Mounted skeleton of Mosasaurus conodon, Minnesota Science Museum
Scientific classification
Domain:
Eukaryota
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Reptilia
Order:
Squamata
Clade:
†Mosasauria
Family:
†Mosasauridae
Subfamily:
†Mosasaurinae Gervais, 1853
Type species
†Mosasaurus hoffmannii
Mantell, 1829
Genera
†Amphekepubis[1]
†Clidastes
†Dallasaurus
†Gnathomortis
†Goronyosaurus?
†Jormungandr
†Kourisodon
†Liodon
†Megapterygius[2]
†Plesiotylosaurus
†Prognathodon
†Stelladens
†Thalassotitan
†Globidensini
†Carinodens
†Globidens
†Harranasaurus[3]
†Igdamanosaurus
†Xenodens
†Mosasaurini
†Bentiabasaurus
†Eremiasaurus
†Plotosaurus
†Moanasaurus
†Mosasaurus
The Mosasaurinae are a subfamily of mosasaurs, a diverse group of Late Cretaceous marine squamates. Members of the subfamily are informally and collectively known as "mosasaurines" and their fossils have been recovered from every continent except for South America.[4]
The lineage first appears in the Turonian and thrived until the K-Pg mass extinction at the end of the Maastrichtian. They ranged in size from some of the smallest known mosasaurs (Carinodens, 3–3.5 meters), to medium-sized taxa (Clidastes, 6+ meters), to the largest of the mosasaurs (Mosasaurus hoffmannii) potentially reaching about 13 m in length. Many genera of mosasaurines were either piscivorous or generalists, preying on fish and other marine reptiles, but one lineage, the Globidensini, evolved specialized crushing teeth, adapting to a diet of ammonites and/or marine turtles.
Though represented by relatively small forms throughout the Turonian and Santonian, such as Clidastes, the lineage diversified during the Campanian and had by the Maastrichtian grown into the most diverse and species-rich mosasaur subfamily.[5]
The etymology of the group derives from the genus Mosasaurus (Latin Mosa = "Meuse river" + Greek sauros = "lizard").
^DeBraga, Michael; Carroll, Robert L. (1993), Hecht, Max K.; MacIntyre, Ross J.; Clegg, Michael T. (eds.), "The Origin of Mosasaurs as a Model of Macroevolutionary Patterns and Processes", Evolutionary Biology, Boston, MA: Springer US, pp. 245–322, doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-2878-4_7, ISBN 978-1-4615-2878-4, retrieved 2022-07-13
^Konishi, Takuya; Ohara, Masaaki; Misaki, Akihiro; Matsuoka, Hiroshige; Street, Hallie P.; Caldwell, Michael W. (2023). "A new derived mosasaurine (Squamata: Mosasaurinae) from south-western Japan reveals unexpected postcranial diversity among hydropedal mosasaurs". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 21 (1). doi:10.1080/14772019.2023.2277921. ISSN 1477-2019.
^Kaddumi, Hani F. (2009). "A new durophagous mosasaur (Squamata: Mosasauridae) from the Maastrichtian Muwaqqar Chalk Marl Formation of the Harrana Fauna". Fossils of the Harrana Fauna and the Adjacent Areas. Amman: Eternal River Museum of Natural History. pp. 36–48. OCLC 709582892.
^"Fossilworks: Mosasaurinae". fossilworks.org. Retrieved 17 December 2021.
^Polcyn, Michael J.; Jacobs, Louis L.; Araújo, Ricardo; Schulp, Anne S.; Mateus, Octávio (2014-04-15). "Physical drivers of mosasaur evolution". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. Physical drivers in the evolution of marine tetrapods. 400: 17–27. doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2013.05.018.
The Mosasaurinae are a subfamily of mosasaurs, a diverse group of Late Cretaceous marine squamates. Members of the subfamily are informally and collectively...
lizard belonging to the mosasaur family. It is classified as part of the Mosasaurinae subfamily, alongside genera like Mosasaurus and Clidastes. Prognathodon...
of Dallasaurus, a plesiopedal mosasauroid more closely related to the Mosasaurinae than other mosasaurs. Bell and Polycn (2005) grouped these outside mosasaurs...
analyses using several extant anguimorphs as outgroups, depicting only the Mosasaurinae clade. Topology A is recovered from the 86 most parsimonious unweighted...
lizard belonging to the mosasaur family. It is classified as part of the Mosasaurinae subfamily, alongside genera like Mosasaurus and Prognathodon. Clidastes...
mosasaurid oceanic lizard classified as part of the Globidensini tribe in the Mosasaurinae subfamily. Globidens alabamaensis was the first species of Globidens...
which shows that Moanasaurus was one of the largest in the subfamily of Mosasaurinae. Researchers argue that some Antarctic Mosasaurus remains (including...
; Caldwell, Michael W. (2023). "A new derived mosasaurine (Squamata: Mosasaurinae) from south-western Japan reveals unexpected postcranial diversity among...
lizard belonging to the mosasaur family. It is classified as part of the Mosasaurinae subfamily, alongside genera like Mosasaurus and Clidastes. Although traditionally...
Dallasaurus, concluding that this taxon should be placed within the subfamily Mosasaurinae, "well within [the family] Mosasauridae", and that, despite its small...
hoffmannii. As the type genus of the family Mosasauridae and the subfamily Mosasaurinae, Mosasaurus is a member of the order Squamata (which comprises lizards...
stadtmani: implications for Globidensini monophyly and character homology in Mosasaurinae". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology: e1784183. doi:10.1080/02724634...
(Russell, 1967; p. 369 ), which was also considered a member of the Mosasaurinae at that time. Later workers questioned the phylogenetic position and...
lizard belonging to the mosasaur family. It is classified as part of the Mosasaurinae subfamily, alongside genera like Mosasaurus and Prognathodon. The genus...
of three possible major lineages of mosasaurs (the others being the Mosasaurinae subfamily and Halisauromorpha group) that was first recognized in 1993...
stadtmani: implications for Globidensini monophyly and character homology in Mosasaurinae". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 40 (3): e1784183. doi:10.1080/02724634...
mosasaurs. Thalassotitan is a member of the Prognathodontini tribe of the Mosasaurinae subfamily, with other members including Prognathodon and Gnathomortis...
Dale Russell classified Liodon within the Mosasaurini tribe of the Mosasaurinae subfamily in 1967 owing to the "great resemblance" of the fossils of...
definitions. Russell, however, classifies Taniwhasaurus within the subfamily Mosasaurinae, and more precisely in the tribe Plotosaurini. Russell, considering that...
clearly distinct features separating Globidens from the rest of the Mosasaurinae and considered Globidens to be a derived descendant of Clidastes. A more...
in the early Late Cretaceous. Amphekepubis is classified within the Mosasaurinae subfamily of mosasaurs. It has been suggested that the age of the fossils...
Tylosaurinae in 1988, based on a phylogeny of cranial-only characters. Mosasaurinae was collapsed into a single unit, so relationships of Goronyosaurus within...
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