{"id":695939,"date":"2026-06-10T16:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T16:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/695939\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T16:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T16:34:15","slug":"kansas-boy-discovers-15-foot-tylosaurus-fossil-on-geology-club-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/695939\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas boy discovers 15-foot tylosaurus fossil on geology club trip"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!\n <\/p>\n

A Kansas<\/a> boy searching for fossils during a geology club field trip stumbled onto something far bigger than expected: the remains of a 15-foot-long marine reptile that swam an ancient sea 85 million years ago.<\/p>\n

Corbin Bullard was just 11 years old when he spotted several large vertebrae protruding from rock at a quarry near his hometown of Clearwater, Kansas, during a September 2025 outing with the Sedgwick County 4-H Geology<\/a> Club.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that it was something big,” Bullard told FOX Local<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Over the course of three additional excavation trips, Bullard and fellow club members carefully uncovered nearly an entire tylosaurus, a massive marine reptile that ruled the seas during the Cretaceous Period.<\/p>\n

DINOSAUR FOSSILS UNEARTHED DURING PARKING LOT CONSTRUCTION AT NATIONAL PARK<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Boy <\/p>\n

Corbin Bullard discovered the fossil at a quarry near his hometown of Clearwater, Kansas, in September 2025. (Wendy Bullard)<\/p>\n

The fossil measured more than 15 feet long and included everything from the animal’s enormous skull to most of its skeleton.<\/p>\n

\"Boy <\/p>\n

Corbin and his geology club uncovered a fossil of nearly an entire tylosaurus, a massive marine reptile from the Cretaceous Period. (Wendy Bullard)<\/p>\n

LIMPING DINOSAUR’S TWISTED PATH PUZZLES PALEONTOLOGISTS, 150 MILLION YEARS LATER: ‘VERY RARE’<\/a><\/p>\n

The ancient predator lived roughly 82 million to 87 million years ago, according to researchers who dated the specimen to the Smoky Hill Chalk formation, a fossil-rich layer of rock<\/a> that stretches across parts of Kansas.<\/p>\n

\"tylosaurus <\/p>\n

In this photo, part of the tylosaurus fossil is seen. (Wendy Bullard)<\/p>\n

The discovery emerged from a quarry where commercial crews routinely shave away layers of rock, exposing relics hidden for millions of years. Before Bullard’s find, club members had mostly uncovered shark teeth and fish fossils.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP<\/a><\/p>\n

Now 12 and preparing to enter seventh grade, Bullard plans to display the fossil’s skull at the Sedgwick County Fair in July.<\/p>\n

“I hope [the judges] say that it looks really nice and that we put a lot of effort into it,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A Kansas boy searching for fossils during a geology club…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[18380,8535,12879,4412,17532,79,25],"class_list":["post-695939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-archaeology","tag-fossils","tag-geology","tag-kansas","tag-reptiles","tag-science","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}