DALLAS — Scientists from Southern Methodist University have helped a Dallas zookeeper and his 5-year-old son excavate a dinosaur fossil they found behind a grocery store in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The Dallas Morning News reported that Tim Brys and his son Wylie worked at the excavation site Tuesday to dig up what paleontology professor Dale Winkler believes could be a nodosaur, a pony-size dinosaur that dwelled on land.
Brys and his son discovered the fossil in September, but it took over seven months to obtain permits to dig up the bones. Scientists started digging Friday.
At the time, the zookeeper was not sure what his son had found, so the two kept digging because they knew there was a chance of finding Jurassic period marine life remnants in the area.
“He walked up ahead of me and found a piece of bone,” Brys said. “It was a pretty good size and I knew I had something interesting.”