Plioplatecarpus is a genus of mosasaur lizard from late Cretaceous North America. Like all mosasaurs, it lived in the Late Cretaceous period, about 83.5 million years ago. It was closely related to Platecarpus and Igdamanosaurus.
Description[]
Artist's reconstruction
The eyes of Plioplatecarpus are proportionally larger than those of many mosasaur genera, although the skull is relatively short. The larger eyes may be an adaptation to low light conditions like those found in deeper water. It has fewer teeth than most mosasaurs, but they are greatly recurved. This suggests that Plioplatecarpus would have hunted relatively small prey that it could grab very precisely. The broad distribution of fossil remains in both North America and Europe suggest that it would have been an open ocean predator. The broad distribution of Plioplatecarpus means that the genus was relatively successful, but died out to unknown circumstances. Yet another species is known, but unnamed. It is represented by a fragmentary fossil skull which is wide and robust. This shape appears more like monitor lizards and snakes, Plioplatecarpus' closest ancestors. This skull was restored by Triebold Paleontology Inc., and is 61 centimeters (2 feet) long, and the original fossils were found in the Demopolis Chalk.
Discovery[]
Plioplatecarpus mounted skull in the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, Colorado
Plioplatecarpus was first found in Europe by paleontologist Louis Dollo (P. marshi), in 1882. It was relatively incomplete, but more fossils would soon turn up. In North America, Edward Drinker Cope found another mosasaur in 1869, but had identified it as Mosasaurus. It would later be reclassified as Plioplatecarpus, as would Cope's Liodon, in 1870. Liodon would be reclassified as Platecarpus, and later as Prognathodon. However, some have placed it in the genus Plioplatecarpus.
Distribution[]
Plioplatecarpus has been found in many locations around the world (most mosasaurs were fairly wide-spread). Pliopltecarpus has been found in the Pierre shale of Kansas, Demopolis Chalk of Alabama, and also in Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Canada, Sweden, The Netherlands, and, quite recently, Wyoming. The Wyoming specimen is so far the only one of its kind to be found in the state, and may represent a new species of Plioplatecarpus. It is being prepared at the Tate Geological Museum, and has been named Oomtar.