The Mystery Tooth of Rodas, Cuba A Mosasazir in the Cretaceous Caribbean?

hrough the ages, sailors lacking. There was a time, how­ The surprising discovery ofthe have returned to port to ever, toward the end of the age of tooth of an extinct marine reptile T tell unbelievable stories of dinosaurs, when the largest, most in Cienfuegos, Cuba, now sug­ mighty sea beasts riding across ferocious sea monsters that ever gests that one of the kings of the the waves, baring their sharp lived thrived in our planet's primitive ocean may have lived, teeth and waving their enormous oceans. They were the mosasaurs, sorne 66 million years ago, in the fins. Legends of such mighty ma­ and their fossil remains were area of the planet now occupied rine monsters have even entered among the first ever to be recog­ by Cuba and the Caribbean. the popular cultural traditions of nized as such by scientists. Two hundred and fifty million such places as Mrica, Scotland, By studying the shape, length, years ago, only a single continent New Zealand, North America, and position of each fossil bone, existed, an immense land mass and China, where they rightly re­ paleontologists can reconstruct that scientists have named main the stuff of children's not only the physical appearance Pangaea, which began to break nightmares. of extinct animals, but also their apart and spread during the Me­ But what does science have to diets and the ways they moved, sozoic (which includes the tell us about these sea monsters? and scientists' pioneering work Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous The vast majority ofexamples have has meant that each new fossil periods). A map of the world in been revealed as frauds while, for discovery has helped put another those remate times would have others, solid evidence remains ei­ piece ofthe prehistoric puzzle into depicted a nearly unrecognizable ther ambiguous or completely its rightful place. planet, and its climate would have

The fossil tooth from Rodas, Cienfuegos Province, Cuba, embedded in Late Cretaceous rock ( 66 million years of age). The scale is in centimeters. Photo @ Carlos Rafael Borges Sellén; used by permission.

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Chronology ofthe appearance and extinction ofmarine and flying reptiles during and © Manuel Iturralde-Vinent and Dmitry Bogdanov. been markedly different. One of Cuba. The most recent of these to the recently formed Office of the consequences ofthe fragmen­ finds, which took place in early Paleontology and Archaeology at tation of Pangaea was the June 2015, was a fossil tooth the University ofCienfuegos. formation of the primitive Carib­ whose shape and size marked it Preliminary examination ofthe bean Sea, the site of a genuine as a species previously unknown fossil was conducted by Borges marine "Jurassic Park" that left its inCuba. Sellén and his colleague, Alberto mark on the Western Cuban prov­ The tooth was discovered dur­ Arano Ruiz (both ofthe Center for ince ofPinar del Río as well. There ing the early phases of an Sociocultural Studies at the Uni­ fossil remains have been found of archaeological expedition near versity of Cienfuegos), who giant marine reptiles (long­ Rodas, in Cienfuegos Province, removed part ofthe matrix around necked plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, Cuba. The tooth's discoverer, the tooth, being careful not to saltwater crocodiles, and primi­ Carlos Rafael Borges Sellén, compromise the structure of the tive turtles) as well as fearsome handled his find with the great­ specimen which today remains carnivorous fish. est care, realizing that it clearly largely embedded in rock. During the Cretaceous period, had not come from any primitive however, at the end of the Meso­ human community. PinPs~ur Pr M~rine. j{e.J'tite.i' zoic, the vertebrate fossil record "We were conducting archaeo­ The discovery inCuban Cretaceous in Cuba becomes extremely logical surveys on the si te," Borges rock was initially thought to be a sparse, and fossil evidence is lim­ Sellén recalls, "and our attention dinosaur tooth, and news of the ited to a shark tooth plate and was immediately drawn to this find spread quickly on digital me­ assorted, unidentified skeletal el­ fragment of rock in which a two­ dia. Taking paleogeographic data ements of bony fish. centimeter fossil tooth was into account, however, a more care­ This scenario shifted when pa­ embedded, alongside gastropods, ful consideration noted that the leontologists were surprised by rudist bivalves, and other shells Caribbean Sea at the end ofthe Cre­ highly unusual discoveries of fos­ from the Cretaceous." He imme­ taceous was vast, covering most of sils of Cretaceous vertebrates in diately turned the specimen over -what is today Central America. As

Fossil News - Fall 2016 41 a result, although the rocks of the Greater Antilles do sometimes conserve the trackways or bones of dinosaurs that eros sed a bridge of ancient islets between the conti­ nents of North America Join us on a Fossil Safari where you can and South America, the dig your own fossils in our private quarry! occurrence of a dinosaur Season: The Friday of Memorial Day in Cretaceous rocks in weekend through September 30th. Cuba would be highly un­ likely (though not entirely You'll be collecting in the famous Green impossible). River Formation of Southwest Wyoming, According to paleon­ where you'll find an abundance of fossil tologist and geologist fish 50 million years old. Visit our website Manuel A. Iturralde­ Vinent, the rocks in and watch the video for more details! which the tooth was Warfield Fossil Quarries 1 www.FossiiSafari.com found belong to the :. • ••A.,Jf'.J • .• #.,IÁ • 4 - ••A.,If'..l_ _. II',IÁ_. ··~ , ~ ¿"f..)_"4}~;_-;.-;l.~ :·7!::.!~ .:.::t~~·~&:~:>:"~~~-~-.,..__.;::;"\J.~c::<:.r~ ~,,...,~-~.,.;.. .,._ ~-c;""'"e:-~' bw~ ~~~z:..ili:~t"'.:>! :.;,:. __J.;:;1-< _w. ...,. ?';~~..¡;.... : ~:::!""~ ·:: ·~....:;:'i«~';.o..~·~ Cantabria Formation, which represents a Late Cretaceous/Upper Maastrichtian marine environment of sorne 66-70 million years ago, and also include fora­ minifera, rudist bivalves, echinoderms, gastro­ pods, and other marine organisms. To determine the true nature of the tooth found in Rodas, paleon­ tologist Anne S. Schulp (Natuurhistorisch Mu­ seum Maastricht, the Netherlands) was con­ sulted in 2015 and again more recently for this article. In her opinion, the fossil is a "reptile tooth," and that simi­ larities to the teeth of mosasaurs could not be excluded. For mosasaur expert Michael Photographs of the fossil were also sent to paleontologist Michael Caldwell (University of Alberta, J. Everhart, a mosasaur expert at the Sternberg Museum ofNatural Canada), meanwhile, the photo­ History in Hays, Kansas, who wrote, "As the photographs show, the graphs are reminiscent of genus tooth is similar to those of mosasaurs. In one photo, certain surface Mosasaurus, and specifically of features may indicate Mosasaurus. However the tooth appears very Mosasaurus hoffmanni, but he flattened in the pictures and not as round as I would expect in a mo­ adds tlÍat it is difficult to make con­ sasaur tooth. This may be due to the fact that the specimen has been crete identifications from photos. incompletely prepared."

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Life reconstruction ofa mosasaur. A) Full-grown animal in comparison to the size ofa human being. B) The skeleton ofa mosasaur in lateral view. Courtesy ofand @ the Russian paleoartist, Dmitry Bogdanov.

Dr. Iturralde-Vinent agrees paddles that served mainly as sta­ it is known that Tylosaurus, one that adequate preparation of the bilizers. Certain species did reach species of mosasaur, did include specimen is essential for the iden­ seventeen meters in length, but other mosasaurs in its diet. The tification ofthe tooth and stresses most were between eight and ten idea that mosasaurs lived a vio­ "the importance of freeing it from meters. Still, as the mosasaur's lent and aggressive lifestyle is the rock. We need to be able to image carne to be known to the additionally supported by evi­ clearly see the shape and form of public, it may have helped fuel new dence from their skeletons of the specimen as well as the edge legends of sea serpents and mon­ common injuries as well as other of the tooth to determine whether sters and revivied old ones. physical traumas (spondylitis, it is serrated or smooth." Fish constituted the mosasaur's bone necrosis and fractures, tu­ principal diet, but they also ate mors, and osteomyelitis, for TM. TPPth- "f tke- ?>e.P..St aquatic birds (Hesperornis), example). Sorne 90 million years ago, mosa­ turtles, plesiosaurs, and smaller Even if the Cuban tooth did saurs were the true Leviathans of marine reptiles. Sorne species were belong to one of these ancient the Late Cretaceous, flourishing at equipped with rounded teeth that beasts, there is no way to know the top of the oceanic food chain. were apparently used to crush the whether it was detached for sorne Like many other animals and shells of mollusks and extract the reason while the animal was alive, plants, however, they became ex­ flesh, and the shells of sorne Cre­ during a fatal encounter (such as tinct at the end of the Cretaceous. taceous ammonites exhibit combat with another mosasaur), Mosasaurs are related to modern circular perforations that have or after death. N or do we know monitor lizards and snakes, and, been interpreted as hites inflicted whether the animal to whom the in reconstructions, seem to re­ by mosasaurs. tooth belonged was a temporary semble a giant lizard with an Although there is no evidence visitor, whether it lived in the oversized head, strong jaws, and so far to suggest that these crea­ area, or whether its corpse was limbs transformed into powerful tures were generally cannibalistic, dragged or floated there.

Fossíl News- Fall 2016 43 Frequent loss of teeth and time, the amber color of the rapid replacement is character­ specimen, which was present istic of living predatory when it was found (it appears reptiles, and isolated mosasaur on the specimen as a sort of teeth have thus traditionally glossy varnish) is not unusual been considered to have bro­ in this kind offossil. lturralde­ ken off during feeding. Whole Vinent believes the color and teeth and jaw fragments, con­ patina may be the result of the versely, are more commonly intrusion of a combination of interpreted as partial remains organic acids, minerals, or of floating bodies. other substances during fossil­ U nlike other marine reptiles, ization. the teeth of mosasaurs are highly If the identity of the Cuban specialized. In the past, scarce at­ tooth were to be confirmed, the tention was paid to their teeth, existen ce of mosasaurs in Cuba however, and descriptions in sci­ would be highly significant, ex­ entific journals were frequently tending Cuba's vertebrate fossil vague and incomplete, making record at the end of the age of them difficult to use as a basis of dinosaurs, linking Cuba and comparison. Classification in­ theAntilles to finds from Ven- · stead tended to be based on ezuela and Colombia, and descriptions of skulls, but more confirming definitively that recent studies of isolated mosa­ this group of marine reptiles saur teeth have demonstrated lived in the waters ofthe primi­ the potential of such teeth to as­ tive Caribbean. sist in meaningful identifications even to the species level. , - Carlos Rafael Borges Sellén, By comparing the Cuban Alberto F. Arano Ruiz, and Proud supporter of the Gary S. Margan tooth to other specimens of ge­ Yasmani Ceballos Izquierdo. Student Research Award and National Fossil Day ~ nus Mosasaurus described in English translation by Wendell the scientific literature, it can Ricketts. f/oridopa/eosociety.com be inferred that jt may belong toan adult animal. At the same

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44 Fossil News - Fall 2016