Talk:Dakosaurus

"Godzilla"

I'm pretty sure it's knicknamed "Godzilla". -Walkingwith08 (talk) 20:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Is this true? And where should I put it if it is? -Walkingwith08 (talk) 20:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The knickname "Godzilla" only applied to Dakosaurus andiniensis, after a National Geographic expose on some new skulls of D. andiniensis in 2005. It was not applied to the genus as a whole, and it was not coined just after the genus or South American species were described (which was in 1856 and 1996 respectively). There is a mention the National Geographic knickname on the Dakosaurus andiniensis page. It does not need to be repeated here. Mark t young (talk) 20:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

If there's a species page for this genus...THen is there one for Tyrannosaurus rex? -Walkingwith08 (talk) 18:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Tail fin

What evidence is there that it had a tail fin, rather than just a laterally compressed tail more akin to a mosasaur (which crocodilians tend to have)? Were there bones in this tail fin? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.70.113 (talk) 18:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Other genera of metriorhynchids, such as Metriorhynchus and Geosaurus have a downwards tail fluke (called a hypocercal tail) preserved. There is a nice specimen of Geosaurus gracilis in the Natural History Museum in London that has the upper lobe preserved. The lower lobe has the tail vertebrae within it (which sharply kink downwards), while the upper lobe is fleshy.

However, no specimens of Dakosaurus have a the posterior half of the tail preserved. Based upon the evolutionary relationships with Metriorhynchidae we can confidently reconstruct Dakosaurus as having a hypocercal tail. Interestingly mosasaurs such as Plotosaurus also had a hypocercal tail, with the tail vertebrae in the lower lobe and a fleshy upper lobe. Hope this helps, Mark t young (talk) 18:57, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Dakosaurus. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110603232400/http://www.svpca.org/general/pages/abstractPage.php?i=1378&r=talksAndPosters.php&y=2008 to http://www.svpca.org/general/pages/abstractPage.php?i=1378&r=talksAndPosters.php&y=2008

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 10:54, 3 September 2017 (UTC)