Believed to be approximately 70 million years old, its skull and lower jaw represent the first complete skull of a long-necked plesiosaur found in Montana, according to Montana State University experts.
The skull is said to be one of the best specimens of its kind in North America.
“It’s a very important specimen,” MSU paleontologist Jack Horner said at the Museum of the Rockies where the fossil rests in boxes. “We have been looking for it for a long, long time.”