Plioplatecarpus

Plioplatecarpus is a genus of mosasaur lizard. Like all mosasaurs, it lived in the late Cretaceous period, about 82-68 million years ago.

==Discovery== thumb|left|Plioplatecarpus mounted skull in the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, Colorado Plioplatecarpus has been found in many locations around the world (most mosasaurs were fairly widespread). Plioplatecarpus has been found in the Pierre Shale of Kansas, Demopolis Chalk of Alabama, and also in Mississippi, Tennessee, North Dakota, South Dakota, Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands. It was first found in Europe by paleontologist Louis Dollo (P. marshi), in 1882. It was relatively incomplete, but more fossils would soon turn up. In North America, Edward Drinker Cope found another mosasaur in 1869, but had identified it as Mosasaurus. It would later be reclassified as Plioplatecarpus, as would Cope's Liodon, in 1870. Liodon would be reclassified as Platecarpus, and later as Prognathodon or this genus.