Select Specimens from the Mosasaur Collections at the University of Colorado Boulder

Routine maintenance and re-housing of the paleontological collections at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History (UCM) permitted a brief examination of select mosasaur specimens. The majority of the examined material hails from the Sharon Springs Member of the Pierre Shale (early Campanian) at the Red Bird locality in Niobrara County, Wyoming, USA. The sample studied from this locality includes the mosasaurid taxa Clidastes sp., Latoplatecarpus willistoni, and cf. Plioplatecarpus. Also present within the collections were a pair of dentaries of Platecarpus tympaniticus from the upper Smoky Hill Chalk Member (late Santonian) of Kansas, USA, and a single large jaw section of Mosasaurus hoffmanni from the Fox Hills Formation (Maastrichtian).