This animal was an ocean-dwelling predator. It fed on fish and other small sea creatures. Although it lived at the same time as the dinosaurs, it does not belong to the dinosaur family. This plesiosaur is similar to the Shoal Creek plesiosaur displayed in its rock bed on the first floor. Both are from the late Cretaceous, about 80 million years ago.
Plesiosaurs are a group of marine predators that descended from terrestrial ancestors.
The plesiosaurs were probably a sister lineage to the other major group of marine predators, the ichthyosaurs. This specimen is one of the pliosaurs, which were a short-necked subgroup of plesiosaurs. For many years, the specimen's body was divided between the two institutions.