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Skin of the Cretaceous mosasaur Plotosaurus: implications for aquatic adaptations in giant marine reptiles

Overview of attention for article published in Biology Letters, April 2009
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Mentioned by

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2 X users
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5 Wikipedia pages
reddit
1 Redditor

Citations

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19 Dimensions

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73 Mendeley
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Title
Skin of the Cretaceous mosasaur Plotosaurus: implications for aquatic adaptations in giant marine reptiles
Published in
Biology Letters, April 2009
DOI 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0097
Pubmed ID
Authors

Johan Lindgren, Carl Alwmark, Michael W. Caldwell, Anthony R. Fiorillo

Abstract

The physical nature of water and the environment it presents to an organism have long been recognized as important constraints on aquatic adaptation and evolution. Little is known about the dermal cover of mosasauroids (a group of secondarily aquatic reptiles that occupied a wide array of predatory niches in the Cretaceous marine ecosystems 92-65 Myr ago), a lack of information that has hindered inferences about the nature and level of their aquatic adaptations. A newly discovered Plotosaurus skeleton with integument preserved in three dimensions represents not only the first documented squamation in a mosasaurine mosasaur but also the first record of skin in an advanced member of the Mosasauroidea. The dermal cover comprises keeled and possibly osteoderm-reinforced scales that presumably contributed to an anterior-posterior channelling of the water flow and a reduction of microturbulent burst activities along the surface of the skin. Thus, hydrodynamic requirements of life in the water might have influenced the evolution of multiple-keeled body scales in advanced mosasauroids.

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X Demographics

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 73 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Chile 1 1%
United States 1 1%
South Africa 1 1%
Canada 1 1%
Unknown 69 95%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 14 19%
Student > Ph. D. Student 10 14%
Professor 9 12%
Student > Master 9 12%
Student > Bachelor 8 11%
Other 13 18%
Unknown 10 14%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Earth and Planetary Sciences 31 42%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 20 27%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 7 10%
Physics and Astronomy 2 3%
Environmental Science 1 1%
Other 0 0%
Unknown 12 16%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 September 2021.
All research outputs
#6,534,944
of 23,577,761 outputs
Outputs from Biology Letters
#2,327
of 3,275 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#29,447
of 94,987 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Biology Letters
#32
of 52 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,577,761 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 72nd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,275 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 55.3. This one is in the 28th percentile – i.e., 28% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 94,987 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 68% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 52 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 38th percentile – i.e., 38% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.