MOANASAURUS - 1999, Acrylics on paper
c.70 million years ago, North Island, New Zealand.
An 8 m long Moanasaurus goes squid-hunting off the coast Cretaceous
New Zealand. Moanasaurus mangahouangae was large mosasaur that may
have reached lengths of up to 12 m. It is known from several specimens discovered
at the Mangahouanga Stream site, a locale that has produced a wide
range of marine vertebrate fossils as well as fragments of terrestrial dinosaurs.
Mosasaurs like Moanasaurus were predatory marine lizards, not too
distantly related to modern day goannas and monitors.
An much scrappier version of this painting appeared in John Long’s
Dinosaurs of Australia and New Zealand (UNSW Press, 1998). With suggestions
from Dan Varner, I produced this much improved rendition in 1999. It was
originally meant to depict Rikisaurus tehoensis, a mosasaur known
from a single well preserved skull. Since then, it has been determined that
the Rikisaurus skull probably came from a subadult Moanasaurus
mangahoungae.
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Art and text © Brian Choo 2004
