Lewis and Clark - Monster Hunters
Two hundred years ago this month, the Lewis and Clark expedition made a mysterious discovery. In present-day South Dakota, atop a cliff along the banks of the Missouri River, they encountered an ancient monster from the depths of time.
Joseph Whitehouse, chief tailor of the expedition, chronicled that on September 10th, 1804: “The morning was foggy, we set out early and proceeded on. We landed and saw lying on the banks on the South side of the River, the Bones of a monstrous large Fish, the back bone of which measured forty five feet long”.
They collected some of the petrified bones of the enormous creature and sent them back to Washington. Unfortunately, those specimens vanished, lost to time and labyrinthine bureaucratic systems. From the descriptions that survived, some paleontologists believe the “monstrous large Fish” was a mosasaur.
Mosasaurs stalked the waters of the Western Interior Seaway for a 20-30 million year stretch near the end of the Cretaceous Period. Apex predators of the shallow oceans of the world, these marine lizards ate just about everything, including sharks and other mosasaurs. Their reign in the Seaway ended about 68 million years ago, not long before the last remnants of the sea itself disappeared.
The Lewis and Clark expedition’s discovery of the ancient creature hinted that the middle of the continent held many secrets. These secrets continue to be uncovered throughout the Ghost Coast.
