Most bachelor parties are hazy memories of booze-addled debauchery. But one group of guys stumbled onto something lasting longer than a hangover.
The men were hiking through Elephant Butte State Park near Albuquerque, New Mexico, when they saw a large object protruding from the ground. They dug further and discovered what was later identified as a 3 million-year-old stegomastodon skull, and quickly snapped a few photos, which they sent to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque.
(From left) NMMNHS volunteer Warren Slade, New Mexico State Parks archaeologist Robert Stokes, and NMMNHS paleontologist Gary Morgan digging out the specimen.
Image: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Randall Gann
Archaeologists determined that the skull, which weighed about one ton, belonged to a prehistoric relative of the elephant that lived during the Ice Age. It likely went extinct around 10,000 years ago.
The top of the excavated specimen’s head with the tusks curling down into the earth.
Image: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Randall Gann
“It’s almost a complete skull. The only thing that’s missing is the bottom jaw. The teeth still have enamel on them,” Randall Gann, the museum’s public information officer, told Mashable. Gann was at the site when the specimen was excavated. “It’s really hard to wrap your head around something being 3 million years old.”
In May, paleontologists in Argentina unearthed the largest dinosaur known to ever exist.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCdIiVpUF6E?list=PLSKUhDnoJjYmGeQ1iy3tNC3j72ft5YZzJ&w=640&h=360]
Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/06/16/stegomastodon-skull-fossil/
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