Mosasaurus

This article is about the Mosasaurus, not to be confused with the mosasaurs, the  with the same name to which Mosasaurus belongs to.

"The Mosasaurus was thought to have hunted near the surface of the water, where it preyed on anything it could sink its teeth into, including, large, even smaller mosasaurs."

- Sarah

Mosasaurus was a genus of large aquatic carnivore from the Late Cretaceous about 70-66 million years ago. Mosasaurus gave its name to a group of marine lizards - Mosasaurs.

Mosasaurus means 'Meuse Lizard', referring to the river near which it was first found. It fed on such prey as seabirds, sharks, large fish, plesiosaurs and even other mosasaurs.

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Creation
On August 25, 2000, InGen researchers while testing a prototype iron analyzer discovered traceable DNA fragments on a recently uncovered mosasaur specimen. Dr. Henry Wu believed this to be the only way of recreating aquatic organisms without extracting blood from mosquitos trapped in amber.

Mosasaurus was successfully recreated by InGen under the wing of the Masrani Global Corporation for their new dinosaur park Jurassic World. The species created was Mosasaurus maximus, which many believe to be synonymous with the species M. hoffmannii, but others believe it to be a valid species.

Unlike the last mosasaur InGen recreated, the cloned Mosasaurus retained many features of its original counterpart, but there was a difference between the two. It also had a bite force of 13K, one pound higher than the terrestrial predator Tyrannosaurus rex that lived in the same period as the Mosasaur. The Mosasaurus also had a frill running down its back and lacked a forked tongue. The Mosasaur lived in a 3 million gallon pool of water located near Main Street known as the Jurassic World Lagoon and visitors could watch it feed on sharks in the Mosasaurus Feeding Show. Visitors could also view her through an aquarium below the lagoon known as the Underwater Observatory to see her.

Isla Nublar Incident (2015)
Following the escape of the Jurassic World Aviary's residents from their enclosure, Jurassic World employee Zara was dropped into the tank of the Mosasaur after being grabbed by a Pteranodon. The Mosasaurus then devoured a Pteranodon when it flew over the enclosure to recapture her, also eating Zara, who was in the  Pteranodon's talons.

At the end of the battle between the Indominus rex, Rexy the Tyrannosaurus rex, and Blue the Velociraptor, the Mosasaurus beached itself to catch the hybrid in its jaws and dragged it to the bottom of the lagoon, thus killing it and saving the park.

Size Discrepancies
The size of the Mosasaurus created for Jurassic World varies between sources.

The Mosasaurus page and the Mosasaurus Feeding Show page on the Jurassic World website give conflicting accounts about its weight. The Mosasaurus page says it weighs 5 tons while the Mosasaurus Feeding Show says it weighs 15 tons. It is further confirmed to be 15 tons on the Jurassic World Size Chart Poster.

Another confliction is with its length, as RaptorPass 10 Mosasaurus, the Mosasaurus web page, and the Mosasaurus Feeding Show web page state it is 18 meters long, like real estimates of the species Mosasaurus hoffmani. However, the books Jurassic World: Where Dinosaurs Come to Life and The Park is Open states it is 22 meters long, longer than any mosasaur ever discovered. The latter seems to be the most accurate, as the cloned Mosasaurus' head is large enough to nearly swallow whole what appears to be an adult great white shark, a species that can grow up to 6 meters in length, while the largest mosasaur skulls ever discovered only reach to about the size of a human being. Though assuming the sharks fed to the Mosasaurus is 6 meters in length means that it is not actually 22 meters, but larger than the largest animal on Earth, the Blue Whale. However, great white sharks can also grow to lengths of 3 meters, so if the sharks being fed to the Mosasaur are of that size it would make the size estimate of it being 22 meters to be true.

Trivia
All video games released before have outdated depictions of Mosasaurus showing it without a tail fluke and lacking the color scheme that all mosasaurs might have had in real life, which was black with a white underbelly.
 * The cloned Mosasaur in captivity on Jurassic World is currently the only surviving member of her genus and her family.
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Jurassic Park III: Park Builder
Mosasaurus is number 126 of the Carnivore Threes that can be created in Jurassic Park III: Park Builder.

Jurassic Park: Builder
see Mosasaurus/Builder

In Jurassic Park: Builder Mosasaurus can be created in the aquatic section of the park as a limited edition dinosaur.

Jurassic World: The Game
see Mosasaurus/JW: TG

In Jurassic World: The Game, Mosasaurus is a legendary surface sea reptile. At first, it could only be seen swimming in the Jurassic World Lagoon without the player being able interact with it, create it, or use it in the battle arena. This was until September 30, 2015 when the Mosasaurus appeared. Since then, the shadow in the lagoon has disappeared until you get the mosasaur. So far, its only available in ether getting a legendary pack or winning it in the Mosasaurus tournament or win it by spinning the tournament wheel and landing on it.

LEGO Jurassic World
Mosasaurus appears in the video game LEGO Jurassic World. It is depicted with dark blue skin and a gray underbelly. It also lacks a tail fluke and moves in a snake-like motion like older restorations. This probably because there is no LEGO element at the time that resembles a mosasaur tail fluke.

The Mosasaurus first appears in the level "Under Attack" where it eats Zara, like in the Jurassic World film. The second appearance of the Mosasaurus is in the final cutscene to the level "Main Street Showdown" where it lunges out of the water and grabs the Indominus. The Mosasaurus' final appearance in the game's story is in the end cutscene to the Jurassic World levels where it is seen swimming under the helipad that carried the chinook that Dr. Henry Wu escaped in as the Indominus rex, Zara, and several Jurassic World workers play a game of cards inside the Mosasaur's stomach.

Its amber, as well as the boneboxes that construct its skeleton, are found in the level "Main Street Showdown". Its amber is found in the Hammond Creation Lab to the left inside the Innovation Center that has an InGen panel for a lock that can only be opened by characters such as Simon Masrani or John Hammond and is found in the "Extraction Room" where a character who can access a hand scanner can free it from its glass case. The Moasasaurus can only be spawned in the Underwater Observatory.

As a playable creature, the Mosasaurus is able to let out a low roar that can smash amber bricks like large theropods, such as Tyrannosaurus rex can do.

LEGO Dimensions
The Mosasaurus appears in the Jurassic World dimension. The crane used to feed it can be purchased for the dimension, which the player can activate. Unlike in the previous LEGO game it appeared in and Jurassic World it is fed a turkey rather than a shark. The model for the Mosasaurus in the game is reused from LEGO Jurassic World.
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Jurassic World
A figure of Mosasaurus packaged with a human in a mini-submarine-like vehicle was released as a part of Hasbro's Jurassic World toy line. It can snap its jaws by pressing down a button located on its back and a piece of its skin can be pulled back to reveal a wound.

A "Chomper" toy was made of Mosasaurus. It can snap its jaws by pushing down on its back fins.

Moasaurus also had a plush toy made of it.

Behind the scenes


As revealed in an interview with Empire Magazine, Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow came up with the idea of the Mosasaurus Feeding Show during one of his first meetings with Steven Spielberg and Frank Marshall. He mentions that in his original concept there is a separate facility that mass-produces the sharks the Mosasaurus eats via cloning.

It is commonly believed that the mosasaur that appeared in Jurassic Park: The Game is Mosasaurus, but the InGen Field Journal classifies the mosasaur created for Jurassic Park as Tylosaurus.

The scene of the Mosasaurus feeding in has changed a total of 3 times out the course of the  trailer releases. Behind the Velociraptor, Mosasaurus is Chris Pratt's favorite dinosaur, as revealed in a Reddit AMA. It is also Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow's favorite animal in the film he directed as well along with Dimorphodon.

The Mosasaurus ' sounds were a mix of and  to give the Mosasaur weight as well as to make it more of a marine animal and not a land animal. In the Jurassic World storyboard, Mosasaurus was to be depicted with a serpentine body lacking a tail fluke like pre-2014 restorations and had horizontal stripes covering its body which mosasaurs did not have. The Mosasaurus' involvement in the pterosaur attack was to be different as well. Originally during the pterosaur attack the monorail that went over the lagoon was to collapse during the attack, dangling over the mosasaur's habitat. When a Pteranodon trying to kill a passenger desperately hanging onto the rapid transit vehicle, the Mosasaur lunges out of the water pulling the Pteranodon down into the water and the monorail with it. Several Pteranodons then proceed to attack the marine reptile in an attempt to save their own, but ultimately the Mosasaurus gets away with its kill.

To celebrate the home release of Jurassic World in the Untied Kingdom on October 19, 2015, Wild Creations (who had previously created animatronic versions of the Jurassic World Velociraptor Pack in the to promote the film's release in June) created a 7 meter high model of a Mosasaurus preparing to eat a shark and placed it in London's South Bank.