Jurassic Park vibes: a rare Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil found in the US. Photo
In North Dakota, America, children found an extremely rare fossil of a young T-rex. The discovery was made by brothers Liam and Jessin Fisher, who were 7 and 10 years old at the time, and their 9-year-old cousin, Kaiden Madsen.
It could change the way scientists understand the early years of this iconic dinosaur. The discovery of the fossil, nicknamed "Teenage Rex," was announced on Tuesday by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, where it will be studied and displayed, Reuters reports.
This specimen is believed to be a Tyrannosaurus rex aged 12 to 15 years.
Source: T.REX movie screenshot
On July 31, 2022, the boys were walking in the Hell Creek Formation when they noticed what looked like a large fossilized leg bone sticking out of the ground.
Liam Fisher (left), Kaiden Madsen (middle), and Jessin Fisher (right) discovered an extremely rare fossil of a juvenile T-rex in the Hell Creek Desert in North Dakota.
Source: T.REX movie screenshot
Undaunted, they sent some photos to Dr. Lyson, a family friend and paleontologist, who thought they had found a more common platypus dinosaur. However, it soon became clear that they had found something much rarer.
The specimen was excavated over 11 days, then secured in plaster casts and transported to a truck by Black Hawk helicopter.
The fossilized remains are now at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, where the public can watch the fossils being prepared in the new "Teenage Rex Preparation Lab."
Within 11 days, the fossil was excavated by a team of volunteers.
Source: T.REX movie screenshot
It turns out that this tyrannosaurus was about 13-15 years old, two-thirds the size of an adult human, 7.6 meters long and weighed 1600 kg.
"This tyrannosaurus lived about 67 million years ago, near the end of the Cretaceous period. The fossil comes from the Hell Creek Formation region, which 'preserved the last dinosaur ecosystem on Earth' just before the mass extinction," Dr. Lyson said.
Judging by the soft sandstone in which it was found, the animal's body apparently ended up on a sandbar in an ancient river system. The completeness of the skeleton remains unclear as many of the bones remain inside a three-ton rock that is currently being studied in the museum.
"The tyrannosaurus had a massive head and enormous bite force, walked on two legs and had weak hands with two fingers. The younger tyrannosaurus had a different body type than the adult - more graceful and fast, and its skull was more streamlined - and may have hunted different prey, reducing competition with the older ones," the scientist explained.
The boys' discovery and subsequent excavations were recorded by a documentary team, and now they have been made into a movie called T.REX.
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