Think twice if you thought Mosasaurs are now extinct! A recent article in Microscapobserver.com, revealed that specimens associated with young Mosasaurs were discovered at The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Researchers based in Yale University and University of Toronto allegedly found these specimens.
The discovery of such specimens came as a surprise. Mosasurs were known to have turned extinct about 65 million years already. Though, they were widely known to have the capability to give birth to living offspring in sea.
Mosasaurs bear close similarities to birds. Hence, they were initially mistaken as birds upon discovery by the said university researchers.
Daniel Field, a lab doctoral expert at The Jacques Gauthier's Yale Department of Geology and Geophysics, and his team saw Mosasaurs as:
"Among the best-studied groups of Mesozoic vertebrate animals, but evidence regarding how they were born and what baby mosasaur ecology was like has historically been elusive."
Field narrated the historical origins of Mosasaurs as:
"These specimens were collected over 100 years ago. They had previously been thought to belong to ancient marine birds."
Specimens found showed that young Mosasurs were born in the open ocean water, and not by its shore, according to researchers, as reported in Phys.org.
Field wrote these findings in "Paleontology" for its April 10 online journal entry for a study:
"Mosasaurs are among the best-studied groups of Mesozoic vertebrate animals, but evidence regarding how they were born and what baby mosasaur ecology was like has historically been elusive,"
Adam Behlke and Adrienne Gau were co-authors of the study in the journal entry mentioned entitled, "Pelagic neonatal fossils support viviparity and precocial life history of Cretaceous mosasaurs," Smithsonian Institution and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada were the funding organizers of the study, according to Tech Times.
Aaron LeBlanc, a doctoral researcher partner of Field from The University of Toronto, Missasauga, made these conclusions about the appearance and offspring delivery of Mosasaurs:
"Really, the only bird-like feature of the specimens is their small size,"
"Contrary to classic theories, these findings suggest that mosasaurs did not lay eggs on beaches and that newborn mosasaurs likely did not live in sheltered nearshore nurseries."
Field marveled at the opportunity for having been able to discover such rare animal specimens in this time and age, as reported in Sci-News.com. He said:
"Coming across these tiny mosasaur specimens was really serendipitous. It's not every day that you're able to shed new light on the biology of animals that went extinct 66 million years ago."