No love for Ichthyodectes?

It seems like nearly every year a new book, film, or television program comes out featuring the long-dead seaway that covered most of the central part of North America back in the late Cretaceous. Invariably they have cameos featuring Xiphactinus, Cretoxyrhina, Protosphyraena, and even the "bait fish" Gillicus and Enchodus. They have mosasaurs, pterosaurs and even sea turtles. If you didn't follow the science closely, you'd understandably figure that's about all that lived in that shallow sea.

Our cast specimen restored in all its 3d glory

Truth be told, there were probably a few hundred types of fish in that seaway. Dr. Kenshu Shimada made a decent attempt to catalog all of them a few years ago, but like all good science on the Niobrara, it was getting out of date almost as soon as it was published. It's really amazing that 120 years after collecting work began in Western Kansas, new critters are still being found. I'm not going to go into details on them (I'll save them for other blog posts) and instead focus on this fish that is criminally underrepresented in the literature and online.

RMDRC 11-018, a massive 9 foot Ichthyodectes

If it's Wikipedia entry were any indication of its importance, what does the text containing a whopping total of 89 words tell you? That's right, 89 whole words, some of which are even talking about other related fish. Lame.

Some of the teeth of RMDRC 11-018. Yikes

Ichthyodectes, a fish with moderately terrifying teeth and with a body length approaching 9 feet, it's not cheered on much. Sure it's pretty common in the Niobrara, but it's also basically a pocket Xiphactinus (see, using the Wikipedia trick of talking about it's cooler cousin to gin up some interest). An average scouting season for us will find 5 or so specimens identified through cranial material. Probably more, but postcranially all ichthyodectids of about the same size pretty much look identical.

RMDRC 14-027, excavated with a film crew, watch for it soon on TV!

Perhaps a big reason as to why Ichthyodectes gets so little love is that there are so few specimens on display in museums, even fewer ones that look, um, not silly. Perhaps we need more museums to decide that decent specimens of lesser known fossil fish of the Niobrara are just as important for display as mosasaurs or sharks or Xiphactinus. Maybe I'm just asking for too much. In any case, I've pretty much doubled the amount of useful Ichthyodectes pics on the interwebs, so I'll count it as a win.