Dino card No. 1602 of 2,027

Scanisaurus

Say it: skan-ee-SORE-us

Name means: “Skåne lizard”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursLate CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Scanisaurus was a long-necked marine reptile that swam in the shallow seas of what is now Sweden and Russia. It was about as long as a small car and used its sharp teeth to catch small fish and squid-like animals called belemnites.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

84 to 72 million years ago2

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Kristianstad Basin in Skåne, Sweden, and near Orenburg, Russia1

Food

Meat1

Length

4 to 5 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 5 dogs nose to tailas long as 28 bananas end to end

How big was Scanisaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Scanisaurus is known from only a single backbone (a vertebral centrum) found in Russia, plus many similar backbones and teeth from Sweden.1

It lived about 80 to 75 million years ago during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous.1

Scanisaurus had a shorter neck than some other elasmosaurids like Elasmosaurus, and scientists sometimes call it a 'mesodiran' plesiosaur.1

In the Kristianstad Basin, Scanisaurus fossils are the most common plesiosaur remains found.1

A fountain with two Scanisaurus sculptures was built in the Swedish town of Bromölla in 1971.1

Scanisaurus shared its home with many other marine reptiles, including mosasaurs, sea turtles, and crocodile-like animals.1

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

?How big was Scanisaurus?

About 4 to 5 metres (13 to 16 feet) long, which is about the length of a small car.1

?What did Scanisaurus eat?

It ate small prey like small fish and belemnites (squid-like animals). Its sharp teeth were good for smashing or piercing them.1

?Is Scanisaurus a dinosaur?

No, it is not a dinosaur. It is a plesiosaur, a type of long-necked marine reptile that lived in the sea.1

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Myth buster

Myth: Scanisaurus is a dinosaur.

Truth: Scanisaurus is not a dinosaur. It is a plesiosaur, a type of marine reptile that lived in the sea.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Scanisaurus
Named by: Persson 19602
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Elasmosauridae2
Classification: Plesiosauria > Elasmosauridae > Sauropterygia2
Age of the rocks: 84 to 72 million years (Campanian)2
Countries: Sweden2
Fossil records: 3 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: The first fossil, a single backbone, was named Cimoliasaurus nazarowi by Nikolay Bogolyubov in 1911 from Russia. In 1959, Swedish paleontologist Per-Ove Persson moved it to a new genus, Scanisaurus, based on fossils from Sweden.1
Still debated: Scientists debate whether Scanisaurus is a valid genus or a nomen dubium (doubtful name), because the fossils lack features that clearly separate it from other Late Cretaceous elasmosaurids.1

Where the facts come from

Scanisaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Scanisaurus 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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