And here's what would happen if mosasaurs were still alive?

我们一起来看看，如果沧龙还活着会是什么情况？

And others believed that snakes evolved fromthe mosasaurs, giant swimming lizards that lived 144 to 65 million years ago.

另一些科学家认为蛇由沧龙进化而来，沧龙是生活在一亿四千四百万年前至六千五百万年前的一种巨型水生蜥蜴。

Except it's difficult to analyze the genes of the extinct mosasaurs.

分析已经灭绝的沧龙的基因是非常困难的。

Among the likely creatures to have laid it are species of mosasaurs and plesiosaurs.

沧龙和蛇颈龙是可能产下此蛋的生物。

Its predators include mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, large water creatures up to 15 meters in length.

它的捕食者包括沧龙和蛇颈龙，这是一种体长可达15米的大型水生物。

Sea monsters like the mosasaur were real.

像 Dreadnoughtus 一样的恐龙是真实存在的。

Could the mosasaur have survived the great extinction?

沧龙能在大灭绝中活下来吗？

Other aquatic creatures  of the time like the plesiosaurs and mosasaurs are technically not dinosaurs.

当时的其他水生生物，如蛇颈龙和沧龙，严格来说并不是恐龙。

They probably remind you of animals like mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, and plesiosaurs.

它们可能会让您想起沧龙、鱼龙和蛇颈龙等动物。

Mosasaurs like this Clidastes were reptilian relatives of modern monitor lizards and snakes.

像这种 Clidastes 这样的沧龙是现代巨蜥和蛇的爬行动物亲戚。

Instead, they probably gave birth to live young while out at sea, just like some ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs probably did.

相反， 它们可能在出海时生下了幼崽，就像一些鱼龙和沧龙可能那样。

But while giant lizards like this mosasaur ruled the oceans, a very different group of reptiles filled the skies.

但是，像沧龙这样的巨型蜥蜴统治着海洋时，天空中却有一群截然不同的爬行动物。

And there was also an explosion in diversity of the mosasaurs.

沧龙的多样性也出现了爆炸式增长。

But the problem is, Komodo dragons and their kin are also thought to be the closest living relatives of the mosasaurs.

但问题是，科莫多巨蜥及其近亲也被认为是沧龙现存的最近亲。

He notes that visitors can see the remains of large, fierce animals like the mosasaur, as well as gentler creatures like an ancient giant sea turtle.

他指出，游客们能够一睹沧龙等巨大、凶猛的动物遗骸，也可以看到古代巨型海龟等较温和的动物遗骸。

But if the mosasaur had survived the extinction event, which killed off three-quarters of the plant and animal species on earth, then we'd definitely know about it.

在地球四分之三动植物都灭绝的大灭绝中，沧龙要是存活了下来，那我们肯定会知道了。

Advocates of the aquatic lizard hypothesis, for example, think that snakes may actually be distant cousins of the fiercest predators of the Cretaceous seas -- the mosasaurs.

水生蜥蜴假说的支持者认为， 例如，蛇实际上可能是白垩纪海域最凶猛的掠食者——沧龙的远亲。

In the aftermath of the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous, diving predators like small mosasaurs and plesiosaurs were gone, so their ecological niches were suddenly open.

白垩纪末期大灭绝之后，小型沧龙、蛇颈龙等潜水食肉动物消失了，它们的生态位突然打开了。

Some paleontologists have argued that snakes like Pachyrhachis descended from mosasaurs, because they share a lot of similarities in the shape of their skulls, especially around the jaw.

一些古生物学家认为， 像 Pachyrhachis 这样的蛇是沧龙的后代，因为它们的头骨形状有很多相似之处，尤其是在下巴周围。

Monster You see it all the time, like in blog posts that describes some awesome mosasaur fossil as a sea monster or articles that try to get more clicks by calling a pterosaur a flying monster.

怪物 你经常看到它，比如在博客文章中将一些令人敬畏的沧龙化石描述为海怪，或者在文章中试图通过将翼龙称为飞行怪物来获得更多点击。