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The skull of Mosasaurus had robust jaws and strong muscles capable of powerful bites using dozens of large teeth adapted for cutting prey. Its four limbs were shaped into paddles to steer the animal underwater. Its tail was long and ended in a downward bend and a paddle-like fluke.
The smaller mosasaurs may have spent some time in fresh water, hunting for food. The largest mosasaur Mosasaurus hoffmannii was the apex predator of the Late Cretaceous oceans, reaching more than 11 metres (36 ft) in length and weighing up to 10 metric tons (11 short tons) in body mass. [14]
Mosasaur teeth are of rather uniform morphology (with a few exceptions, such as in Globidens) with a pointed and curved tooth crown that sits on a pedicel composed of bone. [7] The enamel surface is smooth and the crown is subdivided into a lingual and labial surface while the outer surface of the crown is made of enamel and the inner layer is ...
Skeleton of Clidastes liodontus mounted as if pursuing a fossil sea turtle. Russell (1967, pp. 123–124) [6] defined the Mosasaurinae as differing from all other mosasaurs as follows: "Small rostrum present or absent anterior to premaxillary teeth.
Among them, he describes a mosasaur taxon under the name Mosasaurus cf. anceps, based on numerous fossil teeth of different morphologies. [ 2 ] : 279–282 It is now accepted that the smaller, slender teeth formerly referred to this taxon actually belong to Eremiasaurus , while the larger ones would likely have belonged to Thalassotitan .
An 1854 depiction of Mosasaurus in Crystal Palace Park. One of the earliest paleoart depictions of Mosasaurus is a life-size concrete sculpture constructed by natural history sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins between 1852 and 1854 as part of the collection of sculptures of prehistoric animals on display at the Crystal Palace Park in London.
Instead, they primarily relied on stratigraphic associations and Cuvier's 1808 research on the holotype skull. Thus, in-depth research on the placement of Mosasaurus was not undertaken until the discovery of more complete mosasaur fossils during the late 19th century, which reignited research on the placement of mosasaurs among squamates. [8]
A side-by-side comparison of a typical "crushing" mosasaur tooth (left, Igdamanosaurus) and a typical "cutting" mosasaur tooth (right, Mosasaurus). Teeth of Prognathodon seem to contain characteristics of both. It is worth noting that P. overtoni displays heterodonty similar to other mosasaurines, such as Globidens and Carinodens. For instance ...