A mosasaur fauna (Squamata: Mosasauridae) from the Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) of Hannover, northern Germany

Abstract

Hornung, J.J., Reich, M. & Frerichs, U., February 2018. The mosasaur fauna (Squamata: Mosasauridae) from the Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) of Hannover, northern Germany. Alcheringa 42, 543-559. ISSN 0311-5518.

Isolated teeth and a humerus from the Campanian of Hannover indicate a considerable local diversity of mosasaur taxa. The lower Misburg Formation (lower Campanian of the Lehrte West Syncline) yields Clidastes sp. (Mosasaurinae), Prognathodon sp. (Mosasaurinae), ?Hainosaurus sp. (Tylosaurinae) and an unidentified mosasaurid. It further confirms the presence of the genus Clidastes in northern central Europe and also proves the early Transatlantic distribution of a basal member of Prognathodon during the lower Campanian. ?Hainosaurus sp. is similar to roughly contemporaneous material of Hainosaurus sp. from southern Sweden. The upper Misburg Formation (upper upper Campanian) shows a different taxonomic composition with Tylosaurus sp. (Tylosaurinae), a second indeterminate species of Prognathodon and ?Platecarpus sp. The limited material of Prognathodon sp. shows closest affinities to P. lutugini (Yakovlev) from eastern Europe. The records of Tylosaurus and ?Platecarpus are among the stratigraphically youngest of these taxa. Facies and lithology of the Misburg Formation indicate that the mosasaurs lived in an open marine, mid-sublittoral environment with a water-depth around 70–100 m. In the contemporaneous chalk facies, deposited in somewhat deeper waters, as well as in shallow littoral deposits, mosasaurs are very rare and of lower diversity.

Jahn J. Hornung [[email protected]] Landesmuseum Hannover, Willy-Brandt-Allee 5, 30169 Hannover, Germany; Current address: Fuhlsbüttler Strasse 611, 22337 Hamburg, Germany; Mike Reich [[email protected] & [email protected]] SNSB—Bavarian State Collection of Palaeontology and Geology & Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität München, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Section Palaeontology and Geobiology & GeoBio-Center^LMU; all: Richard-Wagner-Str. 10, 80333 Munich, Germany; Udo Frerichs [[email protected]] Arbeitskreis Paläontologie Hannover, Buchenweg 7, 30855 Langenhagen, Germany

Keywords:

• Mosasauridae
• Squamata
• Upper Cretaceous
• Campanian
• Northern Germany

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgements

First of all, the authors are indebted to the private collectors who provided their valuable material for study and casting. These include W. Bukol, E. Krause, P. Girod, J. Mischner, H. Rehmer and G. Scharnhorst. H. Borngräber has donated material to the collection of the NLMH. All these persons are thanked for their cooperation and patience during the preparation of this work.

We thank H.-V. Karl for critical comments on the turtle material, M. J. Polcyn for sharing information about tylosaurine tooth morphology and H.-H. Germann for discussions on mosasaur material from Lägerdorf. M. Hundertmark provided photographic work, and JJH thanks H. Lazarkova for additional support. S. Sachs and B. P. Kear, as well as two anonymous reviewers, are thanked for their critical and improving comments.