11.2" Monster Fish (Xiphactinus) Upper Jaw - Kansas

This is an awe-inspiring, upper jaw from the "Terror fish of the Cretaceous seas", Xiphactinus audax. It's 11.2" long and all of the teeth are original, not composites. It was collected from the Late Cretaceous, Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Formation in Kansas. This specimen has very nice preservation/preparation. This jaw is a lean, mean chomping machine and can only be truly appreciated in person.

It comes with an acrylic display stand.

The restoration on this maxilla is very minor, with only a few repaired cracks worth mentioning. Repairs were expertly done and only visible under UV light. The original teeth are in place and some had to be stabilized with glue for long-lasting integrity.



Xiphactinus was a huge predatory fish that lived during the Late Cretaceous. It would have been a voracious predator, growing 15-20 feet long. When alive, the fish would have resembled a gargantuan fanged tarpon. It appeared in the BBC's Sea Monsters and National Geographic's Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure, and was labelled a "Prehistoric Terror" in the Animal Planet show River Monsters.

The Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Chalk formation is a Cretaceous conservation Lagerstätte, or fossil-rich geological formation, known primarily for its exceptionally well-preserved marine reptiles. It outcrops in parts of northwest Kansas--its most famous localities for fossils--and in southeastern Nebraska. Large, well-known fossils excavated from the Smoky Hill Chalk include marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs, large bony fish such as Xiphactinus, mosasaurs, pterosaurs, and turtles.
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DETAILS
SPECIES
Xiphactinus audax
LOCATION
Gove County, Kansas
FORMATION
Niobrara Formation
SIZE
11.2" long
CATEGORY
SUB CATEGORY
ITEM
#207890
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