SquaMates Ep. 36: Is this a mosasaur?
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Happy World Lizard Day! Today we talk about the biggest lizards that ever roamed the Earth: mosasaurs! These giant aquatic lizards are often forgotten when we talk about shape diversity in squamates, but they were some of the most specialised and remarkable lizards ever. We dive into their diversity, history, origins, and extinction in this special episode. We also talk about the incredible Mirasaurus, the weird new reptile with bizarre integument structures that recently made the cover of Nature with an illustration by co-host Gabriel!
Remember that you can watch the full episode with video at youtube.com/@squamatespod!
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Links, Citations, and Other Resources
Spiekman, S.N.F., Foth, C., Rossi, V., Gascó Martín, C., Slater, T.S., Bath Enright, O.G., Dollman, K.N., Serafini, G., Seegis, D., Grauvogel-Stamm, L., McNamara, M.E., Sues, H.-D. & Schoch, R.R. (2025) Triassic diapsid shows early diversification of skin appendages in reptiles. Nature, 643(8074):1297–1303. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09167-9
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SquaMates: website • instagram • facebook • youtube • bluesky
Mark D. Scherz: website • instagram • tumblr • facebook • researchgate • redbubble • bluesky
Gabriel Ugueto: website • instagram • facebook • redbubble • bluesky
Ethan Kocak: mossy underlog blog • personal website • comic • tumblr • facebook • patreon • bluesky
One Response
Wonderful episode, love to hear about Mirasaura, and about mosasaurs.
bc I am a joke ruiner, note: no ants in the Triassic, they don’t show up until the Cretaceous, and probably no flowering plants either, so there go the ant-eater and pollinator jokes. (There’s a debated Bennettitales-and-pollinators relaship suggested, so maybe drepanosaurs could have been Bennettitales pollinators … or maybe not.)