A rare fossil was discovered Monday afternoon along the gravel banks of the Luxapalila Creek near Propst Park, at the future site of the Dr. John “Jack” Kaye Cretaceous Fossil Park.
Steve Zuppa, a member of the fossil park’s development team, was searching the banks with his son Kaden Zuppa when they came across what is believed to be a nearly fully-intact vertebrae bone from a theropod, a land-roaming dinosaur, sticking out of the ground.
“We’d seen a little bit of it sticking up out of the gravel and pulled it out and my legs started shaking,” Steve Zuppa said. “I knew it was something special.”
George Phillips, paleontology curator for the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, confirmed the finding remotely.
Phillips told The Dispatch that based on what has been found in the area previously, the bone likely belongs to a tyrannosaur or an ornithomimosaur, or ostrich-mimicking dinosaur, both of which are types of theropods.
Phillips said it was rare to find the remains of a land-roaming dinosaur along the Luxapalila Creek, which is mostly dominated by marine reptile fossils.
“We’ve found them before, but it’s very dominantly marine organisms in this deposit,” Phillips said. “To find something that is relatively rare is always a special occasion.”
Phillips said it was also an extreme rarity to find a fossil left as intact as this, as bones typically break down very easily in marine deposits like the Luxapalila Creek.
Zuppa said due to the fossil’s “scientific value,” it won’t remain in his display case. Zuppa will donate the bone to the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, where Phillips and his team will further examine it in hopes of determining what species of theropod it came from.
Local historian Rufus Ward said the last significant finding from the Luxapalila Creek was in 2022, when the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science released a paper on ostrich-mimicking dinosaur toe bones that were discovered along the creek.
Phillips said it took about 25 years to amass between two and three dozen toe bones from the area.
Zuppa said the discovery bodes well for the future of the fossil park.
“This is an opportunity to get your kids involved,” Zuppa said. “… I’m really appreciative that this exists and that the park is moving forward. It’s going to be a fantastic opportunity to get young minds into activities other than screen time, and it’s going to ensure that we have future academics as well.
“I’m really happy about it and today’s find just goes to show you, you don’t know what’s out there,” he added.
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