Happy #MosasaurMonday!
Last week, #Thalassotitan was making news for exemplifying what mosasaurs did best: killing anything & everything that lived alongside them! ๐ฆ๐ช
A ๐งต of fossil evidence for murder by mosasaur jaws...
๐จ @MarkWitton
#paleontology #scicomm #fossils
First, let's talk about the new kid on the taxonomic block: Thalassotitan! It belongs to a group of mosasaurs called Prognathodontini, all bruisers with insanely powerful jaws & massive, serrated conical teeth - NOT adaptations for making friends!
๐จ@AndreyAtuchin
Next, there is *abundant* evidence of facial biting among mosasaurs. Several Thalassotitan fossils possess bite marks, but perhaps the best example in any mosasaur is this 0.8m long Tylosaurus skull @FHSU_Paleo that is covered in deep gouges, while also having a broken neck.
In fact, there is not a single group of animals that lived in the sea alongside them that has not had fossils of it found as mosasaur gut contents. This Tylosaurus was found with a plesiosaur inside, *and,* at another museum...
๐ท @NMNH
...a different Tylosaurus was found with the remains of MULTIPLE other vertebrates as gut contents, including fish, a plesiosaur, a bird, & another mosasaur! Like Thalassotitan, Tylosaurus has large, sometimes serrated teeth that helped it rip apart large prey.
๐ท@SDSMT_GeoMuseum
At the end of the day, there is no such thing as a 'gentle giant' mosasaur - there are even whispers of an unpublished specimen with not one, but MULTIPLE other mosasaur skulls preserved inside of it, including the first confirmed instance of cannibalism.
๐จD. Varner
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.