Mini sea monster had teeth as sharp as a saw blade
By Laura Geggel - Associate Editor a day ago
Local miners found the fossils in Morocco.
A sea monster with teeth so sharp they formed a "saw-like blade," swam in the waters of what is now Morocco about 66 million years ago, a new study finds.
Miners discovered the remains of this creature — a lizard-like marine reptile called a mosasaur that lived during the dinosaur age — at the Sidi Chennane phosphate mine in Morocco's Khouribga province. Once researchers examined the specimen, they noticed its unique teeth, which had features never before seen in any other known reptile, living or extinct, the researchers said.
In honor of the predator's deadly yet odd pearly whites, the team named the mosasaur Xenodens calminechari, whose genus name means "strange tooth" in Greek and Latin, and whose species name translates to "like a saw" in Arabic.
Its closely packed knife-like teeth gave X. calminechari a shark-like slicing bite and may have been key to its survival; X. calminechari wasn't large — it was about the size of a porpoise — so it likely relied on its agility and weapon-like teeth to get by.
The fossil jaw and teeth (before preparation) of Xenodens calminechari (Image credit: Nicj Longrich)
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