Russellosaurus

Russellosaurus is an extinct genus of tethysaurine mosasauroid from the Late Cretaceous of North America. The genus was described from a skull discovered in an exposure of the Arcadia Park Shale (lower Middle Turonian) at Cedar Hill, Dallas County in the south-central part of the DFW Metroplex in Texas, United States. The skull (SMU 73056, Shuler Museum of Paleontology, Southern Methodist University) was found in 1992 by a member of the Dallas Paleontological Society, who then donated to the museum. Other fragmentary specimens of Russelosaurus have been recovered from the slightly older Kamp Ranch Limestone at two other localities in the Dallas area. The type species, R. coheni, was named for the amateur fossil collector who discovered SMU 73056, and the genus name honours paleontologist Dale A. Russell for his extensive work on mosasaurs ("Russell's lizard"). This is the second species of mosasaur to have been named for Russell, the first being Selmasaurus russelli (Wright and Shannon, 1988). The type specimen of Russellosaurus is notable as being the oldest well-preserved mosasaur yet found in North America. It was a small mosasaur measuring long and weighing . Polcyn et. Bell (2005, p. 323) diagnose Russellosaurus as follows: "Small, lightly built mosasaur, frontal narrow with a length to width ratio of 1.6:1. Sixteen maxillary teeth and 16 dentary teeth. Anterior premaxilla broad and blunt, in dorsal view the premaxillary-maxillary suture is oblique. The ectopterygoid is lightly built and composed of a distinct small subrectangular pterygoid process and a slender rod-like jugal process. Incipient emargination of the frontal by the external nares. A pair of foramina separated by a thin median septum in the floor of the basioccipital are interpreted as the entrance of the basilar artery, and exit the ventral surface of the basioccipital as multiple small and anteriorly placed foramina. Extreme downgrowth of the pterygoid processes of the basisphenoid. Lightly built postorbitofrontal processes.