Mosasaurini

Mosasaurini is an extinct tribe of mosasaurine mosasaurs who lived during the Late Cretaceous and whose fossils have been found in North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Oceania, with questionable occurrences in Asia. They are highly derived mosasaurs, containing genera like Plotosaurus, having unique adaptations to fast swimming speeds, or Mosasaurus, which is among the largest known marine reptiles.

Mosasaurini

Wilson44691 · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
MosasaurinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Mosasauridae
Life habit
aquaticPBDB, for Mosasauridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Mosasauridae
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 18 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 83.6 Mya and 66 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 20 of 20 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 20 occurrences84–83 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences83–83 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences80–80 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences79–79 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences77–77 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences74–74 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 1 occurrence72–71 Mya — about 2 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 2 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 2 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 2 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 2 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 2 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 2 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 2 occurrences67–66 Mya — about 2 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences84.1 Mya65.5 Mya

20 occurrences of Mosasaurini on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

20 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

8 formations

Moreno — 37.22°N, 121.12°WMoreno — 36.50°N, 120.69°WMoreno — 36.25°N, 120.63°WMoreno — 36.71°N, 120.73°WPhosphates — 32.88°N, 6.63°WMishash — 31.78°N, 35.24°EIsoai — 36.40°N, 140.56°EHiraiso — 36.38°N, 140.62°EQuiriquina — 36.58°S, 72.99°WCouche III — 32.88°N, 6.63°WGramame — 7.73°S, 34.83°W

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The named rock units Mosasaurini has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mosasaurini and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Mosasaurini and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

126 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 20 sites for Mosasaurini, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

9 references

Each of the 20 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Mosasaurini

Credit
Wilson44691
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itMosasaurinae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Russell 1967