Clidastes

Clidastes ("locked vertebrae") was a genus of mosasaur (marine lizard) that lived from 99.6 million to 65.5 million years ago in the Cretaceous period. It is among the smallest mosasaurs, averaging 10 feet in length. The species was first described scientifically based on the fossil remains of a juvenile found in 1869 by paleontologist E. D. Cope in the Mooreville Chalk formation in Lowndes County.

Various fossil specimens of Clidastes are displayed in the Alabama Museum of Natural History at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Among them are an unusually well-preserved complete skeleton bound in shale which was named "Artemis" by its discoverer, Chris Gladden. He noticed backbone ridges poking out of the shale in an outcropping below Heflin Dam.

References

• Kiernan, Caitlín R. (January 1, 2002) "Stratigraphic distribution and habitat segregation of mosasaurs in the Upper Cretaceous of western and central Alabama, with an historical review of Alabama mosasaur discoveries." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 91-103
• Elbein, Asher (September 30, 2015) "Clidastes in limbo" Oxford American.