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Sharks eating mosasaurs, dead or alive?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2016

B.M. Rothschild ,
L.D. Martin  and
A.S. Schulp
B.M. Rothschild*
Affiliation:
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
Affiliation:
Kansas Museum of Natural History, Dyche Hall, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 60645, USA
A.S. Schulp
Affiliation:
Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht, de Bosquetplein 6, NL-6211 KJ Maastricht, the Netherlands Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands
*
* Corresponding author. Email: bmr@neoucom.edu

Abstract

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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.

Keywords

MosasaursPlatecarpusPrognathodonTylosaurussharksscavengingpredation
Type
Research Article
Information
Netherlands Journal of Geosciences , Volume 84 , Special Issue 3: Proceedings of the First Mosasaur Meeting , September 2005 , pp. 335 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Stichting Netherlands Journal of Geosciences 2005

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