Rare juvenile t-rex found in Montana - KFBB.com News, Sports and Weather

Students from the University of Kansas stumbled onto the remains of what they say is a young t-rex at Hell Creek State Park in Jordan.


Ever since paleontologists started digging up fossils, only five young t-rex fossils have ever been found.  Of those five, this young discovery is the most intact.

A full set of teeth in the fossil's upper jaw were found, along with fragments of hip, foot, back and skull bones.

"Maybe they're pack hunters, maybe they're fed by their parents, we don't know how these things work as they grow up, but as far as discoveries go, the ones are the rarest ones," said David Burnham, the paleontologist with The University of Kansas that helped discover the t-rex.  
 
Like humans, adult dinosaurs don't look anything like they do when they're babies.
Since juvenile fossil finds are so rare, no one really knows what a baby t-rex looked like, but this specimen may change that.

"We feel our specimen is going to have the information in it to solve that problem,” said Burnham.  

The clay and stone terrain of the Hell Creek area make it a haven for fossil finds. Burnham says if you could map out all of the t-rex ever found, there would be a cluster of dots in Jordan, Montana.
In fact, paleontologist with the university are making plans to go back this summer in hopes of finding even more bits of baby t-rex bone.

"We're going to go back into that hill and dig some more and hopefully we can uncover some more remains of this little guy."

Burnham plans to put out a formal paper by the end of the year to announce the discovery to the entire  scientific community. Once, all of the research is published and the fossil is completely cleaned, it will be on display at the University of Kansas for the public to enjoy.