Tylosaurus
Tylosaurus was an Upper Cretaceous mosasaur. It was a large, predatory marine lizard closely related to modern monitor lizards and to snakes.
| Tylosaurus Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous
86.5–75 mya | |
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| "Bruce" T. pembinensis restoration | |
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| Subfamily: | Tylosaurinae Williston, 1895[1] |
| Genus: | Tylosaurus Cope, 1872 |
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In 1918, Charles H. Sternberg found a Tylosaurus with the remains of a plesiosaur in its stomach.[2] The specimen is mounted in the United States National Museum (Smithsonian). The plesiosaur remains are stored in the collections.
Although these important specimens were briefly reported by C.H. Sternberg in 1922, the information was lost to science until 2001. The specimen was rediscovered and described by Everhart. It is the basis for the story line in the new (2007) National Geographic IMAX movie - Sea Monsters.[3]
References
- Williston, S. W. 1895. New or little-known extinct vertebrates. Kansas University Quarterly 6:95-98.
- "Tylosaur food". Oceansofkansas.com. Retrieved 2013-01-28.
- Everhart M.J. 2005. Oceans of Kansas: a natural history of the Western Interior Sea. Indiana University Press.
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