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Co-ossified vertebrae of mosasaurs and cetaceans: implications for the mode of locomotion of extinct marine reptiles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2016

Eric W. A. Mulder
Eric W. A. Mulder*
Affiliation:
Museum Natura Docet, Oldenzaalsestraat 39, NL-7591 GL Denekamp, The Netherlands. [email protected]
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Abstract

Co-ossified pygal and caudal vertebrae in Late Cretaceous mosasaurs from the southeast Netherlands, northeast Belgium, and North America are compared with lumbar and caudal vertebrae from fossil and extant whales. Both infectious spondylitis and idiopathic vertebral hyperostosis afflicted these marine tetrapods. The causes of the infectious disease and of the idiopathic disease are similar in the compared life forms. The location of idiopathic hyperostosis along the vertebral column implicates axial locomotion in mosasaurs, as in whales.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , Fall 2001 , pp. 724 - 734
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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