Page created on : June 23, 1998
Last updated : August 20, 2004

This was a six-meter long Cretaceous-period marine reptile which represents something of a cross between a lizard and a seal. The most common of the mosasaurs, the Platecarpus descended from land lizards and had limbs that were modified into paddle-like flippers, wich a vertically expanded, eel-like tail. Savage and pugnacious in nature, they fed on fish and were in turn attacked by sharks.

Platecarpus inhabited the North American mid-continental seaway, which 85 million years ago extended from Texas to the Arctic Ocean. In Canada, remains of Platecarpus have been discovered in the District of Mackenzie, Northwest Territories and near Morden, Manitoba. They have also been identified from Alabama to Europe to southern Africa. The group to which it belonged, mosasaurus, became extinct at about the same time as dinosaurs vanished from the face of the Earth.