9.6" Xiphactinus Pre-Maxillary with Teeth - Smoky Hill Chalk, Kansas

This is a large, complete pre-maxillary of the huge, predatory fish, Xiphactinus audax. It's 9.6" long and was collected from the Smoky Hill Chalk of Gove County, Kansas. This jaw section would have come from a large Xiphactinus in the 15 foot range. One can imagine how terrifying of a predator this fish must have been given is huge, dagger-like teeth.

There are a few crack repairs and some minor restoration but the teeth are original.



Xiphactinus was a huge, predatory fish that lived during the Late Cretaceous. It would have been a veracious predator, growing 15-20 feet long. When alive, the fish would have resembled a gargantuan, fanged tarpon.

Xiphactinus has appeared in the BBC's Sea Monsters and National Geographic's Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure as well as being labelled a "Prehistoric Terror" in River Monsters.