The problem of how this enormous prehistoric reptile, the mosasaurus, have birth has been the subject of numerous academic debates over the years. Researchers have accomplished a new study on this matter, and have got to a conclusion that disagrees with what has been previously thought.
The Palaeontology journal has published on Friday a study concerned with the way in which the mosasaurus gave brith. Until now, it was accepted in the scientific communities that the mososaurus gave birth on the shore, but the new study put this hypothesis to the test and finally invalidated it.
The study has been led by Daniel Field, a researcher at the Yale University, together with his fellow scientists. o get to such a conclusion, they have observed cranial remains from two newborn mosasaurus. The remains were discovered into the sea. After investigating the remains, Daniel Field and his colleagues have given a verdict: it is very likely that the two mosasaurus infants to had been born in the open ocean.
The fossils which have been used in order to accomplish the study are the youngest remains from the gigantic reptile mosasaurus that have been discovered until present days. They were discovered more than a hundred years ago and initially people thought they were birds. The cranial remains are now part of the Peabody Museum at Yale.
The fossils were recovered from the water, in a location which was very far to the shore, in Northern America. This makes it clear that even the newborn mosasaurus were inhabitants of deep seas. Scientists think that was the place where they were born.
“Mosasaurs are among the best-studied groups of Mesozoic vertebrate animals, but evidence regarding how they were born and what baby mosasaur ecology was like has historically been elusive,”
Daniel Field commented, also from the point of view of a vertebrate zoology expert. Field is also in connection to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
In conclusion, the researchers found that the hypothesis of mosasaurus giving birth near the shore or on land was a misconception. Scientists claim that this discovery will also help answer questions about the environment of the mosasaurus in the early periods.
The giant mosasaurus was inhabiting the deep waters of the prehistoric Earth. It disappeared 65 million years ago, together with the other dinosaurs.
Image Source: RedOrbit
