Russellosaurus
Name:
Russellosaurus
(Russel’s lizard).
Phonetic: Rus-sal-oh-sore-us.
Named By: M. J. Polcyn & G. L.
Bell Jr - 2005.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Squamata,
Mosasauridae, Russellosaurinae.
Species: R. coheni (type).
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Uncertain.
Known locations: USA, Texas - Arcadia Park
Shale and Kamp Ranch Limestone.
Time period: Turonian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Skull as well as additional
fragmentary remains.
Russellosaurus
represents a primitive mosasaur, marine reptiles that would go on to
achieve a variety of sizes and specialisations that would see them
becoming the dominant predators of the late Cretaceous seas.
Russelosaurus itself displays a number of features
which are
diagnostic of more than one mosasaur group, something that suggests
that these traits were developed and lost according to the predatory
niche that a specific group or genera became accustomed too. As for
Russellosaurus it was probably a more generalist
carnivore that preyed
upon fish and other smaller marine vertebrates.
Russellosaurus
is considered to be related to Yaguarasaurus
and Tethysaurus,
both
primitive mosasaurs in their own rights that are known from deposits in
South America and Africa respectively. This shows that while early
mosasaurs where more primitive in form, they were still well enough
adapted to marine life to spread out across the ocean. None of
these mosasaurs are considered to be the earliest however, as in
2005 Polcyn and Bell also named another even more primitive form
called Dallasaurus.
Further reading
- Russellosaurus coheni n. gen., n. sp., a 92 million-year-old mosasaur
from Texas (USA), and the definition of the parafamily Russellosaurina.
- Netherlands Journal of Geosciences — - Geologie en Mijnbouw
84(3):321-333. - M. J. Polcyn & G. L. Bell - 2005.
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