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There’s a new T. rex in the fossil record, only this one terrorized the ancient seas. New research led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, and Southern Methodist University uncovers a new, massive species of mosasaur, a marine reptile that lived during the age of the dinosaurs. One of the largest mosasaurs known to date—stretching up to 43 feet long—this top predator was described from 80-million-year-old fossils that were found primarily in northern Texas decades ago. It was named Tylosaurus rex, or T. rex for short, meaning “king of the tylosaurs.”
“Everything is bigger in Texas and that includes the mosasaurs, apparently,” said Amelia Zietlow, lead author of the new study, which was published today by the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.
Zietlow, a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History who is now at the History Museum at the Castle in Wisconsin, began this work as a comparative biology Ph.D. student in the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School, when she came across a mosasaur fossil in the research collection that appeared to be misidentified as Tylosaurus proriger.
