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Science 3 April 1987:
Vol. 236. no. 4797, pp. 75 - 77
DOI: 10.1126/science.236.4797.75
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Articles

Avascular Necrosis: Occurrence in Diving Cretaceous Mosasaurs

BRUCE ROTHSCHILD 1 and LARRY D. MARTIN 2

1 Museum of Natural History, Lawrence, KS 66045, and St. Elizabeth Hospital Medical Center and Northeast Ohio Universities College of Medicine, Youngstown, OH 44501.
2 Museum of Natural History and Department of Systematics and Ecology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045.

A study of vertebrae of extinct giant marine lizards showed the presence of avascular necrosis in two of the three most common genera of these mosasaurs, Platecarpus and Tylosaurus. This bone disease was invariably present (involving 5 to 66% of vertebrae) in these genera, but absent in a third genus Clidastes. Differential occurrence of avascular necrosis may be related to decompression syndrome, suggesting different habitat and diving habits of the respective genera.

Submitted on October 14, 1986
Accepted on February 11, 1987


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Cumulative Sperm Whale Bone Damage and the Bends.
M. J. Moore and G. A. Early (2004)
Science 306, 2215
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Co-ossified vertebrae of mosasaurs and cetaceans: implications for the mode of locomotion of extinct marine reptiles.
(2001)
Paleobiology 27, 724-734


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