Camera pans across a plastic model of what a mosasaur would have looked like alive, ending on the head with the mouth open wide. a b c d Johan Lindgren; Michael J. Polcyn; Bruce A. Young (2011). "Landlubbers to leviathans: evolution of swimming in mosasaurine mosasaurs". Paleobiology. 37 (3): 445–469. Bibcode: 2011Pbio...37..445L. doi: 10.1666/09023.1. JSTOR 23014733. S2CID 85165085. An image of diamond-shaped denticles that make up shark skin, which also have a ridge in the middle. Related: Dinosaur-killing asteroid triggered mile-high tsunami that spread through Earth's oceans Additional resources

The authors of the study predict that in a very diverse ecosystem, it may take decades to find all of the rare species. As the proposal remains restricted to a PhD thesis, it is defined as an unpublished work per Article 8 of the ICZN and therefore is not yet formally valid. [68] [69]Many of the earliest fossils of Mosasaurus were found in Campanian stage deposits in North America, including the Western Interior Seaway, an inland sea which once flowed through what is now the central United States and Canada, and connected the Arctic Ocean to the modern-day Gulf of Mexico. The region was shallow for a seaway, reaching a maximum depth of about 800–900 meters (2,600–3,000ft). [108] Extensive drainage from the neighboring continents, Appalachia and Laramidia, brought in vast amounts of sediment. Together with the formation of a nutrient-rich deepwater mass from the mixing of continental freshwater, Arctic waters from the north, and warmer saline Tethyan waters from the south, this created a warm and productive seaway that supported a rich diversity of marine life. [109] [110] [111]

a b Eric W. A. Mulder (1999). "Transatlantic latest Cretaceous mosasaurs (Reptilia, Lacertilia) from the Maastrichtian type area and New Jersey". Geologie en Mijnbouw. 78 (3/4): 281–300. doi: 10.1023/a:1003838929257. S2CID 126956543. ZIETLOW: The biggest mosasaurs that we have found so far are estimated to have been almost 50 feet long, which is bigger than a school bus and bigger than any T.rex. Two of the 15 surveyed fossils were reported from the Niobrara Formation, [96] a deposit that Mosasaurus was previously thought but is no longer recognized to be present in. [7] [38] Takuya Konishi; Michael W. Caldwell; Tomohiro Nishimura; Kazuhiko Sakurai; Kyo Tanoue (2015). "A new halisaurine mosasaur (Squamata: Halisaurinae) from Japan: the first record in the western Pacific realm and the first documented insights into binocular vision in mosasaurs". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 14 (10): 809–839. doi: 10.1080/14772019.2015.1113447. S2CID 130644927.Nathalie Bardet; Alexandra Houssaye; Peggy Vincent; Xabier Pereda Suberbiola; M'barek Amaghzaz; Essaid Jourani; Saïd Meslouh (2015). "Mosasaurids (Squamata) from the Maastrichtian Phosphates of Morocco: Biodiversity, palaeobiogeography and palaeoecology based on tooth morphoguilds". Gondwana Research. 27 (3): 1068–1078. Bibcode: 2015GondR..27.1068B. doi: 10.1016/j.gr.2014.08.014. S2CID 140596842. Known fossils of Mosasaurus have typically been recovered from deposits representing nearshore habitats during the Cretaceous period, with some fossils coming from deeper-water deposits. [88] [126] Lingham-Soliar (1995) elaborated on this, finding that Maastrichtian deposits in the Netherlands with M. hoffmannii occurrences represented nearshore waters around 40–50 meters (130–160ft) deep. Changing temperatures and an abundance in marine life were characteristic of these localities. The morphological build of M. hoffmannii, nevertheless, was best adapted for a pelagic surface lifestyle. [50] Mosasaurus is a squamate like monitor lizards and snakes, but scientists still debate which of the two is its closest living relative.