They were two brothers, Liam and Jessin Fisher tourism in North Dakota with his father and cousinKaiden Madsen, during the summer of 2022.
They were looking for a dinosaur fossil.
And they found one.
Liam and his father Sam noticed a large leg bone sticking out of the ground.
They shouted to the others to come and see.
“They came running,” said Liam, now nine. “And Dad said, ‘What’s this?’ And Jessin said, ‘That’s a dinosaur.’
Two years later, experts removed the fossils from the ground, and the remains of a young Tyrannosaurus rex are now in a museum in Colorado, where the public can see them.
The dinosaur is called “Teen Rex” because it was not yet an adult at the time of its death.
The Denver Museum of Nature and Science announced the find in early June. A fossil will displayed and studied for more years.
Jessin is now 12. When he saw the leg bone, he was sure it was a dinosaur, but he didn’t know what kind it was.
His father, Sam, contacted childhood friend Tyler Lyson, a scientist who studies dinosaurs and works at a museum in Denver. He sent the photo and Lyson began working on the permissions needed for it excavation. Last year they all returned to the site to begin work.
At first, the group thought the bone belonged to a smaller plant-eating dinosaur. But later that day, Lyson said he and Jessin found the lower jaw and several large teeth of the T. rex.
“He keeps giving it to me. goosebumpsLyson said.
“I was completely, like, speechless,” said Kaiden, now 11.
Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs. According to scientists, he lived in what is now North America about 67 million years ago. All dinosaurs disappeared about 66 million years ago.
According to scientists, the young T. rex was between 13 and 15 years old. These dinosaurs are considered fully grown from the age of 18. “Teen Rex” was about 7.6 meters long, about two-thirds the size of an adult. One fossil, named Sue, which is on display at the Field Museum in Chicago, is 12.3 meters.
Lyson said the Denver display won’t be as large as the Chicago display because much of it is still contained within a large chunk of rock. He said they have a hip bone, a skull, and a series of vertebrae, which are the back bones.
The fossil was found in a piece of soft rock called sandstone. This leads scientists to believe that the dinosaur got stuck on a sandbar in the middle of the river.
Lyson said scientists are interested in finding ways in which younger T. rex differed from older ones. They were faster and had smaller heads. For this reason, scientists think that the young dinosaurs had a different diet than the older ones.
Very few juvenile tyrannosaur fossils are available. The younger one is at the Burpee Museum in Rockford, Illinois.
Lyson said the new discovery should help dinosaur researchers understand another theory. A small number of scientists believe that a dinosaur called Nanotyrannus was related to T. rex and lived at the same time.
A film about the discovery with scientists from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science is scheduled to be released on June 21.
I’m Dan Friedell.
Dan Friedell edited this story for Learning English based on a Reuters report.
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The words in this story
tour -against. on foot or long distances in a natural area
cousin – n. children of the person’s father’s brother or sister
fossil – n. the remains of a living creature that turned into rock underground over a very long period of time
Display -against. to be shown primarily in an exhibition for the public
excavation – n. large digging operations involving heavy machinery or organized effort
goosebumps – n. (pl.) small bumps that form on the skin when people are excited or scared
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