Systematics and Morphology of American Mosasaurs (Reptilia, Sauria) #227599

Surely as much has been written about mosasaurs as any other group of fossil reptiles of comparable abundance and diversity. The division of the family Mosasauridae into three major subfamilies and the close relationship to varanid lizards has been generally recognized for more than fifty years. Yet on a generic and specific level their taxonomy has been so confused that even after a careful survey of the literature it was usually impossible to be sure of the correct binomial to use in identifying a given specimen. As a consequence modern verte brate paleontologists have by and large tended to ignore mosasaurs as a subject of research.