Globidens Fossil Tooth Giant Sea Reptil Mosasaur Cretaceous Collection

Description

Origin : Morocco (Khouribga phosphate plateau region)

Geological era : Late Cretaceous (Campanian - Maastrichtian)

Age : 80-65 million of years

Size : cm 8.5

Mosasaurus Fossil Tooth Giant Marine Reptile cm 8.5 Globidens phosphaticus Extinct Prehistoric Animals Mesozoic Cretaceous Collectibles Paleontology Museum.

Remarkable collecting fossil find in excellent condition, globular hemispherical tooth complete with root, with appreciable anterior and posterior details of the structure of the trabeculae of the spongy bone tissue. Only a piece, as in photos.

Globidens is a marine reptile belonging to Mosasaurinae, a subfamily of Mosasauridae including gigantic forms as Mosasaurus.
He lived in the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian - Maastrichtian, about 80 to 65 million years ago). Its fossils have been found in North America (USA), East Asia (Timor), Middle East (Jordan, Syria), Africa (Egypt, Morocco, Angola) and Europe (Belgium).
This animal was about 6 metres long and had a general appearance quite similar to that of other mosasaurs, a relatively elongated body, legs flattened and transformed into structures similar to paddles, a laterally flattened very long tail and a triangular head with powerful jaws. The teeth of this mosasaur, however, was very different from that of typical forms: they are in fact globular shape (hence the name Globidens), as opposed to those of other mosasaurs who are often sharp and streamlined.
The Globidens was described for the first time in 1912: Charles Whitney Gilmore coined the species Globidens alabamaensis for some remains found in the Campanian land in Alabama, were later discovered and described several species assigned to this genus in different parts of the world. Always come from North America G. dakotensis and G. schurmanni, and Southeast Asia (island of Timor) comes G. timorensis. In the Middle East was first described in 2009 G. hisaensis, while other species are known in Morocco (G. phosphaticus) and Egypt (G. aegyptiacus, some attribute to a genus unto itself, Igdamanosaurus). The species G. dakotensis was found in Belgium (Bardet et al., 2005).
Most mosasaurs were adapted to prey prey soft and slippery harpooning them with sharp teeth, and some of them (Goronyosaurus) specialized even more, with cutting teeth. Although some mosasaurs (eg Prognathodon) were able to break the shells of cephalopods like ammonites, none of them were so specialized as Globidens, with its hemispherical teeth was able to smash the shells of small turtles, ammonites, nautiloids and bivalves.