Mosasaur
extinct genus of marine squamate reptile from the Late Cretaceous / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mosasaurs were large, predatory marine lizards of the Upper Cretaceous. The first fossil Mosasaur, Mosasaurus hoffmanni, was found in the Netherlands in 1776.[1]p7 It was named in 1822 by W.D. Conybeare.
Quick Facts Scientific classification, Subgroups ...
Mosasaur | |
---|---|
Mounted skeleton of a plioplatecarpine (Plesioplatecarpus planifrons), Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Order: | Squamata |
Clade: | Platynota |
Superfamily: | †Mosasauroidea Gervais, 1853 |
Subgroups | |
|
Close
For the last 20 million years of the Cretaceous period after the extinction of the ichthyosaurs and pliosaurs, mosasaurs became the dominant marine predators. They became extinct at the K-Pg event at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years ago.