Tylosaurus

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

This illustration shows Tylosaurus proriger hunting a shark. National Geographic Kids

Tylosaurus was a mosasaur, a large, predatory marine lizard closely related to modern monitor lizards and to snakes.

A distinguishing characteristic of Tylosaurus is its elongated, cylindrical premaxilla (snout) from which it takes its name and which may have been used to ram and stun prey and also in intraspecific combat. Early restorations showing Tylosaurus with a dorsal crest were based on misidentified tracheal cartilage, but when the error was discovered, depicting mosasaurs with such crests was already a trend.

Tylosaurus kansasensis with large flippers.  Tylosaurus proriger with mid-sized flippers.  Tylosaurus dyspelor with small flippers, all about 30 feet (9.1m) long.

Along with plesiosaurs, sharks, fish, and other mosasaurs, Tylosaurus was a dominant predator of the Western Interior Seaway during the Late Cretaceous. The genus was among the largest of the mosasaurs (along with Mosasaurus hoffmannii), with the possibly conspecific Hainosaurus bernardi reaching lengths up to 12.2 m (40 ft), and T. pembinensis reaching comparable sizes. T. proriger, the largest species of Tylosaurus, reached lengths up to 14 m (46 ft).

A 43 ft. (13 m) complete fossil specimen of T. proriger (with a human for scale) on display at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.

Like many other mosasaurs, the early history of this taxon is complex and involves the infamous rivalry between two early American paleontologists, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. Originally, the name “Macrosaurus” proriger was proposed by Cope  for a fragmentary skull and thirteen vertebrae collected from near Monument Rocks in western Kansas in 1868. It was placed in the collections of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. Only a year later, Cope redescribed the same material in greater detail and referred it, instead, to the English mosasaur taxon Liodon. Then, in 1872, Marsh named a more complete specimen as a new genus, Rhinosaurus (“nose lizard”), but soon discovered that this name had already been used for a different animal. Cope suggested that Rhinosaurus be replaced by yet another new name, Rhamposaurus which also proved to be preoccupied. Marsh finally erected Tylosaurus later in 1872, to include the original Harvard material as well as additional, more complete specimens which had also been collected from Kansas. A giant specimen of T. proriger, recovered in 1911 by C. D. Bunker near Wallace, Kansas is one of the largest skeleton of Tylosaurus ever found. It is currently on display at the University of Kansas Museum of Natural history.

Mounted specimen of T. pembinensis, specimen nicknamed “Bruce” – Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre, Morden MB.

A 34 feet (10 m) long Tylosaurus found in Kansas by Alan Komrosky in 2009 is now on display at the Museum of World Treasures in Wichita, Kansas.

Though many species of Tylosaurus have been named over the years, only a few are now recognized by scientists as taxonomically valid. They are as follows: Tylosaurus proriger (Cope, 1869), from the Santonian and lower to middle Campanian of North America (Kansas, Alabama, Nebraska, etc.) and Tylosaurus nepaeolicus (Cope, 1874 ), from the Santonian of North America (Kansas). Tylosaurus kansasensis, named by Everhart in 2005 from the late Coniacian of Kansas, has been shown to be based on juvenile specimens of T. nepaeolicus. It is likely that T. proriger evolved as a paedomorphic variety of T. nepaeolicus, retaining juvenile features into adulthood and attaining much larger adult size.