The discovery of fossils of a giant marine lizard reveals how this ancient extinct beast would have ruled the sea 66 million years ago.The beast is a newly discovered species of mosasaur, giant marine reptiles that hunted the oceans during the Late Cretaceous.It's called Thalassotitan atrox, and wear on its teeth along with other remains found at its excavation site suggest that this intimidating animal was no gentle giant & but feasted on difficult prey such as sea turtles, plesiosaurs, and other mosasaurs, Science Alert reported.Thalassotitan was an amazing, terrifying animal,& says paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Nick Longrich of the University of Bath in the UK.Imagine a Komodo dragon crossed with a great white shark crossed with a T.
rex crossed with a killer whale.There is no reptile alive today that is on the scale of mosasaurs, which could reach lengths of 12 meters & twice the size of the largest modern reptiles, the crocodilians.
But mosasaurs are related, instead and distantly, to modern snakes and iguanas.The fossils were discovered in the phosphate fossil beds of Morocco, a region rich in diverse and excellently preserved Cretaceous and Miocene fossils.The remains include skulls, vertebrae, limb bones, and phalanges.
Together, they allowed for a complete description of Thalassotitan's skull, jaw, and teeth, as well as the skeleton, shoulders, and forelimb.The animal, Longrich and his team found, could likely grow to a length of around 9 to 10 meters & slightly larger than an orca.
However its skull was nearly twice the length of the orca&s, coming in at around 1.5 meters long.The post Incredible fossil reveals a giant lizard that ruled the sea with teeth and terror first appeared on Ariana News.