Sharks eating mosasaurs, dead or alive?

  • B.M. Rothschild Arthritis Center of Northeast Ohio, 5500 Market Street, Suite 199, Youngstown, Ohio 44512, USA; Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, Rootstown, Ohio; Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Kansas Museum of Natural History, Dyche Hall, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 60645, USA
  • L.D. Martin Kansas Museum of Natural History, Dyche Hall, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 60645, USA
  • A.S. Schulp Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht, de Bosquetplein 6, NL-6211 KJ Maastricht, the Netherlands; Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0016774600021119
Keywords: Mosasaurs, Platecarpus, Prognathodon, Tylosaurus, sharks, scavenging, predation

Abstract

Shark bite marks on mosasaur bones abound in the fossil record. Here we review examples from Kansas (USA) and the Maastrichtian type area (SE Netherlands, NE Belgium), and discuss whether they represent scavenging and/or predation. Some bite marks are most likely the result of scavenging. On the other hand, evidence of healing and the presence of a shark tooth in an infected abscess confirm that sharks also actively hunted living mosasaurs.

Published
2005-09-01
How to Cite
B.M. Rothschild, L.D. Martin, & A.S. Schulp. (2005). Sharks eating mosasaurs, dead or alive?. Netherlands Journal of Geosciences, 84, 335 - 340. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0016774600021119
Issue
Volume 84 - 2005
Section
Regular paper

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