Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The
Bite
of
a
Mosasaur
in the Jeep dark Cretaceous seaways. At the end of the talk, Erie basked in
the glow of the respectful questions. Bob Bakker chimed in from the back of
the room (as he is wont to do), adding his
imprimatur
to the mosasaur bite
mark theory. Bakker described how the peculiarly articulated mosasaur jaws
allowed these great marine lizards to envelop the ammonite shells before
piercing them with that mouthful of cruel, dagger-like teeth. Other workers
added their own anecdotes and stories about bitten ammonites they had
seen. This was paleontology at its finest, no doubt: serious research about an
inherently interesting topic. Unfortunately, although the topic was good,
the science wasn't.
Unknown to me at the time, in Seattle, Sophie Daniel, the eight-year-
old daughter of a zoologist named Tom Daniel, was being shown fossil ex-
hibits at the local University of Washington museum. One of the exhibits
they viewed together consisted of a mosasaur skeleton encased with an am-
monite bearing purported mosasaur "tooth marks." This particular am-
monite was displayed in a case at about the eye level of Tom's daughter. She
turned to her father (who recounted the whole story to me later) and said,
"How could there be tooth marks.' The shell would break in pieces and not
leave tooth marks." Her father looked at the specimen closely and had to
agree with his daughter.
In the question period following Erie's talk at Dinofest, I tried to make
a similar point. In the past I had conducted simulated predatory attacks on
nautilus shells, using pliers (to simulate the predator), and in every case the
shell simply shattered. Imagine, I asked the group, trying to drive a nail
through a nautilus shell (or an abalone or clam shell, for that matter). Pro-
ducing a large, circular hole in a mollusk shell by impact of a large, tooth-
shaped object is impossible.
At this point the assembled audience (perhaps about 200 people) be-
came somewhat confused and restless. Who
was
this character from Seattle,
not even a dinosaur paleontologist, doubting our hero Bob Bakker as well as
the mosasaur's ability to bite any
number
of tooth marks into ammonite
shells? Hetesy! An uneasy rustling filled the room, and I sat down in a hurry.
