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Halisaurus sternbergi, a small mosasaur with an intercontinental distribution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2017

Johan Lindgren  and
Mikael Siverson
Johan Lindgren
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Lithosphere and Biosphere Science, GeoBiosphere Science Centre, Lund University, Sölvegatan 12, SE-223 62 Lund, Sweden Geological Museum, University of Copenhagen, øster Voldgade 5-7, DK-1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark,
Mikael Siverson
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Western Australian Museum, Francis Street, Perth 6000, Western Australia,
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Abstract

Remains of Halisaurus sternbergi (Wiman, 1920) from the latest Early Campanian (sensu germanico) of the Kristianstad Basin, southern Sweden, represent the first record of this species outside of the USA. The material comprises numerous marginal tooth-crowns, a premaxilla, an incomplete pterygoid, and vertebrae. The Kristianstad Basin population of H. sternbergi was probably derived from individuals that migrated from the Mississippi Embayment in North America sometime during the Early Campanian. Even though H. sternbergi thrived in great numbers in the coastal waters of the southern part of the Baltic Shield during the latest Early Campanian, the population appears to have been short-lived. Available data indicate that H. sternbergi, along with several other species of mosasaurs, vanished from the region following an intercontinental mosasaur extinction event, or a series of events, near the Early/Late Campanian boundary.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 79 , Issue 4 , July 2005 , pp. 763 - 773
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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