Partial Mosasaur skeleton - central texas

[BudB]

Wow, awesome finds!

[Titan]

Amazing find, congrats!!! Kris is awesome to work with and does outstanding work - good call leaving it with him. He did my Mosasaur jaw and I couldn’t be happier. My fingers are crossed there’s more in that matrix to be revealed! 

[Pemphix]

Cool find - Congrats !!

[Shellseeker]

Whenever I see something like this, I think "A find of a lifetime".   but maybe not for you.  Congratulations !!!!

[Brandy Cole]

I'm so excited for you!  It's a really amazing find.  

[Sjfriend]

Amazing find and good story! Can't wait to see more photos 

[Jared C]

On 10/2/2021 at 8:10 AM, Shellseeker said:

Whenever I see something like this, I think "A find of a lifetime".   but maybe not for you.  Congratulations !!!!

Thank you! I'm hoping one day I can repeat this. I have a few spots in mind where I think my same hunting technique that led to this can be applied as well, and maybe if the heavens open and I get extremely lucky, I might just replicate this one day - fingers crossed!

[Jared C]

FIRST UPDATE:

This is a short one, as preparation hasn't started yet - Kris has several other projects running, but after he looked at it he did notice that there seemed to be some large "fishy" material in the mix as well, suggested by the pronounced texture on a few of the bones. However, there is still definite mosasaur material as well, so perhaps we might have a conglomerate. This will be revealed once prep starts.

 

Looking at the mosy vert that's openly exposed, as well as the size of the teeth (that's harder to tell) we're relatively sure that this animal can't be any larger than something like Clidastes . I somewhat suspected this already, but Kris agreed, and I value his opinion on this sort of thing much more than my own.  If this animal would've followed typical mosasaur proportions, 12 - 14 feet would've been the absolute max. Something like an 8 foot creature is more probable, but again, this is all early speculation, done before prep has has revealed anything. We'll see whether this turns about to be true or not soon!

 

[jpc]

This looks like a great exciting find.  Congrats to you guys... and of course, we all look forward to the progress at the site and in the lab.  

 

[LSCHNELLE]

Jared - what a dream come true for you!  First, you work the Austin Group and Ozan with some good finds near Round Rock. Then, you see my post on pliosaur/mosasaur teeth and with a little help from Eric you find an unscouted (or recently eroded) Eagle Ford Shale outcrop and you hit the jackpot!  I am glad for you!  I expect that your not disappointed in the least that it wasn't that pliosaur you hoped to find! Congrats!  Looking forward to seeing what comes out of the matrix and whether or not more is still buried out there. 

[Jared C]

3 hours ago, LSCHNELLE said:

Jared - what a dream come true for you!  First, you work the Austin Group and Ozan with some good finds near Round Rock. Then, you see my post on pliosaur/mosasaur teeth and with a little help from Eric you find an unscouted (or recently eroded) Eagle Ford Shale outcrop and you hit the jackpot!  I am glad for you!  I expect that your not disappointed in the least that it wasn't that pliosaur you hoped to find! Congrats!  Looking forward to seeing what comes out of the matrix and whether or not more is still buried out there. 

Thank you! Your great collection that that I've seen in your posts is definitely a regular inspiration to go out and explore 

Edited October 6, 2021 by Jared C
fixing typos

[flyingpenut]

Incredible find. It looks like you don't need the North Sulphur river at all. I cant wait to see after it has been fully prepped. 

[FB003]

Awesome find! Wish there was stuff like that out here.  Post pictures once they are all cleaned up! 

[FossilSniper]

Can't wait for an update! 

[Jared C]

Update:

Ample work has been done to the two main blocks, and now there is enough revealed to hopefully get an ID. I'll be picking up everything as soon as a I get the chance - pretty exciting! Work on the other smaller pieces will probably resume at a later time at home.

Work on the main block sadly hasn't revealed the quadrate or premax that we were crossing our fingers for, so Kris says it looks like the angular is the most diagnostic part revealed here - I'm glad he knows how to see through the jumble of bones to make that judgment, because my eyes certainly haven't spotted it!

 

Here are some photos of the main blocks:

 

And for any casual readers, here is a photo of a Mosasaur skull that describes its anatomy nicely, for a reference to those anatomical names.

 

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Jared C
Anatomy reference was invisible

[Jared C]

Also, I should note, after looking at some pre prep pictures (I was wondering "where's the rest?"), some of the bone I showed in the excavation pictures seem to be on the bottom half of the bottom slab shown, so that the teeth (which were facing downward in the excavation) can stay up undamaged - In case there's confusion on that. It really is a jumble! I guess the scavengers really got to work here!

 

 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

3 hours ago, Jared C said:

And for any casual readers, here is a photo of a Mosasaur skull that describes its anatomy nicely, for a reference to those anatomical names.

 

I don't think this image is accessible to everyone. I'm not seeing it, for instance, with Google telling me "the client does not have permission to get URL [...]". May be you could download and re-upload it here (in mentioning the source).

 

Otherwise, there's this reference image from Lingham-Soliar's 1995 "Anatomy and functional morphology of the largest marine reptile known, Mosasaurus hoffmannii" (reproduced in modified form as figure 18 in chapter 9 of Lingham-Soliar's 2014 "The Vertebrate Integument Volume 1"):

 

 

a = angular; b = braincase; bo = basioccipital; bs = basisphenoid; cor = coronoid; cre = crest; d = dentary; e = epipterygoid; ec = ectopterygoid; en = external naris; f = frontal; gl = intermandibular articulation; in = internal naris; inpi = incisura piriformis; intbar = internarial bar; j = jugal; jo = aperture for Jacobson's organ; l = lachrymal; mands = mandibular symphysis; mpals = foramen for median palatine sinus; mx = maxilla; o = orbit; p = parietal; paf = parietal foramen; pal = palatine; pcr = posterior carina on tooth crown; pmx = premaxilla; pof = postorbitofrontal; prf = prefrontal; pt = pterygoid; ptte = pterygoid teeth; pvp = postero-ventral process of jugal; q = quadrate; respit = resorption pit on tooth base; ret = retroarticular process; sa = surangular; sp = splenial; sq = squamosal; st = supratemporal; vo = vomer; vop = vomerine process.

[Jared C]

5 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

May be you could download and re-upload it here

Gotcha - it's fixed now. Yours is a more detailed reference though, thanks for including it

[Castle Rock]

ANYTHING NEW to report on the prep work?????

[Jared C]

5 hours ago, Castle Rock said:

ANYTHING NEW to report on the prep work?????

There is already some exciting stuff that I can't wait to share - however, I have to keep it low profile until Polcyn publishes. Acid prep takes ages, we're guessing 6-9 months before the entire thing is prepped completely. I'll update this when I'm publicly allowed to! It's taking great restraint 

[Jared C]

here's the long awaited follow up!