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"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 turtles, large fish, even smaller mosasaurs."
Sarah(src)


Mosasaurus is a genus of large aquatic carnivorous lizard 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.

History[]

Creation[]

Mosasaurusthe3rd

Mosasaurus consuming a Great White Shark while spectators watch.

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 mosquitoes trapped in amber.[1]

Mosasaurus was successfully recreated by InGen under the wing of the Masrani Global Corporation for their new dinosaur park Jurassic World.[2] The species created was Mosasaurus maximus,[3] which currently believed to be synonymous with the species M. hoffmannii, but others believe it to be a valid species.

The cloned Mosasaurus retained many features of its original counterpart. 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 Mosasaurus.[4] The Mosasaurus also had a frill running down its back and lacked a forked tongue as well as lacked a large tail fluke. The clone's colors are mostly greyish-blue with a creamy underbelly.

The Mosasaur lived in a 3 million gallon pool of water located near Main Street,[4] 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.[5] Despite the fact that the Mosasaurus was capable of jumping on to land, she did not seem to actively pursue humans that came close to the tank edges.

Size Estimates[]

Below is a list of size estimates for the cloned Mosasaurus from various sources:

Length Source
16 m (55 ft) [6]
18 m (60 ft) [7][3]
22 m (72 ft) [8]
22 m (72.2 ft) [9]
25.9 m (84.9 ft) [10]
36.6 m (120 ft) [11][12]


Jurassic World Incident[]

Gray and Zach Mitchell attended the Mosasaur Feeding Show and the Underwater Observatory in which they saw the Mosasaurus consume a shark.[2]

Following the escape of The Aviary's residents from their enclosure, the Mosasaurus devoured a Pteranodon that was flying over its enclosure to capture Zara Young, also eating Zara, who was in the talons of the Pteranodon.[2] The Mosasaurus is seen trying to eat Darius Bowman and his group, while they are in the lagoon.[13]

Jurassic world the battle for isla nublar by tyrannuss555-d8x8n2m

The Mosasaur dragged the Indominus Rex to the bottom of the lagoon, killing the hybrid.

At the end of the battle between the Indominus rex, the park's veteran T. 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.[2]

I. rex Specimen Retrieval[]

"Relax. Anything in here would be dead by now."
Sub Pilot(src)

It is revealed that the individual Mosasaurus seen in Jurassic World has survived the months it has spent on Isla Nublar. It was thought to be dead when the submarine went in to collect a sample of what was left of Indominus rex. The Mosasaurus then ate the sub, along with a mercenary trying to escape on a helicopter,[14][15] and when the gates were left open, it escaped the lagoon and swam into the ocean.[14] When Darius and the group are leaving the island, the Mosasaurus attacks them and wrecks the ship, which leads to the six being stranded on a new island. Yaz has another nightmare of the Mosasaurus busting through the frozen lake and about to eat her, before she wakes up and the nightmare ends. It was last seen trying to eat surfers off of a coast.[16]

A Rising Tide[]

The Mosasaurus plays a central role in the motion comic, which tells the story of its attack on surfers on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii depicted at the end of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Battle at Big Rock[]

Mosasaurus makes a brief cameo in the short, eating a breaching great white shark catching a sea lion during the end credits.

Jurassic World: Dominion[]

In 2022, the Department of Prehistoric Wildlife has confirmed sightings of the Mosasaurus somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, near San Francisco, in Seattle, in the corals of Hawaii, Okinawa, Japan, Lathryn's Hook, Alaska and Auckland, New Zealand where it teamed up with a pod of orcas to target great white sharks.[17] As such, it could be suggested that the Mosasaur may enjoy the company of cetaceans, as it was willing to work with them to hunt the same prey rather than kill and eat the orcas. The Mosasaurus currently follows its main prey, the great white shark, across their migration routes. At the start of the film, the Mosasaurus is seen attacking a crab fishing boat named the Saga in Bering Sea in order to steal the crabs out of the baited traps, causing the boat to turn over, and the Mosasaurus either ate or injured the crew. The Mosasaurus is later seen peacefully mingling with a pod of humpback whales at the very end of the film.

Gallery[]

Videos[]

Images[]

Promotional Images[]

Jurassic World[]

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom[]

Battle at Big Rock[]

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous[]

Jurassic World: Dominion[]

Vocalizations[]

Behind the scenes[]

Mosasaur breeding tank

Concept art for breeding tank (done by Ricardo Delgado)

Mosasaurusconceptart

Concept art of the Mosasaurus Feeding Show featuring the Mosasaurus.

Before making a physical appearance in Jurassic World, there was an idea for Jurassic Park III to feature a Mosasaur breeding tank.[18] It was included in the first draft of the script and had concept art done, but was removed in later versions of it.[19]

Mosasaurusstoryboard

Mosasaurus in the Jurassic World storyboard.

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. [20]

Mosasaurusconcept

Concept art.

One early concept of the Mosasaurus' enclosure was a Shark tunnel and in that concept, the Mosasaur was eating a person (possibly having fallen during the pterosaur attack) in the presence of parkgoers.[21] Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow later 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.[22]

Paul Liaw of Industrial Light and Magic who sculpted the Mosasaurus 3D model used turtles, crocodiles, whales, and other animals he could find on the internet as references when creating its underbelly and back. ILM purposely made the Mosasaur in Jurassic World larger than its real life counterpart to make it look big enough for the final fight with Indominus rex at the end of the film.[23]

The sounds of the Mosasaurus were a mix of walruses and beluga whales to give the Mosasaur weight as well as to make it more of a marine animal and not a land animal.[24]

The scene of the Mosasaurus feeding in Jurassic World changed a total of three times out the course of the Jurassic World trailer releases.

Mosasaur bite comparison

Changes made to the Mosasaurus feeding throughout the trailer releases of Jurassic World.

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.[25]

To celebrate the home release of Jurassic World in the United Kingdom on October 19, 2015, Wild Creations (who had previously created animatronic versions of the Jurassic World Velociraptor Pack in the Waterloo Station 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.[26]

References[]

  1. IRON STORES
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Jurassic World
  3. 3.0 3.1 RaptorPass 10 Mosasaurus
  4. 4.0 4.1 JurassicWorld.com - Mosasaurus Feeding Show Retrieved from http://www.jurassicworld.com/park-map/mosasaurus-feeding-show/
  5. JurassicWorld.com - Play Retrieved from http://www.jurassicworld.com/plan-your-visit/play/
  6. 10 - Animals of Jurassic Park Infographic from the Innovation Center.
  7. JurassicWorld.com/dinosaurs/mosasaurus
  8. Jurassic World: Where Dinosaurs Come to Life
  9. The Park is Open
  10. DPGMosasaurus Dinosaur Protection Group image.
  11. Cinefex Article https://imgur.com/a/avF4FRe
  12. Jurassic Time interview w/Glen McIntosh & James Mottram https://youtu.be/GQuVevYSQEI?t=2900
  13. Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous: Welcome to Jurassic World
  14. 14.0 14.1 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
  15. Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous: Whatever It Takes
  16. Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous: Beneath the Surface
  17. Dinotracker
  18. Delgado, Ricardo F. (May 12, 2013) Jurassic Park 3 breeding tank idea. Blogspot.
  19. (June 10, 2001) Johnston on Underwater Dinos, Spielberg's JP3 Idea. Dan's JP3 Page (excerpted from the July 2001 issue of Movieline magazine).
  20. davelowerystoryboards - Jurassic World (July 31, 2015) Retrieved from http://dlstoryboards.blogspot.com/2015/07/jurassic-world_31.html
  21. Jurassic World Target Exclusive Edition featurette - "The Experts"
  22. Empire Magazine - Empire's Jurassic World Trailer Tour: Page 9. Retrieved from http://www.empireonline.com/features/jurassic-world-teaser-trailer-tour/p9
  23. zbrushcentral.com - Interview: ILM on Jurassic World (Febuary 3, 2016) Retrieved from http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?198673-Interview-ILM-on-Jurassic-World
  24. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsnsJDd0u5U
  25. InGen Field Journal, page 23
  26. Digitial Spy - Watch out! Jurassic World's Mosasaurus comes to life in London (October 19, 2015) Retrieved from http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a674435/watch-out-jurassic-worlds-mosasaurus-comes-to-life-in-london.html#ixzz3pvPRkYcJ

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