[This post was originally published on December 2, 2011]

‘Tho the death of a cherished childhood image makes folks twinge

Truth is, the great Tylosaurus had no fringe

As far as my younger, fossil-philic self was concerned, there was never a more terrible marine predator than Tylosaurus. This enormous, sea-going lizard was a true leviathan and the undoubted ruler of the ancient oceans. That impression came almost entirely from a painting renowned paleo-artist Charles R. Knight created for Chicago’s Field Museum.

Suspended within the swell of a Late Cretaceous sea, a grinning Tylosaurus looms over a fleeing marine turtle known to paleontologists as Protostega. A flock of Pteranodon hang in