#mosasaur

Only two pieces tonight on #paleostream

Funnily quite similar in lighting conditions :P

66-Million-Year-Old Mystery Fossil Known Only As ‘The Thing’ Turns Out To Be Prehistoric Sea Lizard Egg

The largest reptile egg in recorded history has officially been discovered in Antarctica. The football-sized specimen is the first known fossilized soft-shell egg ever found on the continent, and is believed to have been laid by an extinct sea lizard around 66 million years ago. Published in the journal Nature, the research indicates a giant marine reptile known as a mosasaur most likely laid this egg. For lead author and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas Austin’s School of Geosciences, Lucas Legendre, the discovery is remarkable in several significant ways. “It is from an animal the size of a large dinosaur, but it is completely unlike a dinosaur egg,” said Legendre. “It is most similar to the eggs of lizards and snakes, but it is from a truly giant relative of these animals.” Most remarkably, before this stunning find, it was generally believed that giant marine reptiles from the Cretaceous Period didn’t lay eggs. According to Legendre, “nothing like this has ever been discovered”...

Read more: https://allthatsinteresting.com/antarctica-prehistoric-sea-lizard-egg

Over the past 20 million years since the Campanian, the Western Interior Seaway has receded, and by the Maastrichtian its saltwater inhabitants such as the Mosasaurs are now adapting to estuarine life and are invading the freshwater streams and rivers which dot the Hell Creek Formation…