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Description
Xiphactinus (from Latin and Greek for "sword-ray") is an extinct genus of large, 4.5 to 6 m (15 to 20 feet) long predatory marine bony fish that lived during the Late Cretaceous. When alive, the fish would have resembled a gargantuan, fanged tarpon (to which it was, however, not related). The Portheus molossus described by Cope is a junior synonym of X. audax. Skeletal remains of Xiphactinus have come from Kansas (where the first Xiphactinus fossil was discovered during the 1850s), Alabama, and Georgia in the United States, as well as Europe, Australia, Canada and Venezuela.

Description
Xiphactinus (from Latin and Greek for "sword-ray") is an extinct genus of large, 4.5 to 6 m (15 to 20 feet) long predatory marine bony fish that lived during the Late Cretaceous. When alive, the fish would have resembled a gargantuan, fanged tarpon (to which it was, however, not related). The Portheus molossus described by Cope is a junior synonym of X. audax. Skeletal remains of Xiphactinus have come from Kansas (where the first Xiphactinus fossil was discovered during the 1850s), Alabama, and Georgia in the United States, as well as Europe, Australia, Canada and Venezuela.