Fossil Unveils Ancient Sea Monster Battle: Unusual Find Sheds Light on Prehistoric Underwater Clashes
Look into the jaws of a Mosasaurus and you will gaze into a nightmare. The seagoing lizard’s curved teeth stand in a line that point backwards to the throat, an extra set of piercing teeth on the roof of the mouth guaranteeing that any journey into the mosasaur’s mouth was a one-way trip. Mosasaurus clearly had the bite of a carnivore. But what did it actually eat? That’s a tale that cannot be told be teeth alone, and, fortunately for paleontologists, a lovely little Mosasaurus provides a partial answer to the question. In 2008, workers at Alberta, Canada’s Korite International Ammolite Mine uncovered the bones of a marine reptile. Paleontologists from Canada’s Royal Tyrrell Museum quickly excavated the skeleton, but it was only after careful preparation and study that is became clear that they had uncovered a fossil with a complex story to tell. The poor little mosasaur, dead for over 75 million years, was preserved with its last meal and signs that it, too, had be...