Girl Finds 475-million-year-old Trilobite Fossil on a Walk

11-year-old Ryleigh Taylor was wandering along the shore of Douglas Lake in East Tennessee when she spotted something strange peeking out from the ground. Unusual markings on a rock turned out to be the ancient fossil of an extinct marine arthropod.

Dating back to the Paleozoic era, Taylor hopes her unusual find will once day grace the shelves of a museum for others to enjoy.

“To find something like that, it’s really really cool,” Ryleigh told WATE. “I looked down while I was walking and I found it, I just saw it.”

5_4_Fossils Museum display A zenithal picture of the fossil of a Ichthyosaur is displayed at the Jurassic Museum of Asturias headquarters in Colunga, northern Spain, November 6, 2015. Kyleigh Taylor hopes her fossil will one day be displayed in a museum. Eloy Alonso/Reuters

Her family asked Colin Sumrall, an associate professor of paleobiology at the University of Tennessee, what the weird rock could be. He confirmed it was the fossil of a trilobite—one of the most successful species to have roamed the planet, according to the American Museum of Natural History.

The bug-like critters were wiped out in a mass extinction event about 252 million years ago after enjoying a 270 million year stretch of existence on the planet. Modern humans, in comparison, only emerged some 300,000 years ago. Taylor’s fossil dates back some 475 million years, WATE reported.

5_4_Tribolite fossil Trilobite fossils are embedded in a rock. Ryleigh Taylor found one trilobite fossil lurking on the shores of a lake. Jacques Demarthon/AFP/Getty Images

See all of the best photos of the week in these slideshows

"Typically when we look at fossils of trilobites, they molt when they grow. So what happens is, the trilobite skeleton just crumbles into hundreds of little tiny pieces, Colin Sumrall, an associate professor of Paleobiology at the University of Tennessee, told WATE. “To find one where all the pieces are still intact, it's actually a pretty lucky find."

Taylor’s mother was amazed her daughter found the fossil so easily. “I'm surprised that it was right on top of that rock, for anyone who could have found it. But I'm very proud of her," Tammy Taylor told WATE.

"To find something like that, it could spark this youngster into a whole career. Maybe she'll become a great paleontologist some day,” Sumrall added.

Let's block ads! (Why?)