Thread by @TyrantLzrdQueen

Happy #MosasaurMonday!
Last week, #Thalassotitan was making news for exemplifying what mosasaurs did best: killing anything & everything that lived alongside them! 🦎🔪
A 🧵 of fossil evidence for murder by mosasaur jaws...
🎨 @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!
🎨@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...
📷 @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.
📷@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At the end of the day, there is no such thing as a 'gentle giant' mosasaur - there are even whispers of an unpublished specimen with not one, but MULTIPLE other mosasaur skulls preserved inside of it, including the first confirmed instance of cannibalism.
🎨D. Varner