The Princeton Field Guide to Mesozoic Sea Reptiles

209 Pages·2022·16.15 MB·English

by  Gregory S. Paul

The
PRINCETON
to
FIELD GUIDE
MESOZOIC
SEA REPTILES
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The
PRINCETON
to
FIELD GUIDE
MESOZOIC
SEA REPTILES
GREGORY S. PAUL
Princeton University Press
Princeton and Oxford
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Copyright © 2022 by Princeton University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Paul, Gregory S., author.
Title: The Princeton fi eld guide to Mesozoic sea reptiles / Gregory S. Paul.
Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2022] | Series:
Princeton fi eld guides | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2022002212 (print) | LCCN 2022002213 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780691193809 (hardback) | ISBN 9780691241456 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Marine reptiles, Fossil—Mesozonic—Identifi cation. |
Paleontology—Mesozonic.
Classifi cation: LCC QE861 .P39 2022 (print) | LCC QE861 (ebook) | DDC
567.9/37– dc23/eng20220420
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022002212
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022002213
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
Editorial: Robert Kirk and Megan Mendonça
Production Editorial: Kathleen Cioffi
Jacket Design: Wanda España
Production: Steven Sears
Publicity: Matthew Taylor and Caitlyn Robson
Copyeditor: Laurel Anderton
This book has been composed in Goudy Old Style (introduction),
ITC Galliard Pro (species section and headings), and Proxima Nova (labels)
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
Typeset and designed by D & N Publishing, Wiltshire, UK
Printed in Italy
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CONTENTS
Preface 6
Acknowledgments 6
Introduction
History of Discovery and Research 9
What Is a Mesozoic Sea Reptile? 10
Dating Sea Reptiles 12
The Evolution of Sea Reptiles and Their Mesozoic World 13
Extinction 23
After the Age of Sea Reptiles 25
Biology 26
General Anatomy 26
Swimming 32
On the Beach 40
The Salt Problem 40
Respiration and Circulation 40
Feeding Apparatus and Digestive Tract 41
Sea Reptiles as Food 42
Senses 43
Vocalization 45
Diseases, Pathologies, and Injuries 45
Behavior 45
Brains, Nerves, and Intelligence 45
Social Activities 45
Reproduction 46
Growth and Aging 47
Energetics 48
Gigantism 52
Mesozoic Marine Expedition 52
If Ancient Sea Reptiles Survived 54
Mesozoic Marine Reptile Conservation,
Keeping, and Consumption 55
Where Fossil Sea Reptiles Are Found 55
Using the Group and Species Descriptions 61
Group and Species Accounts
Diapsids 67
Neodiapsids 68
Index
Mesozoic Sea Reptiles Taxa 203
Formations 207
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PREFACE
If I were, at about age twenty as a budding paleoresearcher and often misleading plethora of old names often based on poor
artist, handed a copy of this book by a mysterious time traveler, material and errant assignments of fossil specimens. So the
I would have been startled as well as delighted. The pages would name Steneosaurus, which had been applied to a number of sea
reveal a world of new seagoing reptiles and ideas that I had only crocs, has now been obsolesced out, replaced by the likes of
a hint of, if any such ideas existed at all. My head would spin at Macrospondylus, Yvridiosuchus, Proexochokefalos, Plagiophthalmo-
the revelation that some of the sea reptiles that had long been suchus, and Bathysuchus.
presumed to have low metabolic rates, like living turtles, lizards, Remaining frustratingly unresolved is the evolutionary origin
and crocodilians, show signs of being highly energetic, more of some marine reptile groups. The specific origin of turtles as
like seabirds and mammals. Also remarkable is the discovery a whole remains unresolved. Also still mysterious are the deriva-
that many of the mosasaurs, which literally are marine lizards, tions of ichthyosaurs, thalattosaurs, and helveticosaurs.
were not the tail-sculling crocodilian swimmers once thought Producing this volume has been satisfying in that it has given
but rather were configured for stiffer-bodied, higher-speed me reason to illustrate the skeletons of almost all Mesozoic ma-
swimming. Or how about Eretmorhipis with its platypus-like rine reptile species for which nearly complete material is avail-
head, and Atopodentatus with its hammerhead? Plus there are able. These have been used to construct the most extensive
the novel formations, at least to my eyes and ears—Sticky Keep, library of side-view life studies of these sea creatures to date in
Loon River, Ziliujing, Hiccles Cove, Xiashaxiamo, Paja, Guan- print. An advantage of producing large sets of rigorous skeletals
ling, Tamayama, Snow Hill Island, Katiki, Paso del Sapo, Lopez is that it can reveal information that would not otherwise arise.
de Bertodano, Akrabou, Falang, Dukamaje, Arcadia Park, Mu- The overall result is a work that covers what is already well over
waqqar Chalk, Hakel, Bet-Meir, Cerro del Pueblo, Romualdo, two centuries of scientific investigation into the groups of tetra-
Phu Kradung, Snowshoe, Rosso Ammonitico. The sheer pods that inhabited the seas for up to 186 million years. Enjoy
number of new sea reptiles with exotic names—Endennasaurus, the travel back in time.
Miodentosaurus, Xinpusaurus, Helveticosaurus, Sinosaurosphargis,
Majiashanosaurus, Borealonectes, Stenorhynchosaurus, Sachicasau-
rus, Wapuskanectes, Attenborosaurus, Kawanectes, Futabasaurus, Acknowledgments
Vegasaurus, Albertonectes, Kaiwhekea, Aristonectes, Morturneria,
Thililua, Sclerocormus, Phantomosaurus, Barracudasauroides, Kyhy-
tysuka, Qianichthyosaurus, Guanlingsaurus, Keilhauia, Undorosau- Thanks to Kenneth Carpenter, Michela Johnson, Judy Massare,
rus, Simbirskiasaurus, Tethysaurus, Russellosaurus, Taniwhasaurus, Hilary Ketchum, Mark Young, Sven Sachs, Asier Larramendi,
Kaikaifilu, Tenerasaurus, Aphanizocnemus, Haasiophis, Mexichelys, Marcela Gomez Perez, Leslie Noe, Michael Taylor, Michael
Santanachelys, Indosinosuchus, Zoneait, Neptunidraco—would indi- Everhart, Nicholas Gardner, Ben Creisler, Wafa Alhalabi,
cate that an explosion in discoveries and research, well beyond Sarah Chapman, Jane Davidson, John Schneiderman, Cornelis
anything that had previously occurred, and often based on new Hazevoet, Vanessa Rhue, Mallory Theurer, Patrick Druckemiller,
high technologies, marked the end of the twentieth century Stephen Poropat, Serjoscha Evers, David Cerny, and Robert Tel-
going well into the twenty-first. leria. I would also like to thank all those who worked on this
A major and coincidental aid to the production of this book book for Princeton University Press: Robert Kirk, Megan Men-
was that while it was being created, a new wave of research at donça, Kathleen Cioffi, Wanda España, Steven Sears, Matthew
long last cleared up much of what had been a perplexing and Taylor, Caitlyn Robson, and Laurel Anderton.
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I N T R O D U C T I O N
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Peloneustes philarchus
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HISTORY OF DISCOVERY AND RESEARCH
The remains of ancient sea reptiles have been found by humans Mesozoic forms during an age of new and exciting scientific and
for millennia and may have helped form the basis for belief in technological progress.
mythical beasts, including dragons and sea serpents. In the After the American Civil War, the United States entered the
prescientific West the claim in the Genesis creation story that ancient maritime reptile scene with the discovery of a host of
the planet and all life were formed just two or three thousand often well-preserved mosasaurs and plesiosaurs from Cretaceous
years before the great Egyptian pyramids were built hindered the marine beds in the Great Plains. The first such fossil apparently
scientific study of fossils. The peculiar, incomplete remains of sparked the fossil war between Othniel Marsh and an oversensi-
plesiosaurs become public knowledge, albeit without any under- tive Edward Cope, when the former pointed out to the latter
standing of what they were, well back in the 1600s and continu- that he had made the embarrassingly obvious anatomical error
ing into the 1700s, when the also incomplete and fishlike fossils of mistaking the extraordinarily long neck of the famed plesio-
of ichthyosaurs, thought to be those of fish, also came to public saur Elasmosaurus for the tail, and the short tail for the neck.
attention. In the late 1700s mosasaurs began to show up, and The ensuing rivalry contributed to Cope and Marsh naming
in the early 1800s a budding scientific community, increasingly a long list of species, again mostly invalid, although Tylosaurus
aware that many fossils represented creatures no longer alive on and Platecarpus are real. Also uncovered were late Mesozoic sea
the planet, began to realize that plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and turtles, including the gigantic Archelon.
mosasaurs represented exotic extinct groups of aquatic reptiles, From the late 1800s into the early 1900s, Mesozoic sea rep-
often quite large. Mosasaurs in particular were recognized—by tile discoveries continued at a good clip, with Samuel Williston
the great anatomist Georges Cuvier, who helped establish paleo- being the lead researcher in the United States. And in Australia,
zoology—as true lizards specialized for a marine lifestyle, while the Cretaceous plesiosaur then known as Kronosaurus (currently
the systematic position of the other groups remained obscure Eiectus) set a new size standard. Popular interest in marine rep-
other than that they were some form of reptile, not the fish, am- tiles remained substantial, although they had been somewhat
phibians, crocodilians, marine mammals, or preflood humans displaced by the dinosaurs of the land and the pterosaurs of
some had been mistaken for. the sky. The world wars and Great Depression put a damper
Western Europe, with its increasingly scientific orientation, on the science of sea reptiles, so that they came to be seen,
and with plenty of ancient marine Jurassic and Cretaceous sedi- along with dinosaurs and pterosaurs, as evolutionary dead ends
ments to produce aquatic fossils, remained the center of the of limited importance—good for getting crowds into museum
first generation of sea reptile discoveries and research. Along halls, but not worthy of deep intellectual attention. Even so,
with flying pterosaur fossils, which became available in the late skeletons of the whale-sized Triassic ichthyosaur Shonisaurus, first
1700s, the new marine reptiles including Mosasaurus, Plesiosau- recognized in the 1920s, were excavated in Nevada from the
rus, and Ichthyosaurus played an important role in overturning 1950s to 1970s. In the 1960s Dale Russell produced a major
the faith-based belief in a very young earth in which life had not study on the mosasaurs.
undergone major transformations or extinctions over deep time, The great revival and revolution of scientific and popular
and they did so before the existence of dinosaurs was realized interest in dinosaurs and pterosaurs—which began in the late
in the 1820s. Of particular importance to the first generation 1960s, picked up in the 1970s, and went into the 1980s and
of modern maritime reptile finds was the renowned Mary An- beyond—at first passed marine reptiles by, as they continued
ning, who collected major Jurassic plesiosaur and ichthyosaur to be seen as conservative reptilians. This began to change in
skulls and skeletons on the southwest coast of England from the 1990s and continued into the current century. In British
the 1810s to the 1840s. Anning prospected, often under dan- Columbia the remains of an exceptionally big early ichthyosaur
gerous winter conditions at the base of unstable coastal cliffs, were excavated. In this century it was realized that the last of the
even though the severe societal limitations on the working class mosasaurs had evolved compact bodies and more vertical, sym-
as well as her gender hindered the analytical side of her work. metrical tails that indicate they were high-speed swimmers of the
But in part because she was a very atypically female fossil col- open ocean. It is also being discovered that—much as dinosaurs
lector, she became widely known (and remains so today) for her have proven to have had high, rather than reptilian, metabolic
major contributions by both the populace and the otherwise rates—ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs had elevated me-
patriarchal scientific establishment of the time. Also entering tabolisms and warm bodies. And turning up in recent years are
the scene were major early official paleozoologists, most notably marine reptiles with heads like hammers, and others with heads
Richard Owen, who named hundreds of species, albeit inval- like that of the duck-billed platypus.
idly based mostly on fragmentary remains. Also revealed were After centuries of research, much of it using the sophisticated
other sea reptiles—placodonts, nothosaurs, and crocodile rela- technologies of the last few decades, what is known about the
tives such as Teleosaurus. Marine reptiles became highly popular basic paleobiology of Mesozoic marine reptiles is unlikely to un-
with a public fascinated by these sometimes big, usually bizarre dergo a dramatic change in the future. Even so, the research and
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