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The number of prisms in Mosasaurus teeth can slightly vary between tooth types and general patterns differ between species [g] —M. hoffmannii had two to three prisms on the labial side (the side facing lips) and no prisms on the lingual side (the side facing the tongue), M. missouriensis had four to six labial prisms and eight lingual prisms ...
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]
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.
Lingham-Soliar reported evidence of damage to the skull and braincase of an immature Mosasaurus hoffmanni. He observed that the area of trauma was similar in size and shape to the bony prow at the tip of the snout of a Hainosaurus. Lingham-Soliar believed that the larger Hainosaurus rammed the young Mosasaurus to death with this snout prow. [122]
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 ...
The first skull, found in 1764, purchased in 1784 by Camper's pupil Martin van Marum for the Teylers Museum, where it remains today. The second skull, M. hoffmannii holotype jaw fragments, known as the "great animal", it was taken as war booty to Paris, where it remains today in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The first skull, engraving from the 1799 book by Barthélemy Faujas de ...
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]
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. Fourteen or more teeth present in dentary and maxilla. Cranial nerves X, XI, and XII leave lateral wall of opisthotic through two foramina.