A U.S. college student made the discovery of a lifetime when he dug up a 65-million-year-old triceratops skull while on a paleontology dig in the North Dakota Badlands.
Harrison Duran, a fifth year biology student at the University of California Merced, dubbed his find ‘Alice,’ after the landowner.
Duran and his professor, Michael Kjelland, believe the bones date back to the Cretaceous period, and were found alongside plant fossils that may give clues about what Alice’s life was like millions of years ago.
The Cretaceous period is thought to have lasted 79 million years, and occurred after the end of the Jurassic Period 145.5 million years ago.
It took a week to fully excavate the skull, which was then wrapped in foil and plaster for protection, then loaded onto a truck to be held in a secret location to avoid theft, according to a University of California Merced release.
Duran and Kjelland said they hope to “to have Alice rotate locations” so that many people get the chance to view the remains.
