One day last week, when 8-year-old Dace Miller was hired to dig a hole for his neighbors in South Jordan, he found a bone. The bone looked pretty old and important, Dace figured, so he nagged his mother until she drove him to the University of Utah's Museum of Natural History. They waited around for a while because all the paleontologists were in a meeting.
Eventually Eric Rickart, a mammal expert, came out and told Dace that the bone is actually a tooth. The tooth might have been from a bison or possibly a horse. The tooth might be as much as 1,000 years old. Dace said he was disappointed he hadn't found a saber tooth and that the museum didn't want to buy it for $3 million. But he's kind of glad he was able to take it home.
Ann Hanniball, the museum's assistant director, says dozens of kids come in every summer to have their "finds" identified and that museum scientists are glad to meet children. They remember being kids themselves, she says. They remember it was fun to dig holes and find stuff.