PREVIEW

A family out for a fossil-hunting hike in North Dakota had an incredible surprise as they discovered a rare T. Rex fossil dubbed ‘Teen Rex’. Two young brothers, Jessin, 12, and Liam Fisher, nine, their dad, Sam Fisher, 45, and their cousin, Kaiden Madsen, 11, were out walking and looking for fossils when they made their incredible discovery - one of a only a handful of juvenile T. rex skeletons have ever been found. The trio of young fossil hunters discovered the T. rex fossil in the North Dakota badlands in 2022 and contacted the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s Curator of Paleontology, Tyler Lyson, who grew up in the same area and went to high school with their father. Dr. Lyson and Natalie Toth’s team of palaeontologists excavate the fossil. The excavation process, which took 11 days, involved the careful removal of overlying rock with a 70-pound jackhammer, picks, and shovels. Specialised tools and techniques were used to delicately excavate around the bones, which were embedded in sedimentary sandstone laid down by a flooding river over 66 million years ago. Once the fossil was fully exposed, it was encased in a plaster and burlap jacket, reinforced with two-by-four wood. The fossil was then transported in a helicopter net by a Black Hawk helicopter to a trailer before being driven to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. The public can now see the fossil being prepped in real-time at the Museum in Colorado