While walking around a lake shore in Tennessee a local young girl has spotted an artifact which has later been found that it was a 475-million year old. Reports coming from Tennessee informed that the 11-year-old Ryleigh Taylor, living in the east region of the area, was walking along with the shore of Douglas Lake and found the 475-million-year-old fossil.
Later, the findings were handed over to a nearby university i.e. University of Tennessee, where, paleobiology professor Colin Sumrall tested it thoroughly.
After examining the fossil Sumrall reported that it was a belonging to an extinct sea creature known as a trilobite. “Typically when we look at fossils of trilobites, they molt when they grow,” Sumrall told ABC affiliate WATE.com. “So what happens is, when the trilobite skeleton just crumbles into hundreds of little pieces. To find one where all the pieces are intact, it’s actually a pretty lucky find.”
As per an article published on Fossilera.com, trilobites proliferated and thrived throughout the Paleozoic world, comprising one of the earliest known groups of arthropods. trilobites comprised one of the earliest known groups of arthropods and thrived throughout the Paleozoic era with more than 600 species.
For nearly 300 million years, the sea creatures resembling modern horseshoe crabs scoured the oceans.
Sumrall said he could imagine Ryleigh as a great paleontologist one day.
“I can show kids that are my age that they don’t have to sit inside and play games. They can actually go outside and find different things,” Ryleigh told WATE.
“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,” said Tammy Taylor, Ryleigh’s mother.