A brand new mosasaur taxon from the Late Cretaceous of Morocco has been scientifically described. Khinjaria acuta was so long as an Orca (Orcinus orca). It had a sturdy cranium, robust jaws and dagger-like tooth. The researchers distinction right now’s marine ecosystems with few apex predators, with the Late Cretaceous marine atmosphere. Writing within the journal “Cretaceous Analysis” the researchers painting an historical marine ecosystem teeming with predators.
Khinjaria acuta
The research is predicated on a cranium and elements of the postcranial skeleton collected from a phosphate mine southeast of Casablanca (Morocco). Researchers from the College of Tub, the Marrakech Museum of Pure Historical past, the Museum Nationwide d’ Histoire Naturelle (NMNH) in Paris (France), Southern Methodist College in Texas (USA), and the College of the Basque Nation (Bilbao) have been concerned.
Measuring round eight metres in size, Khinjaria used its lengthy, dagger-like tooth to grab prey. It was a part of an awfully numerous fauna of predators that inhabited the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco throughout the Maastrichtian faunal stage of the Late Cretaceous.
The Sheer Variety of Prime Predators within the Marine Ecosystem
One of many authors of the scientific paper, Dr Nick Longrich (College of Tub), acknowledged:
“What’s exceptional right here is the sheer range of prime predators. We’ve a number of species rising bigger than an incredible white shark, they usually’re prime predators, however all of them have totally different tooth, suggesting they’re looking in numerous methods.”
Dr Longrich added:
“Some mosasaurs had tooth to pierce prey, others to chop, tear, or crush. Now now we have Khinjaria, with a brief face full of giant, dagger-shaped tooth. This is likely one of the most numerous marine faunas seen wherever, at any time in historical past, and it existed simply earlier than the marine reptiles and the dinosaurs went extinct.”
A Variety of Moroccan Marine Reptiles
Fossil discoveries have highlighted the astonishing range of enormous marine reptiles within the atmosphere. Their totally different dentition means that many weren’t instantly competing, that area of interest partitioning was occurring. For instance, the researchers carried out a phylogenetic evaluation and positioned Khinjaria in a mosasaur clade which they named the Selmasaurini. Additionally positioned on this clade was the Moroccan plioplatecarpine mosasaur Gavialimimus almaghribensis. This mosasaur was a specialised fish hunter.
To learn All the pieces Dinosaur’s article about Gavialimimus almaghribensis: A New Species of Mosasaur from Morocco.
Mosasaurs, plesiosaurs and big sea turtles disappeared, together with whole households of fish on the finish of the Cretaceous. This led to the evolution of recent marine ecosystems with whales and seals as apex predators together with teleost fish equivalent to swordfish and tuna.
Dr Longrich commented:
“There appears to have been an enormous change within the ecosystem construction previously 66 million years. This unimaginable range of prime predators within the Late Cretaceous is uncommon, and we don’t see that in trendy marine communities.”
An Ecosystem Totally different from a Fashionable Marine Ecosystem
Fashionable marine meals chains have just some massive apex predators, animals like orcas, white sharks, and leopard seals. The Late Cretaceous had many extra varieties of marine predators.
Dr Longrich continued:
“Fashionable ecosystems have predators like baleen whales and dolphins that eat small prey, and never many issues consuming massive prey. The Cretaceous has an enormous variety of marine reptile species that take massive prey. Whether or not there’s one thing about marine reptiles that prompted the ecosystem to be totally different, or the prey, or maybe the atmosphere, we don’t know. However this was an extremely harmful time to be a fish, a sea turtle, or perhaps a marine reptile.”
Professor Nathalie Bardet, (Pure Historical past Museum of Paris), defined:
“The Phosphates of Morocco deposit in a shallow and heat epicontinental sea, underneath a system of upwellings; these zones are brought on by currents of deep, chilly, nutrient-rich waters rising in direction of the floor, offering meals for big numbers of sea creatures and, in consequence, supporting a whole lot of predators. That is in all probability one of many explanations for this extraordinary paleobiodiversity noticed in Morocco on the finish of the Cretaceous.”.
The phosphate mines of Morocco have offered a wealth of marine fossil materials. The specimens collected embrace the “saw-toothed” mosasaur Xenodens, Stelladens which had tooth with further chopping edges and Thalassotitan whose tooth have been conical in form and large.
All the pieces Dinosaur acknowledges the help of a media launch from the College of Tub within the compilation of this text.
The scientific paper: “A weird new plioplatecarpine mosasaurid from the Maastrichtian of Morocco” by Nicholas R. Longrich, Michael J. Polcyn, Nour-Eddine Jalil, Xabier Pereda-Suberbiola and Nathalie Bardet printed in Cretaceous Analysis.
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