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Paleontologists in Morocco have come across the fossilized remains of a huge , never - before - see specie of marine lounge lizard with " dagger - similar " teeth .
The reptile was around 26 foot ( 8 meters ) long — about the same duration as anorca — and hound in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of what is now Africa at the goal of thedinosaurage , about 66 million years ago , agree to a study put out March 1 in the journalCretaceous Research .
Khinjaria was just one of many top predators prowling the ocean for prey during the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago).
The fauna is namedKhinjaria acuta , which is derived fromkhinjar , the Arabic countersign for " dagger , " andacuta , which means " sharp " in Latin . Its redoubtable jaws would ’ve enabled it to feed on very large fair game , let in sharks and other marine reptiles .
The " nightmarish " reptile was a member of the Mosasauridae family , also lie with asmosasaurs — an extinct group of marine lizards whose relatives today let in Komodo flying lizard ( Varanus komodoensis)and anacondas , according to astatementfrom the University of Bath in England .
Its fearsome teeth and jaws can be see in the skull and partial skeleton in the cupboard that were detect buried inside a phosphate mine near Morocco ’s port city of Casablanca .
From analysis of the fossilized jaw and skull, the extinct mosasaur had " a terrible biting force."
analytic thinking of the skull and jaw suggests the puppet had " a atrocious biting force , " work co - authorNour - Eddine Jalil , a professor and ingathering managing director at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris , said in the financial statement .
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Khinjariawas just one of many top predators prowl the ocean for prey during theCretaceous period(145 million to 66 million years ago ) .
The creature is named Khinjaria acuta, which is derived from khinjar, the Arabic word for “dagger,” and acuta, which means “sharp” in Latin.
" This was an incredibly dangerous clock time to be a fish , a sea polo-neck or even a marine reptile , " lead-in study authorNick Longrich , a aged lector in the Department of Life Sciences and the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath , said in the statement .
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The breakthrough ofKhinjariaadds to the huge turn of known top marine predator at the end of the Cretaceous — raising the question of how and why so many mosasaurs appear at this sentence .
" We have multiple metal money growing larger than agreat clean shark , and they ’re top vulture , but they all have different teeth , suggesting they ’re track down in unlike ways , " Longrich said .
" This is one of the most diverse marine faunas visualize anywhere , at any time in history , and it existed just before the marine reptilian and the dinosaurs run short out , " he added . " Some mosasaurs had tooth to pierce prey , others to swerve , binge , or crush . Now we haveKhinjaria , with a inadequate face full of huge , dagger - shaped teeth . "
