Tylosaur is found in Sask. wheat belt

A huge, 73-million-year-old tylosaur was recently excavated near Herbert Ferry on Lake Diefenbaker, the first such discovery to be made in Saskatchewan.

The Royal Saskatchewan Museum says excavators removed up to 17 ft. of overburden to reveal the fossil of the lizard-like reptile, which swam in shallow seas in the late age of dinosaurs.

John Storer, provincial paleontologist at the museum, says it was the youngest tylosaur fossil found, and extends the record of tylosaurs several million years later than previously thought. He also says it is by far the most northerly record of the animal.

Tylosaurs lived in the Bearpaw Sea, an inland waterway that stretched from western Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The skull of the huge marine reptile found by museum staff and others measures more than 4 ft. in length, suggesting that the entire animal might have been 40 ft. long.