[Rockhounds] Paleontologists Perplexed by Swimming Predator With 'Screwdriver' Teeth

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

The ancient seas of the Late Cretaceous period would’ve been scary places
to swim. Between 66 million and 100 million years ago, the world’s
waterways were chock-full of real-life sea monsters
<https://www.livescience.com/strangest-ancient-sea-monsters>. Not least of
which were the sometimes bus-sized, possibly venomous
<https://gizmodo.com/mosasaurs-venomous-diet-jaws-paleontology-1849911521>,
predatory lizards known as mosasaurs.

The marine reptiles, which went extinct in the same catastrophic event that
wiped out
<https://gizmodo.com/study-soot-from-massive-wildfires-led-to-dino-killing-1842415493>
the
non-avian dinosaurs, are thought to have been a diverse group of animals.
They ranged widely across Earth’s extensive seas and oceans
<https://www.britannica.com/science/Cretaceous-Period> during their time,
dominating as apex marine predators. Scientists have unearthed specimens in
marine deposits on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, as well as in
Mediterranean regions that were once inundated by the prehistoric Tethys
Ocean. Based on the array of what’s been found before, the scaly
sea-creatures seem to have varied in size, shape, rarity, and other
features. Now, researchers are adding one more, especially unusual species
to the mosasaur collection.

A study <https://www.mdpi.com/2813-6284/1/1/2#> published Wednesday in the
journal Fossils catalogs and describes a newly discovered type of mosasaur.
Paleontologists uncovered a partial jaw with two tooth crowns buried deep
in phosphatic deposits in Morocco’s Oulad Abdoun Basin. The bizarre teeth
are like nothing scientists have found before, the study claims. “A
remarkable series of prominent, sharp and serrated ridges emerge” from the
tooth surface, wrote the scientists.
"What’s it eating? Phillips head screws? IKEA furniture? Who knows.”

https://gizmodo.com/mosasaur-screwdriver-teeth-fossil-1850445100