CRETACEOUS PERIOD. 



465 



was carnivorous ; and the teeth and scales of fishes have been found 

 with the bones, where the stomach once lay. 



Mosasaurs, great swimming snake-like reptiles, were literally the 

 sea-serpents of the era. Remains of over forty American Cretaceous 

 species of this tribe have been found — about fifteen in New Jersey, 

 six or more in the Gulf beds, and over twenty in Kansas ; and one of 

 them, at least, Mosasaurus princeps, was seventy-five to eighty feet 

 long. The first one known was found in Europe, near the river 



Fig. 854. 



7IOSASAURIDS. — Fig- 854 A, Tooth of Mosasaurus princeps (x K)\ B, snout of Tylosaurus micro- 

 muK, showing ba.»es of four teeth (X Y%)\ C, right paddle of Lestosaurus sinius (x -=-U) ; D, 

 restored jaw of Edestosaurus dispar (X >£). 



Meuse, and hence the name. The body was covered with small over- 

 lapping bony plates. The paddles, of which there were four, had the 

 regular finger bones, as shown in Fig. 854 C, and hence more resem-= 

 bled those of a whale than those of the Enaliosaurs. The position of 

 the teeth in the jaws is shown in Fig. 854 D ; and one of them, from 

 Mosasaurus princeps Mh., half the size of some in this species, is rep- 

 resented in Fig. 854 A. Besides these teeth, there were two rows of 

 formidable teeth along the roof of the mouth, adapted (as in Snakes) 

 for seizing their prey. Fig. 854 B represents the prolonged snout of 

 one of the species. The most anomalous feature in their structure was 



30 



