Mosasaur Burst Swimming Performance and Hunting Strategies

New research led by Rutgers University assistant professor Kiersten Formoso and published in Current Biology on October 7, 2026, reveals that ancient giant marine reptiles known as mosasaur species like Tylosaurus could accelerate from 0 to 15 miles per hour in a single powerful slam-start swipe of the tail. The study investigates how these prehistoric ocean predators moved and hunted by reconstructing fossil skeletons and applying physics to calculate burst swimming performance, contrasting sudden ambush tactics with sustained open-water swimming. The research demonstrates that anatomical variations in tail length and flexibility determined hunting strategies, giving species like Platecarpus and Tylosaurus an advantage in shallow-sea ambushes while adapting Mosasaurus and Plotosaurus for continuous pursuit. These computational modeling tools are now being made publicly available for scientists to analyze extinct aquatic animals, providing fundamental numerical benchmarks for understanding ancient marine ecosystem dynamics.