Marine reptile
Platecarpus
Its diet is interpreted as based on fish and other small marine animals.
A Platecarpus fossil preserved part of what it had eaten.
Three stages. One companion.
Game artwork
AI-generated, stylized game illustrations. These designs and growth stages are imaginative, not scientific reconstructions.
Platecarpus at a glance
- Diet
- Carnivore
- It is interpreted as a consumer of other animals. Hunting and scavenging are not mutually exclusive behaviors.
- When it lived
- Cretaceous
- Group
- Mosasauridae
- Mosasaurids
- Fossil locations
- United States
- Places where fossils have been found
Beyond the game
The real Platecarpus
The contents preserved in one specimen show that it ate moderately sized fish. Ideas about how it swam have also changed since the older proposal of eel-like movement.
Its diet is interpreted as fish and other small marine animals. Preserved contents provide direct evidence of moderately sized fish. New analyses have also changed reconstructions of the way it swam.
Mosasaurs were squamate reptiles adapted to the sea. Aquatic life produced streamlined bodies, but did not turn them into fish.
Fossil discoveries
Selected fossil records · present-day map
Map references
Map: Natural Earth, public domain. Fossil records: linked collections and publications.A note on the science
Its diet is interpreted as fish and other small marine animals. Preserved contents provide direct evidence of moderately sized fish. New analyses have also changed reconstructions of the way it swam.
Sources & text credits
Explore the references behind this profile.
- Platecarpus
Wikipedia contributors · Spanish source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Platecarpus
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Mosasauridae
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Lizards and snakes
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
Educational text adapted in English from the existing Wikipedia-backed Dinosgacha catalogue and linked articles by Wikipedia contributors.
Existing English translations have been selected and arranged for this encyclopedia. Repeated period and diet text is omitted where those fields already carry it. Unknown facts remain unfilled; unreviewed geological age phrases are omitted and period labels replace numerical ages.
The adapted educational text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0. This text license does not apply to the game illustrations.