Jude Sparks was out on a family hike in the desert near Las Cruces, New Mexico, testing walkie-talkies, when he tripped over a rocky protrusion.
When he got up, he examined what appeared to be two large, fossilized teeth jutting out from the ground. Further up, he spotted what looked like a tusk, he added.
Jude, then 9, was intrigued. But his brother Hunter, who had been running behind him, didn't seem too impressed.
"Hunter said it was just a big, fat rotten cow," Jude told KVIA News, which first reported the story.
"I didn't know what it was. I just knew it wasn't usual."
The boys' parents photographed the curious mass, then helped Jude look up experts online that night, he added.
They emailed Peter Houde, a biology professor at New Mexico State University who maintains a lab devoted to palaeontological studies.
"I immediately recognized the importance of what it was," Houde told the news station. "We went out there the very next day to have a look at it." Read more....
When he got up, he examined what appeared to be two large, fossilized teeth jutting out from the ground. Further up, he spotted what looked like a tusk, he added.
Jude, then 9, was intrigued. But his brother Hunter, who had been running behind him, didn't seem too impressed.
"Hunter said it was just a big, fat rotten cow," Jude told KVIA News, which first reported the story.
"I didn't know what it was. I just knew it wasn't usual."
The boys' parents photographed the curious mass, then helped Jude look up experts online that night, he added.
They emailed Peter Houde, a biology professor at New Mexico State University who maintains a lab devoted to palaeontological studies.
"I immediately recognized the importance of what it was," Houde told the news station. "We went out there the very next day to have a look at it." Read more....