Ancient Texan’s goal is to document extinct species that roamed Texas at one point and give a digestible synopsis for the reader’s enjoyment.

The Shoal Creek Pliosaur is quite enigmatic for a near complete skeleton, originally labeled as the genus Polyptychodon which is now nomen dubium leaves this well-preserved specimen in the dark on its placement as either an already existing genus, species, or a completely new one. We will only know until research is done, so hopefully soon. Though it lived somewhere in the late Cretaceous, a more specific date has yet to be determined. 

Pliosaurs were a clade of marine reptiles that lived through the Jurassic to the late Cretaceous. They tend to stick with a certain body type. Four flippers, short tails, a short but robust neck ending with a large skull and long jaws. They superficially look like a crocodile mixed with a sea turtle, which is the easy way to put it. As this animal has pretty much had zero research done, take these measurements with a grain of salt. The Pliosaur would have weighed a ton and had a length of 14 to 18 feet, so it was standard for the family.

As you can guess by the title the Pliosaur was found in our very own Shoal Creek! In 1990 the Austin dentist Dr. J.R. (Bob) McDonald and his five-year-old son were walking along Shoal Creek looking for shark teeth, but they found something much more grand, an aquatic beast from a bygone era.