MOSASAUR

~ The Large Fossil Animal from the Quarries at Maastricht ~

Late Cretaceous ~66 to 68 million years ago

Gift of Orange Judd in 1871

The most commonly known story about its discovery and move to Paris was published in 1799 by Barthelemy Faujas de Saint-Fond (‘Histoire Naturelle de la Montagne de Saint-Pierre de Maestricht), but parts of his version of the history cannot be confirmed by archival documents.

The fossil was discovered in October 1778 close to the town of Maastricht, where soft limestones had been quarried since the Middle Ages in a large system of underground galleries. Dutch quarry-men found the fossil, and excavated it, assisted by Hoffmann, a local surgeon. The first owner was a cannon named Godding, but the French republican army occupied Maastricht on 4 November 1794 and confiscated the fossil, as requested by the French government. Faujas de Saint Fond, a geologist who was in Maastricht as Science Commisioner for the French army, offered 600 bottles of wine to anyone who brought the fossil in, which some soldiers did by 8 November. It was brought to Paris in February 1795, arriving at the Museum Nationale d’Histoire naturelle in June. Cuvier had just arrived to work at the museum, and was one of the people to which it was assigned. In 1898, the mosasaur skull was exhibited in the new gallery for Paleontology, where it remains as specimen MNHN AC9648. 

Various people from the town of Maastricht, including the daughter of cannon Godding in 1824-1827, unsuccessfully attempted to retrieve the fossil from France – the museum in Maastricht received only a copy (like ours). Unsurprisingly, Faujas de Saint Fond does not mention that he was deeply involved in the war-time capture of the fossil in his book, in which he attempts to justify the capture of the fossil by the French army. Many details, including the year of discovery of the fossil, have been shown to be incorrect. The French government maintains that the fossil was war booty, and it has been declared part of the national heritage. The original fossil was only loaned by the Museum nationale d’Histoire naturelle to the Netherlands Maastricht Natural, History Museum for a few months in 2009.

In the United States, mosasaurs also have been discovered in many sites, the best known of which from the Western Interior Seaway. This was a large shallow inland sea which covered much of the western states during the Cretaceous. The Pierre Shale collection at Wesleyan comes to us from South Dakota, Montana and Colorado, showing exquisite examples of species that Mosasaurs would have preyed on, including diverse ammonites and nautiloids.

“It was in one of the galleries of the mountain Saint-Pierre near Maestricht, at a distance of five hundred paces approximately from the main entry, that workmen busied in drawing out stones, in 1770, recognized from six feet above in the layer in which they were digging, the remainder of the head of a large animal embedded in the solid mass of the stone; that appeared very remarkable to them.”

Faujas de Saint-Fond, 1799. trans. Jean-Michel Benoit. 2010. "Head of the Crocodile" in A Brief History of Mosasaurus hoffmannii"