mosasaurn.
/ˈməʊsəsɔː/, U.S. /ˈmoʊsəˌsɔr/ Palaeontology.
Any of a group of large extinct marine reptiles (family Mosasauridae) of the late Cretaceous period, having a heavy skull, an elongated body, paddle-like limbs, and a long flattened tail.Mosasaurs are thought to be related to the monitor lizards.
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the world > animals > reptiles > order Squamata (lizards and snakes) > [noun] > genus Mosasaurus > member of
mosasaur1842
mosasauroid1859
pythonomorph1869
mosasaurid1874
mosasaurian1878
1842 R. Owen in Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1841 60 The shape of the tooth thus approximates very closely to that of the Mosasaur.
1869 Amer. Naturalist 3 86 Elasmosaurus added to its type an enormous tail, relatively as long as that of the Mosasaur.
1889 Catholic World May 154 The Mosasaur, which replaces in America the Ichthyosaurus of the old world, was a gigantic swimming lizard.
1921 Glasgow Herald 5 Nov. 4 What a waste of effort there has been over the dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, mososaurs, and pterosaurs.
1966 A. S. Romer Vertebr. Paleontol. (ed. 3) xxix. 329/1 From such forms sprang the mosasaurs, such as Mosasaurus of Europe and Tylosaurus and Clidastes of North America.
1994 Beautiful Brit. Columbia Summer 19/2 Elsewhere in Vancouver Island's central east coast, other recent digs have unearthed remains of crocodilelike mosasaurs six to 10 metres long.
2000 C. Tudge Variety of Life ii. xvii. 424 There are also three extinct families of marine anguimorphs in the late Cretaceous, of which the mosasaurs were the most spectacular.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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