vertebrate cast - Sahara Overland

2011
VERTEBRATE CAST
CATALOGUE
DyrosaurusPhosphaticus
DYROSAURUS PHOSPHATICUS( Crocodylomorpha, Dyrosauridae) FOSSIL
REPLICA
Age:
Origin:
Dimension:
Location:
Early Eocene, Thanetian 55 M.Y.
Morocco
Length: 4 m Weight: 50 kg
Phosphate Mines Khoribga
The Dyrosaurus was a Crocodile-like marine reptile.
It primarily ate fish and other swimming animals.
Dyrosauridae are Crocodyliformes.
They appeared a little more than 80
million years ago and died 40 million years
ago.
Halisaurus
HALISAURUS SP - FOSSIL REPLICA
Age:
Maastrichtian
Origin:
Morocco
Dimension: Length: 2.30m - Weight: ?? kg
Location:
Phosphate Mines Khoribga
Hailsaurus was a small Mosasaur compared to most
other members of its genus. It loitered below ledges
where Hesperornis nested and gathered. When
Hesperornis left their rocky ledges to dive for fish, Halisaurus
was down below, waiting for an opportunity to ambush them.
Mosasaur teeth are good at piercing the skin of their prey but
bad at slicing flesh. Therefore Halisaurus had to
swallow its prey whole. Halisaurus’ jaw has flexible
joints and can open incredibly wide. Like other
Mosasaurs, Halisaurus had extra teeth called
Pterygoid teeth that it used to hold onto its
prey while its jaw moved forward to completely
engulf and swallow its hapless victim.
Titanichthys
TITANICHTHYS SKULL - FOSSIL REPLICA
Age:
Late Devonian
Origin:
Morocco
Dimension: 1.40m +Location:
Mrakib Sahara Desert
Titanichthys was a giant, aberrant marine
Placoderm from the Late Devonian. It approached
Dunkleosteus in size and build. Unlike its relative,
however, Titanichthys had short mouth-plates
that lacked a sharp cutting edge. It is presumed that
the beast used its capacious mouth to swallow or inhale
schools of small, anchovy-like fish, or other zooplankters, and
that the mouth-plates retained the prey while allowing the water to
escape as it closed its mouth.
The Placodermi are armoured prehistoric fishes known from
fossils dating from the late Silurian to the end of the Devonian
Period. Their head and thorax were covered by articulated
armoured plates and the rest of the body was scaled or naked.
Placoderms were among the first of the jawed fish, their jaws
likely evolving from the first of their gill arches.
Dunkleosteus
DUNKLEOSTEUS - FOSSIL REPLICA
Age :
Devonian
Origin:
Morocco
Dimension: 1.20m +Location:
Mrakib Sahara Desert
Dunkleosteus looked like the violent brute it was: powerfully built and
armour-plated head. It was streamlined and shark-like.
Dunkleosteus lacked true teeth, instead it had two
long bony blades that could snap and crush
almost anything. Pigment cells suggest
Dunkleosteus had dark colours on its back
and a silvery belly.
This fish was anything but picky with its food. It
ate fish, sharks and even its own kind. And it
seems that Dunkleosteus suffered from
indigestion as a result: its fossils are often
associated with regurgitated, semi-digested remains of
fish.
Prognathodon Skull
PROGNATHODON SKULL - FOSSIL REPLICA
Age:
Maastrichtian
Origin:
Morocco
Dimension: Length: 1.40m - Width: 0.60m Weight: 60 kg
Location:
Phosphate Mines Khoribga
Prognathodon ('forejaw tooth') is an extinct genus of marine lizard belonging to the
mosasaur family. Mosasaurs were giant, serpentine marine reptiles. They were not
dinosaurs, but were related to snakes and monitor lizards. Mosasaurs were powerful
swimmers, reptiles that had adapted to living in shallow seas. These carnivores still
breathed air. They were a short-lived line of reptiles that went extinct during the K-T
extinction, 65 million years ago.
Phosphaterium Escuillei
PHOSPHATERIUM ESCUILLEI – ANIMAL REPLICA
Age:
Thanetian 55 M.Y.
Origin:
Morocco
Dimension: Length: 1.50m - Width: 0.50m Weight: 40 kg
Location:
Phosphate Mines Khoribga
Phosphatherium is an extinct genus of primitive proboscidean
that lived during the paleocene of North Africa.
Known from fragmentary dental materials from the paleocene (Thanetian)
deposits of the Ouled Abdoun Basin, Morocco, it is the smallest
(about 60 cm long) and the oldest known member of the proboscidean order.
It is also the oldest known modern ungulate.
The animal was probably amphibious, living on a diet of
soft aquatic plants.
Mosasaurus Beaugei
MOSASAURUS BEAUGEI – FOSSIL REPLICA
Age:
Maastrichtian
Origin:
Morocco
Dimension: 9m or 30 feets
Location:
Phosphate Mines Khoribga
Mosasaurus "lizard of the Meuse" was a genus of mosasaur, a
carnivorous, aquatic lizard, somewhat resembling a flippered
crocodile, with elongated heavy jaws. The genus lived in the
Maastrichtian age of the Cretaceous period (Mesozoic
era), around 70-65 million years ago. As with all
mosasaurs, their legs and feet are modified into paddlelike flippers, with the forelimbs larger than the hindlimbs.
Mosasaurus reached lengths of about 15 metres
Experts believe that Mosasaurus lived near the ocean surface,
where it preyed on fish, turtles, ammonites, and possibly smaller
mosasaurs. Because of its robust skull and tightly articulating jaws,
Mosasaurus was unable to swallow prey-items whole in the manner
of earlier mosasaurs. Instead, with the aid of its curved, knife-like
teeth, Mosasaurus was able to tear its prey into more
manageable pieces that could be more easily swallowed.
Zarafasaura
Zarafasaura oceanis (bardet 2010) – FOSSIL REPLICA
Age:
Maastrichtian
Origin:
Morocco
Dimension: 7 to 8m
Location:
Phosphate Mines Khoribga
Elasmosaurus means ‘thin plate reptile’, and it is so-called because its pelvic
bones looked plate-like. This animal was a plesiosaur, not a dinosaur. It had a very
long neck taking up approximately a half
of the animals’ 26ft body.
Elasmosaurus had up to 44
vertebrae in its neck – as a
comparison modern mammal
usually have only 7 or 8.
Plesiosaurs ate fish and had
long broad paddles to help
them swim.
Antineosteus
ANTINEOSTEUS lehmani, n.g., n.sp (Lelièvre, 1984) – FOSSIL REPLICA
Age:
Location:
Dimension:
Location:
Upper Emsian
Morocco
0.95 x 0.50 cm - Weight approx 20kg.
Mrakib Sahara Desert
The ANTINEOSTEUS (From Antinea –Queen of de desert in “L’Atlantide” of paul
benoit) was a PLACODERM
The Placodermi are armoured prehistoric fishes known from fossils dating from the
late Silurian to the end of the Devonian Period. Their head and thorax were covered
by articulated armoured plates and the rest of the body was scaled or naked.
Placoderms were among the first of the jawed fish, their jaws likely evolving from the
first of their gill arches.
Pliosaurus
PLIOSAURUS (Polycotylidae – Williston, 1908) – FOSSIL REPLICA
Age:
Location:
Dimension:
Location:
Turonien
Morocco
3.20m
Goulmima
The Pliosaurs ("Fin Lizards") were aquatic Mesozoic reptiles, from the Jurassic and
Cretaceous Periods. They originally included members of the family Pliosauridae, in
the order Plesiosauria, but several other genera and families are now also included,
the number and details of which vary according to the classification used. The name
is derived from Greek: πλειω from the verb 'to sail' or πλειων meaning 'fin' and
σαυρος meaning 'lizard'. The Pliosaurs, along with their relatives the true
plesiosaurs and other members of Sauropterygia, were not dinosaurs.
This group was characterized by having a short neck and an elongated head, in
contrast to the long-necked plesiosaurs. They were more crocodile-shaped.
However, the four-paddle swimming action, using the large flipper-like limbs was
shared with plesiosaurs and they were possibly better adapted to deeper waters.
They were carnivorous and their long and powerful jaws carried many sharp teeth.
Their prey may have been ichthyosaurs and other plesiosaurs.
TETHYSAURUS Nopcsai sp.nov.
TETHYSAURUS Nopcsai sp.nov. (Bardet – 2003) – FOSSIL REPLICA
Age:
Origin:
Dimension:
Location:
Late-cretaceous Turonian 110 Millions Years
Morocco
2.78 x 0.62 m
Goulmima
Toxochelys Turtle
TOXOCHELYS Marine Turtle – FOSSIL REPLICA
Age:
Location:
Dimension:
Location:
Maastrichtian –
Morocco
Length 1.20m – width 1.12m
Phosphate Mines Khoribga
Toxochelys is a representative of the loggerhead sea turtle fossils present. the shell
presents large openings in order to reduce the weight of the animal. the toxochelys
are rarely complete, and very often are trademarks of predation due to attacks of
mosasaurs in the marginal edge of the shell.
Manemergus Anguirostris
MANEMERGUS ANGUIROSTRIS Buchy – FOSSIL REPLICA
Age:
Location:
Dimension:
Location:
Turonian Cretaceous
Morocco
Length 5.50m – skull 0.90m
Goulmima
Class :
Subclass:
Order:
Suborder :
Family:
Sauropsida Huxley 1864
Diapsida Osborn, 1903
Plesiosauria de Blainville, 1835
Plesiosauroidea Welles, 1943
Polycotylidae Williston, 1908
New species of pliosaur polycotilide Turonian of Morocco. Never rebuilt to this day,
he is the only skeleton of this rare species pliosaur, never ride in three dimensions.