By: Adalyn Xiao

On July 31, 2022, Jessin Fisher, his brother Liam, and cousin Kaiden Madsen went fossil-hunting in the Hell Creek Formation in the North Dakota Badlands. There are many dinosaur bones there, because rain and sediment washed carcasses of dinosaurs from shorelines into moving water, which buried them and effectively preserved them for eternity. Knowing this, the trio hoped to find a few dinosaur bones.

The discovery began when Liam (7 years old) and his dad, Sam Fisher, saw a long, grayish white bone sticking out of the ground. “My dad hollered for Jessin and Kaiden to come, and they came running up on the butte,” Liam told The Washington Post. They came up excitedly to see what his dad had found. Jessin was sure that it was a dinosaur bone.

Sam Fisher sent a photo of the bone to Dr. Tyler Lyson, a paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Dr. Lyson confirmed Jessin’s hunch that it was a dinosaur bone. At first, he thought the bone was of a duckbill dinosaur, a commonly found species. But, later on, he realized the bone was actually a T-rex tooth. Further digging revealed three more teeth connected to a jaw bone.

The bones of the huge dinosaur were encased in a massive 6,000-pound, eight-foot-wide, chunk of sandstone, so it took 11 days to excavate. The incomplete, but well-preserved, skeleton included the dinosaur’s lower leg, hips, pelvis, tail vertebrae, and most of its skull.

“Juvenile T-rex specimens are extremely rare. This find is significant to researchers because the ‘Teen Rex’ specimen may help answer questions about how the king of dinosaurs grew up.” Dr. Lyson said.