#  MCZ Specimen Sparks New Scientific Insights 

 





From *The FAS Current*



 

July 23, 2026

 

 

     ![two people standing behind a table, with large fossil jaws on it](/sites/g/files/omnuum6431/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2026-07/VP%20CByrd%20SJohnston%20FT9A2025%20-%20Christy%20DeSmith.jpg?itok=1sEgXoyJ) 

MCZ collections manager Christina Byrd, at left, and fossil preparator Scott Johnston show off the *Tylosaurus proriger* jaw. Photo by Carlos Sanchez / Harvard FAS Staff Photographer



 



 

After 80 million years, a giant fossil jaw has quite a story to tell.

Back in the age of the dinosaurs, *Tylosaurus proriger* was a fearsome predator — a bus-sized aquatic reptile with a crushing snout, daggerlike teeth, and knack for swallowing prey whole. How its bones wound up at Harvard is a tangled yarn involving a Wild West stagecoach station, the early western railroads, the infamous “Bone Wars” between rival fossil hunters, and a founding scholar of natural history.

For more than 150 years, one of the most important fossils of its kind sat quietly in the drawers of the [Museum of Comparative Zoology](https://www.mcz.harvard.edu/) (MCZ). Mistakenly reported as lost, the historic specimen was largely forgotten for half a century. Thanks to an offhand social media post, it recently was [rediscovered by scholars](https://zenodo.org/records/20412622), and, once again, the extinct hunter of the ancient oceans is making a big splash.

Read more in [The FAS Current: How a giant predator of prehistoric seas was discovered — twice](https://current.fas.harvard.edu/stories/how-giant-predator-prehistoric-seas-was-discovered-twice)



 

 

 



 

 See also:- [ Vertebrate Paleontology ](/news/vertebrate-paleontology)