Mosasaur fossil at Natural History Museum of L.A. County re-explores 85-million-year-old sea monster

(Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County) One of the ocean's most formidable marine predators, the mosasaur Platecarpus, lived in the Cretaceous Period some 85 million years ago and was thought to have swum like an eel. That theory is debunked in a new paper published today in the journal PLoS ONE. An international team of scientists have reconceived the animal's morphology, or body plan, based on a spectacular specimen housed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.