Halisaurus, MARSH, 1869

Bardet, Nathalie, Suberbiola, Xabier Pereda, Iarochene, Mohamed, Bouya, Baadi & Amaghzaz, Mbarek, 2005, A new species of Halisaurus from the Late Cretaceous phosphates of Morocco, and the phylogenetical relationships of the Halisaurinae (Squamata: Mosasauridae), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 143 (3), pp. 447-472 : 464

HALISAURUS MARSH, 1869

1869 Macrosaurus Marsh , oral communication (in Marsh, 1869: 395).

1869 Halisaurus Marsh , p. 395.

1870 Baptosaurus Marsh , p. 3.

1889 Phosphorosaurus Dollo , p. 68.

Type species: Halisaurus platyspondylus Marsh, 1869 .

Geographical and stratigraphical occurrences: Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of eastern North America ( Baird, 1986), Europe ( Lingham-Soliar, 1996), Africa (this work) and, probably, the Middle East ( Bardet & Pereda Suberbiola, 2002; this work).

Emended diagnosis: Unambiguous characters: frontal with posteromedial dorsal triangular area; articular with large conical buttress just posterior to glenoid; cervical vertebral articulations subrectangular (height: width = 1: 2). Ambiguous characters: premaxilla–maxilla suture located between the 4th and 9th maxillary teeth (convergent in Tylosaurus and Mosasaurinae); prefrontal with small supraorbital ridge (convergent in Platecarpus and Plioplatecarpus ); frontal with sinusoidal lateral margins (convergent in Plioplatecarpus , Platecarpus , Clidastes ); large parietal foramen (convergent in Platecarpus ) located close to the frontal–parietal suture (convergent in Platecarpus , Prognathodon and Mosasaurinae); supraoccipital fused to the parietal; prootic with small otosphenoidal crest (convergent in Platecarpus , Prognathodon , Clidastes ); posteriorly convex surangular–articular lateral suture (convergent in Aigialosaurus ); teeth delicate, abruptly posteriorly recurved and finely striated (convergent with Plioplatecarpus , Platecarpus , Clidastes ).