Photo: NICK LONGRICH / copyright
A group of researchers has presented the fossil in excellent condition of a large marine reptile that stalked the oceans during the Late Cretaceous period, as detailed in the study published on Wednesday (24.08.2022) by Cretaceous Research magazine.
This ancient marine animal, which inhabited the Earth some time ago 66 millions of years and is called Thalassotitan atrox, belongs to the family of the mosasaurs. Its very well preserved fossil remains were discovered in Morocco, in an area with many finds of this type.
“The T. atrox was an amazing and terrifying animal. You have to imagine it as a Komodo dragon crossed with a great white shark, crossed with a T. rex and then crossed with an orca”, explained the main author of the research Nick Longrich, from the University of Bath (United Kingdom).
A reptile much larger than modern ones
According to the size of the skull -1.5 meters long-, the vertebrae , its limbs and tail bones, experts believe that this specimen found could have measured between 9 and 12 meters in length, a little larger than an orca.
Currently, there is no reptile that is as big as the mosasaurs were, which could reach at least 12 meters in length , almost twice the size of some modern reptiles such as crocodiles.
Although these animals have an optically similar reptilian head to that of a crocodile and with fins that could be more like those of a shark, these aquatic animals are more closely related to snakes and iguanas.
Doubts about your diet
Researchers are still trying to figure out what kind of diet the T. atrox. Due to the wear of its teeth, it is believed that it hunted turtles and used to damage its gums with pieces of shell, although evidence suggests that it also chased other mosasaurs.
“We can’t say for sure what species of animal ate all these other mosasaurs, but we do have the bones of marine reptiles killed and eaten by a large predator. And in the same place we find T. atrox, a species that fits the profile of the killer: it is a mosasaur specialized in preying on other marine reptiles. It’s probably not a coincidence,” Longrich explained.
Under these theories, experts suggest that mosasaurs were sea creatures with more diverse species than than initially thought, with different sizes and varied types of feed.