By: Serena Zhang

On July 31, 2022, three children and their dad embarked on a fossil-finding adventure in the Hell Creek Formation of the North Dakota Badlands, an area rich with fossil bones. They hoped to find a few fossils but ended up one of the rare juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex skeletons ever found!

That fateful summer, Sam Fisher took his sons Jessin Fisher (10), his brother Liam (7), and their cousin Kaiden Madsen (9) on a hike in the hills of North Dakota. The thrilling discovery started when Liam and his dad spotted a long, white bone protruding from the ground.

Sam Fisher contacted his high school friend Dr. Tyler Lyson, who confirmed that it was a fossil. Lyson’s team of paleontologists returned to the site the next summer after receiving required permits. With the young explorers’ help, they excavated an incomplete but well preserved juvenile T. rex skeleton in 11 days. The researchers believed that the T. rex was about 25 feet long and 10 feet tall and that it was between 13-15 years old when it died.

“It would have weighed about half as much as some of the most famous Tyrannosaurus rex specimens,” Lyson said, “which is really exciting because there just aren’t that many small specimens known.”

The skeleton was unveiled at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science on June 21, 2024. The exhibit even includes a documentary called “Discovering Teen Rex,” that details the boys’ extraordinary find.

“If you just put down your electronics and just go out hiking, you’ll find something,” says Jessin Fisher on the GMA news.