The rare plioplatecarpine mosasaur Latoplatecarpus in Europe as further evidence of a semi-global Campanian marine vertebrate fauna

The study of mosasaurid materials from the Campanian Rybushka Formation of the Beloe Ozero locality (Saratov Region, Russia) revealed that the only plioplatecarpine taxon identifiable at genus level is Latoplatecarpus. Among other abundant North American plioplatecarpines, this rare genus is known from only a few specimens. New plioplatecarpine material from Russia comprises isolated but exceptionally well preserved cranial and postcranial elements including maxilla, dentary, frontals, pterygoid, quadrates, fragment of braincase, elements of pectoral girdle and vertebrae, from which most cranial remains can be referred to Latoplatecarpus cf. willistoni. Considering that Campanian fossil record of plioplatecarpines is extremely scarce in Europe compared to that from North America, specimens from the Beloe Ozero locality shed new light on paleogeography of the group. The record of Latoplatecarpus outside of North America demonstrates that this genus had a significantly wider geographic and stratigraphic distribution. This augments previous evidence that many mosasaurid taxa had cosmopolitan distribution across the Atlantic, and that Campanian marine vertebrate faunas of the Western Interior Seaway and European epicontinental seas had many taxa in common.