Sea monster lived 85mn years ago on Texas dry land that was once an ocean

A sea predator that swam in the seas near Texas 85 million years ago has been discovered by scientists. A fossil of complete jawbones belonging to Globidens alabamensis shows how huge the sea animal must have been.

Finding such a complete fossil of a set of chompers is rare and palaeontologists hope to learn more about how prehistoric carnivores attacked their prey and then ate it. Globidens belong to the mosasaur family and were first described in 1912.

The latest finding has been described in detail in a paper published in The Journal of Paleontological Sciences. Fossil hunter Courtney Travanini found the fossil in the Ozan Formation, a region of northeastern Texas. She gave it to the scientists who analysed the bones and to learn the species they belonged to.

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Six teeth on the left side are still intact, while the right jaw has 12. They are “tall and cylindrical” and some of them are as much as 1.5 inches (4 centimetres) long. The jaw bones were also found to be “robust and massive".

A carnivorous sea reptile should ideally have serrated, razor-sharp teeth. But previous findings have shown that Globidens have never had them and instead, mosasaurs relied on a different hunting technique. As per previous studies, powerfully chomping down on prey wasn't the method adopted by them. Instead, these sea monsters swallowed their prey whole.

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However, there are some members of the species that tore apart the meat of their prey. Other theories suggest that these animals were equipped with poisonous glands.

Ocean existed on dry land

The fossils were found in the Western Mississippi Embayment, a basin stretching from southern Illinois to northern Louisiana. The paper says that this Cretaceous-era find is rare for the region which is now dry land but was covered by an ocean during the mosasaur period.

The scientists also struggled to pinpoint the exact subspecies of Globidens the fossil belonged to since never before had a complete jaw bone been found. Their shape is similar to other members of the Globidens family, but they don't share some of the features.

Scientists ascertained by their shape, and the number of teeth that it most likely belonged to a G. alabamensis.

The sea monsters were featured in Jurassic World, although they were shown to be extremely large. So much so that it gobbled a shark in a single bite. However, Globidens were typically around 20 feet (six metres) in length. The largest dinosaur-era aquatic animal is Shastasaurus, which grew up to 65 feet (20 metres).