Mosasaur
Mosasaurs (from Latin "Mosa" meaning the 'Meuse river', and Greek σαύρος "sauros" meaning 'lizard') are an extinct group of large marine reptiles containing 38 genera in total. Their first fossil remains were discovered in a limestone quarry at Maastricht on the Meuse in 1764. Mosasaurs probably evolved from an extinct group of aquatic lizards known as aigialosaurs in the Early Cretaceous. During the last 20 million years of the Cretaceous period (Turonian-Maastrichtian ages), with the extinction of the ichthyosaurs and pliosaurs, mosasaurs became the dominant marine predators. They became extinct as a result of the K-Pg event at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years ago.
List of informally named dinosaurs
"Thotobolosaurus" or "Kholumolumosaurus" is the name given to an as yet not formally described genus of dinosaur. It lived during the Late Triassic (Carnian to Norian stage). "Thotobolosaurus" lived in what is present-day Lesotho, and is believed to have been a prosauropod or early sauropod. The suggested "type species", "Thotobolosaurus mabeatae", was coined by Paul Ellenberger in 1970. Although the fossils have been referred to in scientific literature since the 1970s, this African dinosaur has never been formally described, and is considered a "nomen nudum". The name "Thotobolosaurus" comes from Sesotho South African, Thotobolo for "trash heap", referring to where the fossil remains were found, in 1955 by paleontologist Paul Ellenberger, in the immediate vicinity of a refuse pile a few meters from native huts in the Village of Maphutseng, western Lesotho. The specific name, "T. mabeatae", is named after an elderly woman and local resident of the western Lesotho village of Maphutseng whose name was 'Mabeata (from Sesotho, meaning "Mother of Beata"). Remains of the type fossil were found by the author and party in the immediate vicinity of 'Mabeata's refuse pile, located close by her hut. Mabeatae is a feminine proper name in the Latin genitive case.