Dino card No. 0438 of 2,027

Compressidens

Say it: kom-PRESS-ih-denz

Name means: “compressed teeth”1

Ate: MeatMosasaursLate CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Compressidens was a small mosasaur, a marine lizard that lived in the sea during the time of the dinosaurs. It had special flat teeth for crushing hard-shelled animals like clams and sea urchins.1 2

Fun fact: this sea reptile swam while dinosaurs walked on land. Everyone calls them dinos, but they were a different branch of reptiles.

Lived

72 to 66 million years ago2

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Belgium, in the Craie de Ciply formation2

Food

Meat1

Length

2 to 2.6 m1

estimated for the related Carinodens, which is the same animal

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 2.5 dogs nose to tailas long as 14 bananas end to end

How big was Compressidens compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

Compressidens is now called Carinodens, because the name Compressidens was already used for a different animal, a type of mollusk.1

It was one of the smallest mosasaurs, only about 2 to 2.6 metres (6.6 to 8.5 feet) long.1

Its teeth were flat and compressed from side to side, which is why it was named Compressidens, meaning 'compressed teeth'.1

Only the back five teeth were used for crushing food; the front teeth were small and pointed for grabbing prey.1

Fossils of Compressidens have been found in Europe, North America, South America, and North Africa.1

Scientists think it may have lived in deep water most of the time, only rarely coming into shallow seas.1

AI-made picture of Compressidens — An AI-made picture of how Compressidens might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Compressidens
Named by: Dollo 19242
Group: Mosasaurs
Family / clade: Mosasauridae2
Classification: Mosasauroidea2
Age of the rocks: 72 to 66 million years (Maastrichtian)2
Rock formations: Craie de Ciply2
Countries: Belgium2
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: The name Compressidens was given by Louis Dollo in 1924, but it was later changed to Carinodens in 1969 because the name was already taken.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure what the upper jaw of Compressidens looked like, because no fossils of the upper jaw have been found.1

Where the facts come from

Carinodens (en.wikipedia.org)
Compressidens in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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