Fossil evidence indicates that 66 million years ago, a huge sea lizard with killer whale-like fangs was likely the ocean’s top “mega predator.”
The Thalassotitan atrox was a mosasaur of the Cretaceous epoch that could grow to a maximum length of 30 feet (9 meters).
Researchers from the University of Bath have unearthed fossils that indicate Thalassotitan’s cranium and teeth enabled it to swallow enormous marine animals.
Even suspected victim remains have been discovered, including enormous predatory fish, a sea turtle, and a head of a half-meter-long plesiosaur.
Dr. Nick Longrich, who led the investigation, remarked, “Thalassotitan was an incredible and scary monster.”
Imagine a cross between a Komodo Dragon and a great white shark mixed with a T. rex crossed with a killer whale.
While dinosaurs roamed the land 94 million years ago, mosasaurs dominated the oceans.
These sea lizards could reach a maximum length of 40 feet (12 meters) and are distant ancestors of modern iguanas and monitor lizards.
The species resembled Komodo dragons but possessed flippers and a shark-like tail fin; in the 25 million years before extinction, they evolved into more lethal hunters.
Paleontologists have uncovered a new predator that preferred larger prey than fish and squid, ammonites, and mollusks.
The Thalassotitan, also known as the Dread Titan of the Sea, was unearthed in Morocco near Casablanca.
Near the end of the Cretaceous, the Atlantic inundated northern Africa, and when a breeze pushed surface water westward, nutrient-rich waters rose.
These nourished plankton blooms, which provided food for fish, fed mosasaurs and plesiosaurs.
Due to the expansion of the food chain, carnivorous mega predators such as Thalassotitan were able to evolve and consume other marine reptiles.
The recently discovered remains of Thalassotitan indicate that it had a 5-foot-long (1.4-meter-long) cranium, attesting to its sophisticated hunting ability.
It possessed a short, broad muzzle and strong, conical teeth resembling those of an orca, which allowed it to capture and tear apart enormous prey.
This shows that it dominated other mosasaurs with large jaws and slender teeth for hunting fish, placing it at the top of the food chain.
As additional evidence, numerous Thalassotitan fossils exhibit teeth that are fractured and nearly worn down to the root.
This would have been the outcome of consuming marine reptile bones rather than fish, allowing it to occupy the same ecological niche as killer whales and great white sharks do now.
The researchers believe that some of Thalassotitan’s victims’ fossilized remains were recovered in the same beds as the mega predator.
Large fish, a sea turtle, a head of a plesiosaur measuring half a meter in length, and the jaws and skulls of at least three different species of a mosasaur were discovered with acid erosion and missing teeth and bones.
This damage may have been caused by the Thalassotitan digesting the creatures in its stomach before expelling their bones.
Dr. Longrich stated, “We cannot definitively identify which species of animal devoured all these other mosasaurs, but we do have the remains of marine reptiles that were killed and consumed by a massive predator.”
‘And in the same location, we locate Thalassotitan, a species that fits the killer’s characteristics – it’s a mosasaur that specializes in hunting marine reptiles.
That is most likely not a coincidence.
Several Thalassotitan fossils exhibit facial wounds consistent with severe conflict with other members of the same species.
While other mosasaurs exhibit comparable scars, Thalassotitan had a disproportionate number of them, suggesting that it engaged in frequent, fierce battles for eating sites or mates.
These fossils, together with those of other Moroccan mosasaurs, have been dated to the final million years of the ‘Dinosaur Age’
The findings, which were published in Cretaceous Research, indicate that mosasaurs thrived before the asteroid strike that caused the Cretaceous mass extinction.
Professor Nour-Eddine Jalil, a co-author of the research from the Museum of Natural History in Paris, stated, “The phosphate fossils of Morocco provide a unique window into the paleobiodiversity at the end of the Cretaceous.”
Just before the end of the ‘dinosaur age,’ life was rich and diverse, and animals had to specialize to find a place in their ecosystems.
Thalassotitan serves as the mega predator at the top of the food chain, completing the picture.
