Dino card No. 1709 of 2,027

Stelladens

Say it: stel-uh-DENZ

Name means: “star tooth”1

Ate: MeatMosasaursLate CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Stelladens was a marine lizard that lived in the sea during the time of the dinosaurs. Its teeth were shaped like stars, with sharp ridges that no other sea reptile had. Scientists are still trying to figure out what it ate!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 ago4

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Sidi Chennane phosphate mine, Oulad Abdoun Basin, Khouribga Province, Morocco2 1

Food

Meat3 2

Length

5 m1

estimate based on the partial skeleton

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 5 dogs nose to tailas long as 28 bananas end to end

How big was Stelladens compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Stelladens lived about 72 to 66 million years ago, at the very end of the Age of Dinosaurs.3

Its teeth had 2 to 4 sharp, serrated ridges on the inside, like little star blades. No other animal, alive or extinct, has teeth like this.2

Stelladens was about 5 metres (16 feet) long, as big as a small boat.1

The only fossils found so far are a piece of jaw and two teeth. That is enough to know it was a new kind of mosasaur.2 1

Stelladens belonged to a group called Mosasaurinae, which includes some of the biggest sea lizards ever.3 2

Its teeth were short and strong, good for crushing, not just stabbing like other fish-eaters.2

AI-made picture of Stelladens — An AI-made picture of how Stelladens 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: Stelladens
Named by: Longrich et al. 20234
Group: Mosasaurs
Family / clade: Mosasauridae4
Classification: Mosasauroidea4
Age of the rocks: 72 to 66 million years (Maastrichtian)4
Rock formations: Couche III4
Countries: Morocco4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Stelladens was named by Nick Longrich and his team in 2024. The fossils were found in a phosphate mine in Morocco.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure what Stelladens ate. Its star-shaped teeth are unlike anything seen before, so its diet remains a mystery.2

Where the facts come from

Stelladens (en.wikipedia.org)
Stelladens mysteriosus: A Strange New Mosasaurid (Squamata) from the Maastrichtian (Late Cretaceous) of Morocco (mdpi.com)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Stelladens 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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