Plesiosaur Femur-Texas

Taxa: Plesiosaur

Geology: Ozan formation

Age: Cretaceous

Locality: Fannin County, Texas

No repairs or restorations.

Plesiosaurs from Texas’s Late Cretaceous Ozan Formation were marine reptiles that lived in the Western Interior Seaway, which covered much of the region roughly 72–75 million years ago. They were air-breathing predators with broad, flattened bodies, four paddle-like flippers for underwater propulsion, and sharp teeth for catching fish and other marine animals; the fossils generally consist of isolated bones or teeth rather than complete skeletons. The Ozan Formation is a marine, clay- and marl-rich unit exposed especially along the North Sulphur River in northeast Texas, where it also yields fossils of sharks, rays, fish, ammonites, and other sea life.