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Mosasaurus fossils have been found in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Western Asia, and Antarctica. This distribution encompassed a wide range of oceanic climates including tropical, subtropical, temperate, and subpolar. Mosasaurus was a common large predator in these oceans and was positioned at the top of the food chain.
The Mosasaurinae are a subfamily of mosasaurs, a diverse group of Late Cretaceous marine squamates.Members of the subfamily are informally and collectively known as "mosasaurines" and their fossils have been recovered from every continent except for South America.
Mosasauroidea is a superfamily of extinct marine lizards that existed during the Late Cretaceous.Basal members of this group consist of small semiaquatic forms with terrestrial limbs ("plesiopedal"), while laters members include larger fully aquatic paddle-limbed ("hydropedal") forms commonly known as mosasaurs. [3]
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]
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]
Bell proposed that the Mosasaurini should be abandoned and that all members of the tribe should be incorporated into the Plotosaurini. While other scientists agree that a tribe containing Mosasaurus should be monophyletic, they argue that Mosasaurini should be the valid tribe. For example, in a 2012 study, Aaron LeBlanc, Caldwell, and Bardet ...
Dallasaurus is the sister group to more derived mosasaurine mosasaurs such as Clidastes, Prognathodon, Mosasaurus, and Plotosaurus. In the popular press, Dallasaurus has been hailed as a "missing link" uniting fully aquatic mosasaurs with their terrestrial ancestors. [7]
A mosasaur measuring under 3 m (9.8 ft) long, [1] Tethysaurus displays a number of basal and derived features that led to an initial classification as an intermediate stage between primitive aigialosaurids of the Cenomanian and derived mosasaurids from the Turonian to the Maastrichtian. [1]