A comparison of K.queenslandicus with an 1.8 meter tall human for scale. Click to expand.
Kronosaurus is a pliosaurid plesiosaurian reptile from the Early-Late Cretaceous of Australia and Colombia. It was named in 1924 by Albert Heber Longman. It was the biggest plesiosaur to exist, as well as one of the more well known prehistoric animals from Australia.
Physiology
Kronosaurus was a plesiosaur with a bulky body, 4 flippers, and a short tail. However, like most pliosaurids, and unlike most other plesiosaur families, it had a short neck and a large head with massive jaws. Its body would have been covered in scaly skin.
Diet
Kronosaurus was a predator, preying on turtles and smaller plesiosaurs. Its large, conical teeth were designed for crushing bone, which would have been useful for penetrating the defenses of turtles.
Ecology
Like its cousin, Pliosaurus, Kronosaurus was also a large plesiosaur that established itself as the apex predator of its habitat. However, unlike Pliosaurus, as well as other pliosaurs, Kronosaurus did not have serrated teeth. Due to this, it would have mainly preyed on animals half its size by ripping them apart and swallowing them whole; the only way it could have successfully fed on larger prey was by ripping a chunk of flesh off of their bodies. A fragmentary specimen of another plesiosaur, Eromangasaurus, has round bite marks that match the teeth of Kronosaurus; due to this, we can assume that the elasmosaur got preyed on by the pliosaur.