In November 2010, hunter David Bradt stumbled on an elasmosaur fossil at the bottom of a narrow canyon on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge.

The specimen proved to be a new, short-necked species of elasmosaur, subsequently named Nakonanectes bradti.

Other elements of the fossil included the anterior cervical vertebrae, partial dorsal and caudal vertebrae, incomplete fore and hindlimbs, gastralia, partial pectoral and pelvic girdles, and ribs.

[2] The fossil was found in the Bearpaw Formation, a late Campanian/early Maastrichtian rock, making it one of the last known elasmosaurids to have lived in the Western Interior Seaway.

[2] Danielle Serratos, Patrick Druckenmiller, and Roger Benson found that N. bradti, established by them to be a styxosaurine, is convergent in build to the Aristonectinae, short-necked elasmosaurids known from fossils collected in South America.