Question 1

How do you say Styxosaurus?

Accepted Answer

Styxosaurus is pronounced STIKS-oh-SOR-us. Break it into three chunks: STIKS, like the word sticks, then OH, then SOR-us, which rhymes with chorus. Put the stress on the first syllable, STIKS. A good memory trick is to say sticks a sword-us, and then smooth it together: STIKS-oh-SOR-us.

Question 2

What does Styxosaurus mean?

Accepted Answer

Styxosaurus means lizard of the Styx, named after the River Styx from Greek mythology, the legendary river that the dead had to cross to reach the underworld. Scientists chose this name because Styxosaurus fossils were found in dark, deep marine shales in Kansas that reminded them of the gloomy underworld river. The second part of the name, sauros, is the Greek word for lizard. So the full name roughly translates to lizard of the river of the dead, which is an incredibly dramatic name for an incredibly dramatic animal.

Question 3

Was Styxosaurus a dinosaur?

Accepted Answer

No, Styxosaurus was not a dinosaur at all. It was a plesiosaur, a completely separate group of marine reptiles that lived at the same time as dinosaurs but were not closely related to them. Dinosaurs lived on land, while Styxosaurus spent its entire life in the ocean. Plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, and pterosaurs are all often mistakenly called dinosaurs, but scientists classify them separately. Styxosaurus belonged specifically to the family Elasmosauridae, the long-necked specialists of the plesiosaur world.

Question 4

How long was Styxosaurus's neck?

Accepted Answer

Styxosaurus had a neck that made up well over half of its total body length, which reached around 36 to 40 feet overall. The neck alone contained at least 75 vertebrae, compared to just 7 in a human or a giraffe. That is one of the highest vertebra counts of any known animal. Laid out flat, the neck of Styxosaurus would have been longer than many school buses are wide. It is honestly one of the most extreme anatomical features in the history of life on Earth.

Question 5

What did Styxosaurus eat?

Accepted Answer

Styxosaurus was a carnivore that ate fish, squid-like cephalopods, and other small marine animals. Its teeth were sharp, pointed, and interlocking, perfect for snagging slippery prey without letting it escape. Scientists think the long neck helped it sneak up on schools of fish and strike before they could scatter. Fossils of related elasmosaurids have been found with fish remains and even smooth gastroliths, swallowed stones, in the stomach region, suggesting a diet of soft-bodied and bony prey alike.

Question 6

Where did Styxosaurus live?

Accepted Answer

Styxosaurus lived in the Western Interior Seaway, a warm shallow sea that covered the middle of North America during the Late Cretaceous period. This inland sea stretched from what is now the Gulf of Mexico all the way north through Kansas, South Dakota, and into Canada. Today those regions are dry land, but roughly 75 to 83 million years ago they were open ocean. Styxosaurus fossils have been found mainly in Kansas and South Dakota, preserved in the Niobrara Chalk and Pierre Shale formations.

Question 7

Is Styxosaurus the same as the Loch Ness Monster?

Accepted Answer

Styxosaurus is not the Loch Ness Monster, but it is easy to see why people make that connection. The classic image of Nessie, a long bendy neck rising from dark water with a tiny head, looks almost exactly like a real elasmosaurid plesiosaur such as Styxosaurus. Some researchers think the Loch Ness Monster legend may have been influenced by plesiosaur fossil discoveries in the 1800s and early 1900s. However, even if Nessie existed, plesiosaurs like Styxosaurus went extinct about 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous, so there is no scientific evidence any survived into modern times.

Question 8

How did Styxosaurus swim with such a long neck?

Accepted Answer

Styxosaurus swam by beating its four large flippers in a smooth figure-eight motion, similar to how modern sea turtles and penguins move through the water. This gave it a powerful, efficient cruising stroke across open ocean. The long neck was probably held mostly horizontal or even angled slightly downward while swimming, not raised high above the water like a periscope as old illustrations showed. Computer modeling of elasmosaurid necks suggests they were more flexible side to side than up and down, which would have helped Styxosaurus sweep its head through a wide area to catch fish.

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