‘Extremely rare’ discovery hidden for a MILLION years found falling child

A MONSTROUS discovery hidden for a million years has been unearthed by a stunned 10-year-old.
Jude Sparks was hiking with his family when he tripped on something and tumbled over.
What tripped him looked like a jaw bone, but the truth was far more important.

ENORMOUS: The creature, whose bones are seen here with Peter Houde, resembled a modern elephant
He had discovered the “extremely rare” skull of an extinct stegomastodon.
The creature resembles an elephant and has a fossil record dating back five million years.
 

A supposed dead alien found in Russia, 2011
It survived until after the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, and may have been hunted by ancient humans.
Parents Kyle and Michelle knew it wasn’t a cow skull as their sons suspected and called in local experts to look.
Visiting the site in the US state of New Mexico, biology professor Peter Houde was stunned by what Jude had tripped over.

DISCOVERY: NMSU geology student Danielle Peltier with the partially-uncovered skull
“I think this is only the second full Stegomastodon skull found in the state of New Mexico,” the professor said.
Dr Houde, from New Mexico State University, said there were only three near-complete Cuvieronius skulls.
These were found in Bolivia in the early 1900’s and Dr Houde says the new find is more complete.
“Intact skulls of these are extremely rare and we’ve had unprecedented luck in obtaining the two,” he said.
He told Fox News the fossil was likely unearthed by recent rains and, despite a bit of damage, could likely be fixed.
Similar fossils exist in the southern US, Central America, and South America, but are usually scrappy bits of bone, teeth or tusks.
“The preservation of ours is truly unusual, but a great deal of that may be because we located them while they were still deep underground,” Dr Houde added.
The fact that the jaw and skull were found next to one another suggests that there could be, or could have been, other parts of the skeleton preserved not far away.