The mythical dragons of folklore that spew fire and dwell on mountaintops have enthralled audiences for ages, but now scientists can tell the tale of a real-life “dragon” — a mosasaur called the Wakayama Soryu that lurked throughout the Pacific seas 72 million years ago.
Being the size of a great white shark, the Wakayama Soryu (Megapterygius wakayamaensis) would undoubtedly make an eye-catching first impression on anyone. Granted the name “Soryu,” which translates to “blue dragon” in Japanese, this creature commanded the ocean alongside other mosasaurs.
Takuya Konishi, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati, spearheaded the task of classifying the mosasaur and chronicling its prehistoric rule. Konishi and a group of international co-authors recently published a description of the Wakayama Soryu in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology.
Akihiro Misaki, one of the co-authors, first discovered the specimen in 2006 at the Aridagawa River in Japan’s Wakayama Prefecture. As he was scouring the river for ammonite fossils, a dark bone embedded in sandstone caught his eye. An examination of the bone revealed it to be a vertebra belonging to a nearly complete mosasaur skeleton. A five-year removal process followed, in which researchers separated the sandstone from the fossils.
