A research team from the United States, the Netherlands, and France has discovered a new species by reconstructing a skull from fossil fragments uncovered since February 2012 in the Tropic Shale area of Glen Canyon, a national park known for its magnificent canyons and otherworldly landscapes in the state of Utah, USA.
This previously unknown marine creature, measuring 3 meters long, represents a smaller version of the terrifying and enormous Cretaceous marine reptiles known as mosasaurs, which unexpectedly emerged within the “alien-like” scenery of Glen Canyon.
Graphic depiction of the newly discovered marine creature in Utah.
The new species, which lived approximately 94 million years ago, has been named Sarabosaurus dahli. It belongs to a group of large marine reptiles known as mosasaurs, detailed in a publication in the scientific journal Cretaceous Research.
According to paleontologist Michael Polcyn from Utrecht University (Netherlands), Sarabosaurus dahli is the oldest mosasaur from the region, which was once a vast ocean during the Cretaceous period before significant geological changes occurred.
Mosasaur species dominated Earth’s waters during the later stages of the Cretaceous (approximately 90 to 66 million years ago) and were generally larger than the earlier marine reptiles known as ichthyosaurs. They could be likened to the underwater versions of dinosaurs.
Mosasaurs were apex predators in the Cretaceous oceans, with the largest species reaching lengths of up to 17 meters.
The recently discovered Sarabosaurus dahli is one of the “smallest” mosasaurs, measuring about 3 meters in length.
This marine reptile retains a primitive condition of its basic vascular system, which could provide many insights into the complex and spectacular evolutionary processes of the gigantic Cretaceous reptiles before the mass extinction event 66 million years ago caused by the Chicxulub asteroid impact.
This new species, like all other mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, terrestrial dinosaurs, and pterosaurs, vanished from the planet during this cosmic collision.
