Tylosaurus
Extinct genus of marine squamate reptiles / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tylosaurus (/ˌtaɪˈloʊˈsɔːrəs/; "knob lizard"[lower-alpha 1]) is a genus of russellosaurine mosasaur (an extinct group of predatory marine lizards) that lived about 92 to 66 million years ago during the Turonian to Maastrichtian stages of the Late Cretaceous. Its fossils have been found primarily around North Atlantic Ocean including in North America, Europe, and Africa. The earliest discoveries were possibly made by Native American tribes in the Great Plains (submerged under the Western Interior Seaway during the Cretaceous), whose creation myths spoke of giant serpentine water monsters turned to stone in ancient times. Paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope first scientifically described fossils of the genus from Kansas in 1869, but the name Tylosaurus was coined by Cope's rival Othniel Charles Marsh.
Tylosaurus | |
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Mounted cast of the T. proriger "Bunker" specimen (KUVP 5033) | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Order: | Squamata |
Clade: | †Mosasauria |
Family: | †Mosasauridae |
Clade: | †Russellosaurina |
Subfamily: | †Tylosaurinae |
Genus: | †Tylosaurus Marsh, 1872 |
Type species | |
†Tylosaurus proriger (Cope, 1869) | |
Other species | |
Disputed or unpublished
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Synonyms | |
List of synonyms
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With a geologic span of over 25 million years, Tylosaurus was one of the most successful mosasaur genera in terms of diversity and longevity. It was both among the first and last of the group, and had diversified into at least 8 valid species. The earliest representative, T. nepaeolicus, had already developed a large body size reaching 6 meters (20 ft) by its first appearance during the mid-Turonian. Its subsequent evolution into T. proriger through heterochrony is well-documented in the fossil record. The lineage progressively grew in body size until T. proriger achieved a maximum length of at least 14 meters (46 ft) by the mid-Campanian, making it one of the largest mosasaurs. Other species were similarly large with documented top lengths varying between 8–12 meters (26–39 ft).