Rare juvenile T. rex fossil found by children in North Dakota to go on display in Denver museum

Rare juvenile T. rex fossil found by children in North Dakota to go on display in Denver museum

A rare juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex fossil found by three children during a family hike in the North Dakota Badlands nearly two years ago will soon be on display at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the museum said Tuesday.

The unlikely discovery was made in July 2022 by brothers Jessin and Liam Fisher, their father Sam Fisher, and their cousin, Kaiden Madsen. Unsure of what his family had just stumbled upon, Sam reached out to an old high school friend, paleontologist Tyler Lyson, for help.

After obtaining an excavation permit from the Bureau of Land Management — which manages the land where the discovery was made — Lyson, the museum’s curator of paleontology, went out to North Dakota in 2023 with a crew and the children to excavate the fossil. 

Rare juvenile T. rex fossil found by children in North Dakota to go on display in Denver museum
A family found a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex fossil in North Dakota’s Badlands in 2022. (clockwise from upper left) Sam Fisher, Emalynn Fisher, Danielle Fisher, Liam Fisher, Kaiden Madsen, and Jessin Fisher, pose with the field jacket after it was rolled into a helicopter net. Undated photo. 

Tyler Lyson


When he went into the project, Lyson thought the dino may have been something more ordinary, he said in a video interview posted by the museum. However, when he uncovered the most diagnostic part of the fossil, the teeth, he said he knew the “trio of young fossil hunters” had found something really special.

Simrin Singh

Source: cbsnews.com