1. What were Alabama\'s Cretaceous crocodylians like and what was their diet, mo
ID: 296158 • Letter: 1
Question
1. What were Alabama's Cretaceous crocodylians like and what was their diet, mode of defense and habitat?
2. What was Alabama's mosasaurs like and what was their diet, mode of defense and habitat?
3. What were Alabama's Cretaceous sharks like and what was their diet, mode of defense, and habitat?
4. What were Alabama's plesiosaurs like and what was their diet, mode of defense, and habitat?
5. How do you interpret Alabama's antiquity law in terms of how well or how poorly it protects Alabama's fossil treasures?
Explanation / Answer
1. Cretaceous crocodylians of Alabama
Diet: Species of the crocodylia order predatory and mostly carnivorous. They often feed on fish, molluscs, birds, crustaceans, birds, and mammals and sometimes attack humans.
Mode of Defense: Crocodlians are large and agile both on land and in the water. They are more agile in water. Their tough hide acts as an armor to many would-be attackers. Their main defense is their great jaws and teeth but they can also be quick swimmers so speed can be a factor.
Habitat: Crocodilians are amphibious living in part on land and in water. Their main habitat is a tropical region with exceptions being alligators of China and the United sates. They are found in lowland regions.
They are found in the sea but don't stay there as a permanent habitat. Some species are found in estuaries, swamps, rivers, and lakes.
2. Alabama mosasaur
Habitat: Mosasaurs were marine reptile predators. They cold breathe air and wer powerful swimmers. They adapted well to warm, inland, shallow seas. Mosasaurs appear as elongated monitor lizards. Fossils have been found in Alabama from when sea levels were higher and Alabama was covered in saltwater.
Diet: Masasaurs had double-hinges jaws; with these jaws they could swallow prey whole. They fed on birds, fish, sharks, smaller masasaurs, and ammonites.
Mode of defense: Mosasaurs were fast, strong swimmers with their speed and strenght used to avoid larger predators. They also had large teeth and a massive double-hinged jaw for biting.
3. Alabama Cretaceous shark
Habitat: Two known species during the Cretaceous period where Cretoxyrhina mantelli and Squalicorax. They existed in the region known as Alabama when much of it was covered with saltwater.
Diet: As an example, the Cretoxyrhina mantelli was known as the Ginsu shark because it attacked its prey by slicing into them with its knife-like teeth; such prey included sea turtles, mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, bony fish such as Xiphactinus.
Defense: A tough hide, agility and sharp teach for countering attacks by predators of the same size or larger.
4. Alabama Plesiosaur
Habitat: A marine reptile that existed when much of Alabama was covered in salt water seas.
Diet: Long-necked plesiosaur: hard and soft cephalopods, bony fish such as Osteichthyes, and benthos--organisms that live on the sea bottom.
short-necked plesiosaur: carnivorous, apex predators that would pursue or ambush prey. Fish.
Defense: Best defense against larger predators was their fast swimming speed and biting.
5. Alabama antiquity laws and fossil treasures
Alabama only has one law that poorly protects fossil treasures.
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