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Holy Fossil, Batman! 10 Year Old Stumbles Onto Incredible Archeological Discovery

Make no bones about how amazing this is!

Derrick Wright
Created by Derrick Wright (User Generated Content*)User Generated Content is not posted by anyone affiliated with, or on behalf of, Playbuzz.com.
On Jul 24, 2017
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While on a hike in New Mexico, then 9 year old Jude Sparks made the archeological discovery of a lifetime.

"I was running farther up and I tripped on part of the tusk. My face landed next to the bottom jaw. I looked farther up and there was another tusk."

Jude Sparks

Puzzled by what he had found, Jude and his family took photos of the tusks and jaw.

But they didn't match photos of typical elephant skulls.

"It didn't match perfectly with elephants, so then we said, ok, I guess it was something else."

Michelle Sparks, Jude's mother

Jude and his family contacted New Mexico State University, where they connected with professor Peter Houde.

Houde said the family had made a very rare discovery, indeed!

Jude had found a rare stegomastodon!

"For the several types of elephants that we have in the area, this is probably one of the more common of them. But they're still very rare. This may be only the second complete skull found in New Mexico."

Peter Houde, professor at NMSU

And Jude got to help the professor excavate the fossil!

If you find a large fossil, it's very important to call an expert to help excavate it.

When people find out about these things, they might be tempted to go out there and see what they might find themselves and tear up the land or they might hurt themselves."

Peter Houde, NMSU professor

Hooray for Jude's discovery!

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