ages of the Late Cretaceous.3

Portunatasaurus is the third and youngest aigialosaur (a type of early marine lizard) found in Croatia.2

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

?Is Portunatasaurus a dinosaur?

No, it is a mosasauroid marine lizard, not a dinosaur.1

?How big was Portunatasaurus?

About 1 meter (3.3 feet) long, as long as a big skateboard.1

?What did Portunatasaurus eat?

Scientists do not know for sure, but its jaws were not found, so it is unknown what it ate.2

?Where was Portunatasaurus found?

It was found on the island of Dugi Otok in Croatia.1 4

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Portunatasaurus
Named by: Campbell Mekarski et al. 20194
Group: Mosasaurs
Family / clade: Mosasauroidea4
Classification: Mosasauroidea4
Age of the rocks: 100 to 90 million years (Cenomanian / Turonian)4
Countries: Croatia4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: The skeleton was found in 2008 on the island of Dugi Otok in Croatia. Scientists Michelle Mekarski, Dražen Japundžić, Katarina Krizmanić and Michael Caldwell named it Portunatasaurus krambergeri in 2019.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are still debating whether its paddle-like arm evolved earlier in mosasaur history or evolved more than once.2

Where the facts come from

Portunatasaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Description of a new basal mosasauroid from the Late Cretaceous of Croatia, with comments on the evolution of the mosasauroid forelimb (exa.ai)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Portunatasaurus 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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