Overview
- The research team published a peer-reviewed description of a new species, Tylosaurus rex, in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, a paper that appeared Thursday.
- Researchers estimate T. rex reached about 13.2 meters (43 feet), making it among the largest known mosasaurs and giving it powerful jaw and neck anatomy.
- Fossils show finely serrated teeth and healed or broken bones that the authors interpret as evidence of aggressive behavior and violence within the species.
- The holotype is a large skeleton discovered near Dallas in 1979 and now on display at the Perot Museum, and the study reinterprets more than a dozen museum specimens previously assigned to T. proriger as T. rex.
- The team assembled a comprehensively revised character dataset for mosasaurs, highlighting North Texas deposits and the role of museum collections and amateur collectors in preserving material that will reshape future studies of mosasaur evolution.