Wildlife Service

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This July 14, 2011 provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, an experts on marine reptiles, Pat Druckenmiller works carefully to prepare the plesiosaur skull for its plaster jacket at the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, Mont. at a dig site for a fossil found in Montana nearly seven years ago that has led to the discovery this new species of prehistoric sea creature. The new species of elasmosaur is detailed in an article published Thursday, April 13, 2017, in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. The creature lived about 70 million years ago in the inland sea that flowed east of the Rocky Mountains from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. (Marcus Hockett /U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services via AP)