Creepie-crawlie-xti redux

[Rankin, Robert L.]

Here is the Wichita newspaper account of the naming of the sea-going dinosaur at the Sternberg Museum that I mentioned in connection with Mark's fine paper on Omaha bug/lizard names.  The reporter got things a little mixed up, but the article is pretty accurate.  I had made several suggestions for names, and my recollection was that they picked "walushka hi-tanga" 'big-toothed lizard'.  What they chose is slightly different, but the essence remains.  Anyhow, here is the biggest Wagthishka of all -- 45 feet.

I hope everybody enjoyed the conference -- I think it was the biggest ever.

Bob
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The Wichita Eagle

It has finally happened.
Derby paleontologist Mike Everhart's 10-year quest to name a mosasaur fossil for Kansas has succeeded.
Tylosaurus kansasensis will become the official Latin name of a giant sea lizard this spring when the name is published in the Netherlands Journal of Geosciences.
Unofficially, this type of mosasaur -- a 25-foot-long sea lizard that lived in the ocean more than 65 million years ago -- will be known as "je-Walushka-tanga" (pronounced jay wah-LOOSH-gah DUNG-gah"), meaning "great ocean lizard" in the language of the Kaw or Kanza tribe.
"It's nice to name a mosasaur after Kansas -- after all, Kansas is where most of the mosasaurs have been found," said Larry Martin, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum.
"If you were going to pick a fossil that would typify Kansas, a mosasaur is a good choice."
Everhart, who serves as the adjunct curator of paleontology at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, said he wanted the name of the fossil to reflect Kansas's heritage.
"The Indian name just makes the fossil a little more special," Everhart said. "There are hundreds of different kinds of fossils sitting in boxes in all kinds of places. Few of them have a life of their own. The T. rex Sue at the Field Museum (in Chicago) is one that does. I want this one to also come alive in people's imagination."
This isn't the first fossil to be named "kansasensis," Everhart said.
At least 20 other fossils bear that name, including several clams, a mouse and some trilobites.
The new name also touts the state's fossil heritage and how these rolling farm plains were once at the bottom of a 600-foot-deep ocean.
Since the late 1860s, the Smoky Hill chalk beds of western Kansas have been known throughout the world for containing fossils dating to the Cretaceous period, nearly 87 million years ago.
The mosasaurs, some species of which could grow as long as 45 feet, were among the most terrifying animals of their time.
"They ruled the oceans at the end of the age of the dinosaur," Everhart said. "They were a big predator."
They were monsters that ate everything in their way, swallowing prey whole.
"In Kansas, there were more than a dozen types of mosasaurs," Everhart said. "Worldwide, the number is more than 40."
This particular species of mosasaur has been found only in Kansas, he said, and has been unnamed for nearly 140 years. There are 13 known specimens of this type of mosasaur -- nine of which are in the Sternberg Museum's collection in Hays.
Anyone can name an unnamed fossil, Everhart said. But a name gains credibility only when it is published in a recognized journal.
In his paper, Everhart wrote that the fossil is named after the Kanza Indians, "from which the name of the state... is derived and where all of the known specimens have been collected."
The Kanza people originally lived in the Ohio River valley. By the early 1800s, they had moved to what is now the Kansas, or Kaw, River valley to claim a territory that covered roughly two-fifths of modern-day Kansas.
In 1873, the tribe was forced to move to Indian Territory, in present-day Oklahoma.
Justin McBride, language coordinator for the Kanza Language Project with the Kaw Nation of Oklahoma, said the naming is an honor.
"The Kaw language is no longer spoken fluently," he said. "It is easy for mainstream Americans to think that native languages were of lesser importance. But they are every bit as rich as other languages in the world. I think Mike Everhart's wish of going back to the source, going back to 'kansasensis' is a very positive move."
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Reach Beccy Tanner at 268-6336 or btanner at wichitaeagle.com<mailto:btanner at wichitaeagle.com>.


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