r/todayilearned • u/QueenOfNZ • 12h ago
TIL that in 2022, a 7-year-old boy, his brother, and their cousin discovered a rare juvenile T. rex fossil in North Dakota. Dubbed "Teen Rex," it is one of only four juvenile T. rex fossils ever found.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rare-juvenile-t-rex-fossil-found-north-dakota-badlands-by-children-denver-museum/339
u/EndlessMorfeus 12h ago
A kid dinossaur fossil discovered by a kid. Perfect simetry, this happens more in storytelling than in real life.
101
15
26
u/dinodoes 11h ago
Wonder if that's because they are normally rare in general and small T-rexes were still the top predator
29
u/Neglect_Octopus 10h ago
My best guess is that the environments that T-Rex are found in bias against preserving animals of a younger T-Rex in size and they probably end up dying in ways that aren't exactly great for preserving the animal.
13
u/StewVicious07 7h ago
Also animals are typically full grown or near full grown for the majority of their lives.
Odds are we find adults
2
u/CartsOfDarkness 2h ago
On the other hand it must depend on species right? Like a lot of species (even humans back in the day) would have 10 kids and only a fraction would actually make it to adulthood. I'd think this would actually be true for a lot of animals, I mean an animal is most likely to survive when its fully developed. As the top comment said though even an adolescent T-Rex would still likely be a top predator, but even then you'd think they'd be more likely to starve to death etc. compared to an adult.
-2
u/Soup-Wizard 6h ago
I had this idea that T-Rex probably only had 1-2 offspring at a time anyways, vs the 10-15 babies smaller species would have had.
35
12h ago edited 23m ago
[removed] — view removed comment
34
u/GrandCanOYawn 11h ago
The brother and cousin were both named Kaiden..??? 🤦
12
u/paddle_forth 10h ago
This has to be AI. Look at the actual article, they are not both named Kaiden. And it doesn’t mention their ages
3
4
u/rockiesfan4ever 10h ago
Actual quote from the article.
Brothers Liam and Jessin Fisher and their cousin Kaiden Madsen discovered the fossilized remains of a young Tyrannosaurus rex.
1
23
u/TheButcherOfLuverne 11h ago
Why not just say three kids discovered it. Is the 7yo who found it and the brother and the cousin were just around? So many questions.
31
u/Crepuscular_Animal 10h ago
The 7 year old spotted it first while on a hike with two other kids, so he is the discoverer
3
u/99timewasting 7h ago
Where did you see that? I looked up a few articles and none of them mentions that the 7 year old spotted it first or is given credit as "the discoverer." Most of them just give credit to three kids 7-10
10
u/Crepuscular_Animal 6h ago edited 6h ago
Here: "We’d been walking for about an hour when Liam spotted something in the ground. My dad called me over to take a look." Liam is the 7-year old. (Although, their father and his friend, the paleontologist who confirmed it was a dinosaur bone, deserve credit too.)
-8
u/TheButcherOfLuverne 10h ago
Then let's just say a 7 year old kid, no need to name the others. Anyway I know I'm just being pedantic and it doesn't matter at all lol
4
3
u/space-to-bakersfield 9h ago
Funny thing is, I don't even see the 7-yo being singled out in the article. It just says "found by three children during a family hike" and then "The unlikely discovery was made in July 2022 by brothers Jessin and Liam Fisher, their father Sam Fisher, and their cousin, Kaiden Madsen".
3
7
2
u/th3rdeye_ 7h ago
It’s funny I stumbled across this… an old high school buddy of mine was the producer on this film
1
u/Reddit_2_2024 8h ago
Climate in North Dakota must not have been as frigid half the year like it is now.
•
196
u/beachedwhale1945 11h ago
I wonder if this is still considered a T Rex or is one that has been reclassified as a Nanotyrannus. There was considerable debate over whether Nanotyrannus was a real genus or just juvenile T. Rex until last year, when an extensive mic drop of a paper studying the complete Dueling Dinosaurs skeleton showed they cannot be juveniles.