#史前生物 #
Among the prehistoric giant creatures, mosasaurs are also one of the largest predators, mosasaurs lived in the Cretaceous ocean about 70 million to 65 million years ago, up to 17 meters long, weighed up to 16 tons, fed on plesiosaurs, golden kitchen sharks, turtles, thin-sliced dragons, etc., and in the mosasaur's recipe there are some unexpected prey - ammonite.
Ammonite is also an extinct mollusk with a hard shell outside the body, up to about 2 meters in diameter, which existed in the late Paleozoic era from 410 million years ago to the Mesozoic era 65 million years ago, and is also one of the food sources for mosasaurs.
How did mosasaurs eat ammonites? In North America, an ammonite fossil has been found, 6 round holes on the left side of the surface, 3 holes on the right side each arranged in a row to form a "V" shaped pattern, these bite marks were confirmed to be the bite of mosasaurs, so scientists speculate that mosasaurs eat ammonites not directly bite the shell, but first bite, and then slowly apply pressure until the bite through the shell of the ammonite, punching out holes one by one, so that the soft tissue of the ammonite can no longer grasp the inner wall of the shell, and the mosasaur also throws the ammonite soft body out on the spot and eats it.
The reason why mosasaurs have such a way of eating, on the one hand, is to avoid cuts from ammonite shells, and secondly, it may be difficult for mosasaurs to digest these shells, plus mosasaurs, as the largest top predator in the Mesozoic ocean, only occasionally eat ammonites, which is not the main food of mosasaurs.
