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of the patterns of tooth marks we have reconstructed the denti-
tion, and from the relationships of the upper and lower jaw we
offer certain inferences on the shape of the head, the structure and
action of the jaws, and the diet of the mosasaur. (Kauffman and
Kesling, 1960, p. 193)
This scientific paper about the proposed mosasaur bite marks found in
ammonite shells was so different in its style and tenor from the paleontologic
papers of its time that it stands out like a beacon. Paleontology in the 1950s
had been dominated by descriptions of ancient species, not descriptions of
how those species lived, but here was a true interdisciplinary paper. Not only
did Kauffman and Kesling dare to describe mosasaurs (the province and ter-
ritory of "vertebrate" paleontologists), but in the same paper they described
ammonites, an "invertebrate" fossil. Specialists in the two fields at that time
(and to some extent even now) rarely read each other's papers and don't
even attend the same scientific meetings. Was this a paper about mosasaurs,
or ammonites, or what?
The paper was also fun to read. Some of the desctiptions sound far more
like a novel than like a learned scientific paper. Mosasaurs are characterized
as having a "pugnacious nature" and are described as "the most vicious, ra-
pacious creatures of the watm epicontinental seas during the epoch of theit
existence."
The Kauffman and Kesling papet dealt with
one single fossil
—and still
managed to come in at a length of 58 pages and to offer 7 figures and 9 full-
page plates of photos. Perhaps never in the history of paleontology has so
much been written about a single fossil shell. The attack itself is described in
blow-by-blow fashion, for Kauffman and Kesling believed that their shell
(which is indeed riddled with holes) was bitten sixteen times. Each bite is
described in detail. For instance,
The initial bite resulted in eight imptessions on the shell. Teeth
of the upper jaw struck the right side of the conch, leaving marks
of maxillary teeth. . . . According to our reconstruction of the
