Paleontologists have known about Xiphactinus for quite some time. The Philadelphia-based polymath Joseph Leidy named it in 1870, but the discovery that gave the fish its claim to fame occurred in 1952. Back then a field crew from the American Museum of Natural History was tagging along with the skilled fossil hunter George Sternberg in search of creatures that once swam the Cretaceous seas over what is now Gove County, Kansas. One of the AMNH crew members, Walter Sorenson, found the tail of one Xiphactinus peeking out from the chalky strata, but since his team had no time to dig the whole thing out the task of uncovering the rest of it went to Sternberg.

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