conducted the research as a graduate student at the University of Florida. He knew his team members had come upon something exceptional when they unearthed the fossils. "That emotion of finding ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -After the demise of the dinosaurs following an asteroid strike 66 million years ago, mammals became Earth's dominant land animals. But that does not mean they went unchallenged.

These fossils were estimated to be 500,000 to 780,000 years old.Thanks to the dedication of volunteers from the San Joaquin Valley Paleontology Foundation, 6,000 fossils were unearthed by 1997.

"That emotion of finding the fossil and realizing what it is—that's indescribable," said paper author and University of Florida paleontologist Lazaro Viñola Lopez in a statement. The revelation ...

“That emotion of finding the fossil and realizing what it is, it’s indescribable,” Lazaro Viñola Lopez, who conducted the research as a graduate student at the University of Florida, said in a press ...

And according to Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) geologist James Starnes, a recent vertebrae fossil find belonged to “about as big” a mosasaur specimen as one could get.