New Species of Plioplatecarpine Mosasaur Discovered in Mexico- Yaguarasaurus regiomontanus

[Prehistory Resurrection]

Link to article: https://www.sci.news/paleontology/yaguarasaurus-regiomontanus-12480.html

[Newt]

Neat! The Agua Nueva formation has produced some good soft-tissue remains (for the wacky long-winged chondrichthyan Aquilolamna, an aigialosaur, and a polycotylid plesiosaur), so now that mosasaurs are known to be present there we can hope for some early mosasaur integument and potentially fins. IIRC mosasaur soft tissues are only known from Maastrichtian specimens, so this could help map their evolutionary trajectory.

[Reuben03]

so now that mosasaurs are known to be present there we can hope for some early mosasaur integument and potentially fins. IIRC mosasaur soft tissues are only known from Maastrichtian specimens, so this could help map their evolutionary trajectory.

exactly my thoughts.


I love Luis Rey's work. he is one of my favourite artists. when i spoke to him in December he told me in person that the museum who commissioned him had asked him to give it a dorsal fin, and pointed fins, due to a new discovery. obviously they were referring to megapterygius, but its insane that a museum would make such a mistake. the shark/ichthyosaur fins on all mosasaurs trend clearly shows no signs of slowing. the lizard to specialised marine predator journey took time, and features like a dorsal fin and sharply bent tail flukes would not have showed up in any mosasaurs as early on as we like to depict. I think a serious revision of how we depict these animals is needed.


heres a little sketch i did of Yaguarasaurus regiomontanus restoring the animal with more derived flippers then its more primitive relatives. nothing special.