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7 Results Found

  • Article
  • Open Access
5 Citations
5,169 Views
47 Pages

Mosasaurids Bare the Teeth: An Extraordinary Ecological Disparity in the Phosphates of Morocco Just Prior to the K/Pg Crisis

  • Nathalie Bardet,
  • Valentin Fischer,
  • Nour-Eddine Jalil,
  • Fatima Khaldoune,
  • Oussama Khadiri Yazami,
  • Xabier Pereda-Suberbiola and
  • Nicholas Longrich

4 February 2025

Mosasaurid teeth are abundant in the fossil record and often diagnostic to low taxonomic levels, allowing to document the taxonomic diversity and ecological disparity through time and with fewer biases than in other marine reptiles. The upper Maastri...

  • Article
  • Open Access
3 Citations
3,591 Views
12 Pages

Exceptional In Situ Preservation of Chondrocranial Elements in a Coniacian Mosasaurid from Colombia

  • María Eurídice Páramo-Fonseca,
  • José Alejandro Narváez-Rincón,
  • Cristian David Benavides-Cabra and
  • Christian Felipe Yanez-Leaño

10 May 2024

The first record of well-preserved chondrocranial elements in mosasaurids is here described. These elements are preserved in situ in a Coniacian skull found in north-central Colombia, inside a calcareous concretion. Based on a 3D model generated from...

  • Article
  • Open Access
3,678 Views
16 Pages

First Virtual Reconstruction of a Mosasaurid Brain Endocast: Description and Comparison of the Endocast of Tethysaurus nopcsai with Those of Extant Squamates

  • Rémi Allemand,
  • Michael J. Polcyn,
  • Alexandra Houssaye,
  • Peggy Vincent,
  • Camilo López-Aguirre and
  • Nathalie Bardet

5 September 2024

Paleoneurological studies of mosasaurids are few and limited to old partial reconstructions made from latex casts on Platecarpus and Clidastes. Here, the brain endocasts of three specimens of the early mosasaurid Tethysaurus nopcsai from the Turonian...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
5,394 Views
21 Pages

29 December 2024

Late Cretaceous marine ecosystems saw a major adaptive radiation of mosasaurids, which evolved highly disparate jaw and tooth morphologies to feed on different prey. A striking pattern seen in mosasaurids was a high diversity of durophagous forms. Du...

  • Feature Paper
  • Article
  • Open Access
11 Citations
24,043 Views
13 Pages

Stelladens mysteriosus: A Strange New Mosasaurid (Squamata) from the Maastrichtian (Late Cretaceous) of Morocco

  • Nicholas R. Longrich,
  • Nour-Eddine Jalil,
  • Xabier Pereda-Suberbiola and
  • Nathalie Bardet

Mosasaurids, a clade of specialized marine squamates, saw a major adaptive radiation in the Late Cretaceous, evolving a wide range of body sizes, shapes, and specialized tooth morphologies. The most diverse known mosasaurid faunas come from the late...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2,096 Views
17 Pages

New Information on the Morphology and Tooth Replacement of Xenodens calminechari (Squamata: Mosasauridae), a Unique Mosasaurid from the Maastrichtian Phosphates of Morocco

  • Nicholas R. Longrich,
  • Nathalie Bardet,
  • Nour-Eddine Jalil,
  • Xabier Pereda-Suberbiola,
  • Anne Schulp and
  • Mohamed Ghamizi

27 November 2025

Xenodens calminechari is a highly derived mosasaurid from the latest Maastrichtian Phosphates of the Oulad Abdoun Basin, Morocco. Originally described based on a single maxilla, Xenodens differs from all known squamates in its closely packed, bladeli...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
3,520 Views
27 Pages

The Evolution of Mosasaurid Foraging Behavior Through the Lens of Stable Carbon Isotopes

  • Michael J. Polcyn,
  • John A. Robbins,
  • Anne S. Schulp,
  • Johan Lindgren and
  • Louis L. Jacobs

19 April 2025

A large data set of new and previously published measurements of δ13C values derived from tooth enamel (n = 223, of which 93 are new) are compiled to explore patterns of foraging area preferences of Late Cretaceous mosasaurid squamates over evo...