I have a theory number two

Rubecula

Liopleurodon or Mososaur or Plesiosaur Which would be easiest to keep in a giant aquarium?

Kess73

One of the smaller species of Mosasaur methinks.

Adam Khor

More of a question than a theory, isn´t it? What do you think?

I suspect the easiest to keep would be any of the smaller mosasaurs, preferably ones that lived in shallow water such as Carinodens, and perhaps some larger bottom-dwellers such as Goronyosaurus and Globidens. Goronyosaurus would be very dangerous to keep, tho- it was big, up to 7 meters long and was an ambush hunter with a really quick bite. But at least it may have been more sluggish than its open-sea relatives... as for Globidens, it was rather robust and slow-moving too, but was a very specialized eater. Then again, so is the whale shark, and it has been kept succesfully in Japan and the US (and maybe other places, I don´t remember), so maybe as long as you could find enough Cretaceous giant clams and ammonites to keep it happy, it would do all right. It was up to 6 meters long or so, nothing to overwhelming.



The really huge, open-sea mosasaurs like Tylosaurus and Mosasaurus itself probably wouldn´t adjust well to captivity. They needed lots of space, were tremendously voracious and lived in a world without barriers. Large pelagic predators such as great white and mako sharks usually die within days of being put in captivity- I know mosasaurs are not sharks, but they are in many ways as close to them as we have (Komodo dragons may be good swimmers but they are nothing like mosasaurs, behavior-wise). And of course, you would need to separate half of your park visitors as fodder, cause I doubt you could afford so many cows and horses...

Same with pliosaurs, maybe the smallest- 3 meter long Peloneustes for example- wouldn´t have much trouble, but the big ones were VERY big...

As for long-necked plesiosaurs, I'm thinking you would need lots and lots of space for the likes of Elasmosaurus and Thalassomedon- they were open sea dwellers, and I think they could easily hurt themselves against the walls of an aquarium with those super long necks... maybe Polycotylus would do better?

Overall I would go for smaller mosasaurs.

Rubecula

so no takers for my favourite? (Liopleurodon) LOL

Yes I did phrase it as a question to make it easy to post a reply to. (Because I am a friendly old Rubecula really LOL)

Good points well made.

Now supposing we sort of hollowed out Australia to make a man made sea/aquarium? I know it is far fetched but so is the original question

Adam Khor

Rubecula wrote: »

so no takers for my favourite? (Liopleurodon) LOL

Yes I did phrase it as a question to make it easy to post a reply to. (Because I am a friendly old Rubecula really LOL)

Good points well made.

Now supposing we sort of hollowed out Australia to make a man made sea/aquarium? I know it is far fetched but so is the original question

Well in that case, Kronosaurus. I mean, you can´t make a sea monster park in Australia and not have Kronosaurus.

Kess73

Yeah but if we hollow out Australia, then we have effectively created an inland sea that would have a surface area more than 20 times greater than that of the Caspian sea. There would not be a marine animal, extant or extinct, that you could not put in an aquarium that covered an area greater than 7.5 million square km as long as you had enough depth .

Adam Khor

Kess73 wrote: »

Yeah but if we hollow out Australia, then we have effectively created an inland sea that would have a surface area more than 20 times greater than that of the Caspian sea. .

Which is basically what the Eromanga sea from the early Cretaceous was...



And it was indeed full of sea monsters of all sorts, including plesiosaurs, pliosaurs, some of the last ichthyosaurs, and an 8-9 meter long shark that probably ate most of them...