Tylosaurus

Tylosaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 88–80.5Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
"Bunker" T. proriger (KUVP 5033) mounted skeleton in the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, Colorado
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Suborder:	Scleroglossa
Infraorder:	Anguimorpha
Family:	Mosasauridae
Subfamily:	Tylosaurinae
Genus:	Tylosaurus Marsh, 1872
Species
T. proriger (Cope, 1869) (type) T. nepaeolicus T. kansasensis T. capensis T. pembinensis T. saskatchewanensis T. ivoensis
Synonyms
Elliptonodon compressus Rhamphosaurus Rhinosaurus Liodon dyspelor Tylosaurus dyspelor

Tylosaurus (Greek τυλος/tylos "protuberance, knob" + Greek σαυρος/sauros "lizard") was a mosasaur, a large, predatory marine lizard closely related to modern monitor lizards and to snakes.

Description

Restoration of T. pembinensis

Along with plesiosaurs, sharks, fish, and other genera of mosasaurs, it was a dominant predator of the Western Interior Seaway during the Late Cretaceous. Tylosaurus proriger was among the largest of all the mosasaurs (along with Hainosaurus and Mosasaurus hoffmannii), reaching maximum lengths of 15 meters or (50 ft).^[1] 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^[2][3]

Paleobiology

Scales of T. proriger (KUVP-1075)

T. proriger erroneously depicted with a dorsal crest and no tail fluke, by Charles R. Knight, 1899

Stomach contents associated with specimens of Tylosaurus proriger indicate that this ferocious mosasaur had a varied diet, including fish, sharks, smaller mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, and flightless diving birds such as Hesperornis. In some paleoenvironments, Tylosaurus seems to have preferred shallow, nearshore waters (as with the Eutaw Formation and Mooreville Chalk Formation of Alabama), while favoring deeper water farther out from shore in other environments (as with the Niobrara Chalk of the western U.S.).

The Talkeetna Mountains Hadrosaur was a hadrosaurid of indeterminate classification whose carcass appeared to have been deposited in a bathyal or outer shelf environment that later became Alaska's Matanuska Formation.^[4] Every element of its skeleton not found in a concretion bore many closely spaced ovualar conical depressions ranging in diameter from 2.12 to 5.81 mm and 1.64 to 3.62 deep.^[5] These depressions are probably bite marks.^[6] The depressions are not symmetrical enough for gastropod drill marks and are not shaped like sponge borings.^[6] None of the preserved fish fossils of the Matanuska Formation fit the size or geometry of the borings.^[6] The size and spacing and shape by contrast, however, closely resembles the teeth of Tylosaurus proriger.^[7] The apparent tooth marks are unlikely to have occurred before the carcass was washed out to sea since that would have punctured the body, preventing the buildup of bloating gases that allowed the carcass to drift out to sea in the first place.^[7] The distribution of bite marks corresponds inversely to the presence of flesh in the animal.^[7] For instance, lower limb bones sustained the most damage because there was the least amount of flesh shielding the bones at those locations.^[7] The concretions formed as the flesh chemically reacted to the seafloor on the largest parts of the animal where the scavenging mosasaur would be unable to fully wrap its jaws around the carcass.^[7] Bones pulled free from the carcass were buried in the mud and preserved in mudstone.^[7]

Discovery

Complete T. proriger skeleton, from H.F. Osborn's 1899 description

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 ^[8] 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.^[9] 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.

T. proriger specimen which was found with a plesiosaur in its stomach

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.

In 1918, Charles H. Sternberg found a Tylosaurus, with the remains of a plesiosaur in its stomach.^[10] The specimen is currently mounted in the United States National Museum (Smithsonian) and the plesiosaur remains are stored in the collections. Although these important specimens were briefly reported by C. H. Sternberg (1922), the information was lost to science until 2001. This specimen was rediscovered and described by Everhart (2004a). It is the basis for the story line in the 2007 National Geographic IMAX movie Sea Monsters, and a book by the same name (Everhart, 2007).

A photograph of a Tylosaurus skull was taken by George F. Sternberg about 1926 after he collected and prepared the specimen. It was discovered in the Smoky Hill Chalk of Logan County, Kansas. Sternberg offered the specimen to the Smithsonian and included a photograph in his letter to Charles Gilmore. Copies of the original photos are in the archives of the Sternberg Museum of Natural History (FHSM). The specimen is FHSM VP-3, the exhibit specimen in the same museum.

A 34 ft. long Tylosaurus found in Kansas by Alan Komrosky in 2009 is now on display at the Museum of World Treasures in Wichita, Kansas.^[11]

Classification

T. pembinensis specimen nicknamed "Bruce"

T. kansasensis mounted skeleton in the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, Colorado

Specimen referred to T. micromus

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^[8]), from the Santonian and lower to middle Campanian of North America (Kansas, Alabama, Nebraska, etc.); Tylosaurus nepaeolicus (Cope, 1874 ^[12]), from the Santonian of North America (Kansas); Tylosaurus kansasensis Everhart, 2005,^[13] from the late Coniacian of Kansas.

A closely related genus, Hainosaurus ("Haine lizard", named after the Haine River in Belgium) is known from the Cretaceous of North America and Europe. Both Tylosaurus and Hainosaurus are grouped together into the subfamily Tylosaurinae ^[14] and are referred to informally as "tylosaurines" or "tylosaurs." Bell ^[15] placed the tylosaurines together with the plioplatecarpine mosasaurs (Platecarpus, Plioplatecarpus, etc.) in an informal monophyletic grouping which he called the "Russellosaurinae."

The cladogram below follows the cladogram from a 2011 analysis by paleontologists Takuya Konishi and Michael W. Caldwell.^[16]

In popular culture

T. proriger by Charles R. Knight, 1899

Tylosaurus, as a large mosasaur, is frequently depicted in popular culture. It has featured in National Geographic's Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure, Sea Monsters - A Walking with Dinosaurs Trilogy, and Dinosaur Revolution, among others. It was also briefly seen in Fantasia where it eats a Pteranodon. It also made an appearance in Jurassic Park: The Game, a spin-off video game based on the Jurassic Park films.

Footnotes

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tylosaurus.

• Bell GL. Jr. 1997. Part IV: Mosasauridae - Introduction. pp. 281–292 In: Callaway J. M. and E. L Nicholls, (eds.), Ancient Marine Reptiles, Academic Press, 501 pages.

• Lindgren J. 2002. Tylosaurus ivoensis: a giant mosasaur from the early Campanian of Sweden Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 105: 73 - 93.

• Everhart MJ. 2001. Revisions to the biostratigraphy of the Mosasauridae (Squamata) in the Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Chalk (Late Cretaceous) of Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 104 (1-2): 56-75.

• Everhart MJ. 2002. New data on cranial measurements and body length of the mosasaur, Tylosaurus nepaeolicus (Squamata; Mosasauridae), from the Niobrara Formation of western Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 105 (1-2): 33-43.

• Everhart MJ. 2005. Earliest record of the genus Tylosaurus (Squamata; Mosasauridae) from the Fort Hays Limestone (Lower Coniacian) of western Kansas. Transactions 108 (3/4): 149-155.

• Everhart MJ. 2005. Oceans of Kansas - A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea. Indiana University Press, 322 pp.

• Kiernan CR. 2002. Stratigraphic distribution and habitat segregation of mosasaurs in the Upper Cretaceous of western and central Alabama, with an historical review of Alabama mosasaur discoveries. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 22 (1): 91-103.

• Russell DA. 1967. Systematics and morphology of American mosasaurs (Reptilia, Sauria). Yale Univ. Bull. 23: 241 pp.

• Novas FE, Fernández M, Gasparini ZB, Lirio JM, Nuñez HJ, Puerta P. 2002. Lakumasaurus antarcticus, n. gen. et sp., a new mosasaur (Reptilia, Squamata) from the Upper Cretaceous of Antarctica. Ameghiniana 39 (2): 245-249.

• Pasch, A. D., K. C. May. 2001. Taphonomy and paleoenvironment of hadrosaur (Dinosauria) from the Matanuska Formation (Turonian) in South-Central Alaska. In: Mesozoic Vertebrate Life. Ed.s Tanke, D. H., Carpenter, K., Skrepnick, M. W. Indiana University Press. Pages 219-236.

External links

• Oceans of Kansas; includes much additional information and many illustrations and photographs of tylosaurines, including restorations and skeletons.
• E.D. Cope's original description of Macrosaurus proriger from western Kansas, with the published figure (1870) and recent photographs.
• Tylosaurus article on prehistoric-wildlife.com, including size comparison to a person