ULiège decodes bite mechanics of Cretaceous sea reptiles
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- University of Liège paleontologists led an international, multidisciplinary team that combined fossil data with 3D modeling and finite element analysis to simulate jaw mechanics in extinct marine reptiles
- The study, published in Palaeontology (DOI: 10.1111/pala.70051), focused on plesiosaurs and mosasaurs that coexisted roughly 80 million years ago in the Western Interior Seaway covering North America
- Researchers reconstructed cranial musculature and estimated jaw-closing muscle forces for each species, then ran stress-and-strain simulations on the skull bones under realistic biting conditions
- The team identified clear differences in biting performance across species, suggesting some occupied an apex predator role while others were specialized for smaller, softer, more agile prey such as small fish and cephalopods
- Francesco Della Giustina of ULiège's EDDy Lab stated that the quantitative results confirm a long-held hypothesis that coexisting large predators partitioned food resources rather than directly competing
- The approach opens a new avenue for testing predator behavior virtually, since feeding events leave no direct trace in the fossil record, according to Della Giustina
Why it matters: By applying engineering-grade simulations to 80-million-year-old fossils, ULiège researchers delivered the first quantitative biomechanical evidence that coexisting Cretaceous marine reptiles split into distinct ecological roles—apex predators versus soft-prey specialists—converting a long-standing paleontological hypothesis into a testable framework for reconstructing ancient marine food webs.
