RESUMEN

We report the discovery of a new species of marine reptile, a mosasaur, from the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of The Netherlands. Prognathodon saturator sp. nov. is represented by an almost complete skull and much of the postcranial skeleton, and is one of the largest mosasaurs discovered to date. The stout skull and extremely massive jaws are more powerfully built than in any other known mosasaur. Bite marks, the partial disarticulation and scattering of the skeleton, and the presence of associated teeth of Squalicorax and Plicatoscyllium suggest extensive scavenging by sharks.

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Birds known from more than isolated skeletal elements are rare in the fossil record, especially from the European Mesozoic. This paucity has hindered interpretations of avian evolution immediately prior to, and in the aftermath of, the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction event. We report on a specimen of a large ornithurine bird (closely related to Ichthyornis) from the uppermost Cretaceous (Maastricht Formation) of Belgium. This is the first record of a bird from these historic strata and the only phylogenetically informative ornithurine to be recovered from the Mesozoic of Europe. Because this new specimen was collected from 40 m below the K-T boundary (approximate age of 65.8 Ma), it is also the youngest non-neornithine (= non-modern) bird known from anywhere in the world.