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Description
The first of Heuvelmans’ sea serpents to actually be a reptile, the Marine Saurian is much rarer than his precious categories, with only 9 sightings. He suggested it was a surviving marine reptile, either a thalattosuchian (a group of marine crocodlilomorphs from the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous) or a mosasaur (a group of gigantic marine lizards from the late Cretaceous).

Heuvelmans appears to have based this category primarily on the U-28 sea monster. In 1914, the German u-boat U-28 sunk the British ship Iberian off the coast of Ireland; the resulting explosion briefly launched a 60-foot creature resembling a giant, web-footed crocodile into the air. However, the captain was of the U-28 was the only one to report the creature, years after the fact in an article he wrote during the Loch Ness Monster craze. Heuvelmans didn’t consult this article, only popular retellings; the original article’s illustration of the event was based on a stuffed baby crocodile. Thus, the report is almost certainly a hoax. The rest of the sightings are fairly generic.

Likewise, neither candidate is particularly likely. We now know that mosasaurs were much more whale-like than they were imagined in the 60s. Rather than being long and snakelike, they instead were robust, torpedo-shaped animals with flukes on their tails. Thalattosuchians look more like the Marine Saurian, but went extinct in the Early Cretaceous and were generally fairly small, with the largest only getting about as large as a modern saltwater crocodile, far smaller than the Marine Saurian.

Considering the fact that there are so few reports (the best of which is a hoax), and no good candidates, I think the Marine Saurian can be safely set aside.

Description
The first of Heuvelmans’ sea serpents to actually be a reptile, the Marine Saurian is much rarer than his precious categories, with only 9 sightings. He suggested it was a surviving marine reptile, either a thalattosuchian (a group of marine crocodlilomorphs from the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous) or a mosasaur (a group of gigantic marine lizards from the late Cretaceous).

Heuvelmans appears to have based this category primarily on the U-28 sea monster. In 1914, the German u-boat U-28 sunk the British ship Iberian off the coast of Ireland; the resulting explosion briefly launched a 60-foot creature resembling a giant, web-footed crocodile into the air. However, the captain was of the U-28 was the only one to report the creature, years after the fact in an article he wrote during the Loch Ness Monster craze. Heuvelmans didn’t consult this article, only popular retellings; the original article’s illustration of the event was based on a stuffed baby crocodile. Thus, the report is almost certainly a hoax. The rest of the sightings are fairly generic.

Likewise, neither candidate is particularly likely. We now know that mosasaurs were much more whale-like than they were imagined in the 60s. Rather than being long and snakelike, they instead were robust, torpedo-shaped animals with flukes on their tails. Thalattosuchians look more like the Marine Saurian, but went extinct in the Early Cretaceous and were generally fairly small, with the largest only getting about as large as a modern saltwater crocodile, far smaller than the Marine Saurian.

Considering the fact that there are so few reports (the best of which is a hoax), and no good candidates, I think the Marine Saurian can be safely set aside.