SQUAMATA 



167 



is due the credit for the recognition of their real relationship, 

 though it required more than a century to prove that he was 

 right. 



Very recently, and since the foregoing was written, a remarkable 

 new type of mosasaurs has been discovered in Alabama and Europe. 

 Only fragmentary jaws, a few vertebrae, and some skull bones are 

 known, so that it is impossible yet to decide how closely the new 

 form is related to the true mosasaurs, but so far as the evidence 

 goes the only distinguishable character is the teeth. These, instead 

 of being elongated and pointed, are nearly spherical, as shown in 

 Fig. 80. Such teeth could have been used only for crushing shell 



Fig. 80. — Globidens alabamensis . 

 (From Gilmore.) 



Part of mandible, with teeth, natural size. 



fish, and not at all for the seizure and retention of slippery fishes. 

 The genus, which was called Globidens by its discoverer, Mr. Gilmore, 

 includes two known species, from Alabama and Europe, the latter 

 recently described by Dollo. It has been suggested that this pecu- 

 liar kind of dentition was a more primitive or intermediate one, a 

 kind that the first mosasaurs had before they became fully adapted 

 to the water; but this is doubtful, since Globidens comes from late 

 Cretaceous, and must be one of the later types. If Globidens is a 

 true mosasaur, and it seems to be one, its hfe-habits must have 

 been remarkably different from those that have long been known. 

 Possibly when the limbs and more of the skull are found, Globidens 

 will prove to be of a distinctive type. 



