In 2020, Madzia and Cau performed a Bayesian analysis using phylogenetic data from Simões "et al." (2017) to better understand the evolutionary influence on early mosasaurs by contemporaneous pliosaurs and polycotylids by examining the rates of evolution in mosasauroids like "Tylosaurus" (specifically "T. proriger", "T. nepaeolicus", and "T. bernardi"). A Bayesian analysis in the study's implementation can approximate numerically-defined rates of morphological evolution and ages of divergence of clades. The Tylosaurinae was approximated to have diverged from the Plioplatecarpinae around 93 million years ago; the divergence was characterized by a very high rate of evolution and the highest evolutionary rate among all mosasaurid lineages. This trend of rapid evolution coincided with the extinction of the pliosaurs and a decrease in polycotylid diversity. The study noted converging traits between "Tylosaurus", pliosaurs, and some polycotylids in tooth morphology and body size. However, there was no evidence to suggest that "Tylosaurus" or its precursors evolved as a result of out-competing and/or driving to extinction the pliosaurs and polycotylids, which the study maintained as speculation. Instead, Madiza and Cau proposed that "Tylosaurus" may have taken advantage of the extinction of the pliosaurs and decline of polycotylids to quickly fill the ecological void they left behind. The Bayesian analysis also approximated a divergence of "T. nepaeolicus" from the rest of the genus around 86.88 million years ago and a divergence between "T. proriger" and "T. bernardi" around 83.16 million years ago. The analysis also generated a paraphyletic status of the genus, approximating "Taniwhasaurus" to have diverged from "Tylosaurus" around 84.65 million years ago, but this result is not consistent with previous phylogenetic analyses.