Paleontologists from the University of Bath have discovered a new species of mosasaur that lived during the late Maastrichtian of the Cretaceous period, around 67 million years ago, at the Sidi Chennane phosphate mine in the province from Khouribga, Morocco.
Carinodens acrodon. This is the name of the new species of Durophagous Mosasaurus whose fossilized remains were discovered in the Sidi Chennane phosphate mine, in the province of Khouribga, in Morocco. This marine lizard belongs to the mosasaurid genus Carinodens and was a durophagous, adapted for munching on hard-shelled invertebrates. The new species lived during the late Maastrichtian of the Cretaceous period, around 67 million years ago. It coexisted with two other species derived from Carinodens: Carinodens minalmamar and Carinodens belgicus. The animal measured 2 to 3 m and had low, rectangular and compressed teeth.
Read: Archaeologists make an astonishing discovery in Morocco
“Early basal mosasaurids had small, conical, curved teeth, an adaptation for hunting relatively small prey like fish and soft-bodied cephalopods,” describe University of Bath paleontologist Nicholas Longrich and colleagues in a article published in the journal Diversity. According to their explanations, mosasaurids had, at the end of the Cretaceous, developed very diverse dental morphologies. “These included massive, conical teeth for grasping and tearing prey, blunt teeth for crushing bones, knife- and blade-like teeth for stabbing and cutting large prey, saw-like teeth for cut and low, bulbous teeth to crush hard-shelled invertebrates,” the researchers specify.
-To read: Exceptional discovery: a 515 million year old marine Pompeii in Morocco
And to conclude: “The diversity of mosasaurids in Morocco is exceptional and suggests that they continued to radiate until just before the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous, and that mosasaurids were perhaps more specific and more diverse in ecology than other Mesozoic marine clades.
Morocco
Related News :