66 million years ago, a giant marine lizard ruled the sea.
The mosasaur is a giant marine reptile that hunted the oceans during the late Cretaceous period.
Thalassotitan atrox was no gentle giant and feasted on difficult prey such as sea turtles, plesiosaurs, and other mosasaurs.
Others sought smaller prey, like fish or ammonites.
Thalassotitan may have occupied a spot at the top of the food web to keep the other predator in check.
Nick Longrich is a paleontologist at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. Imagine a Komodo dragon crossed with a great white shark.
The scale of mosasaurs is twice the size of the largest modern reptiles, the crocodilians. Modern snakes and iguanas are related to mosasus.
The marine iguanas of the Galapagos are adapted to being in the water. They had a head with flippers and a tail that looked like a shark.
Different mosasaur species can specialize in different things. Some of the teeth were small and spiky, perfect for fish and squid.
The animals don't seem to have a good sense of smell, so it's likely that they were mostly predatory.
Analyses show that mosasaurs feasted on a wide range of animals. Thalassotitan seemed to be one of the fiercest.
The fossils were found in a region that is rich in diverse and excellently preserved fossils.
The bones include skulls, phalanges, and limbs. They were able to give a full description of Thalassotitan's skull, jaw, and teeth.
Longrich and his team found that the animal could be up to 10 meters in length. The orca's skull is 1.5 meters long.
Thalassotitan's jaw was wide and short, with large teeth that would have been perfect for rending prey. Many of the teeth are broken and worn, damage that wouldn't occur from a diet consisting of soft prey.
Thalassotitan may have broken its teeth on turtle shells and other bones, according to the researchers.
The bones of large predatory fish, a sea turtle shell, a plesiosaur skull, and three different mosasaur species were found near the Thalassotitan remains.
Acid wear can be seen in the remains, as you might expect it to happen in the stomach of a giant beast. The researchers note that it is circumstantial evidence but still interesting.
Longrich says that they can't say for certain which species of animal ate all the other mosasaur.
The bones of marine reptile killed and eaten by a predator are in our possession. Thalassotitan is a mosasaur that is specialized to prey on other marine reptile. That is likely not a coincidence.
mosasus became more and more diverse in the last 25 million years. The discovery of Thalassotitan suggests that mosasaurs were more diverse than we thought, with enough prey diversity to support this predator diversity.
The time leading up to the mass extinction 65 million years ago has some interesting implications. It suggests that, rather than declining and leaving the world vulnerable, as some have thought, biodiversity was going great guns, possibly in the wake of a smaller extinction event.
This possibility should be clarified by digging into the fossil beds.
Longrich says there is more to be done.
One of the richest and most diverse marine faunas can be found inrocco. We are just beginning to understand the biology of the mosasaur.
The paper has appeared in a research journal.
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