A 13-year-old found a 5-million-year-old fossil, and now there's a new species of walrus named in his honor

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A young teenager walks on the beach holding tools for excavating fossils and wearing a red jacket and backup
Forrest Sheperd as a teenager walking on the beach near where he found an ancient walrus skull.

Forrest Sheperd

Massive skull of prehistoric sea monster that was the 'ultimate killing machine' discovered in UK

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Jurassic Coast, Dorset | Stock illustration of a Pliosaur
Jurassic Coast, Dorset | Stock illustration of a Pliosaur

Getty Images

Dire wolves, camels, and other extinct giant mammals that used to live in North America

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Three woolly mammoths stand in a field of brownish plants in an artist rendering

Aunt Spray/iStock/Getty Images Plus

A tiny 'ice mouse' with teeth the size of sand grains survived some of the coldest temperatures when dinosaurs roamed the Earth

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A painting of Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis, a duck-billed dinosaur, with an insert of the tiny Sikuomys mikros, a shrew-like animal, that illustrates a scene from ancient Alaska during the Cretaceous Period.
Sikuomys mikros would have had to dodge much-larger dinosaurs when it foraged for food.

James Havens

A gold miner found a mysterious grapefruit-sized fur ball. It turned out to be a 'perfectly preserved' 30,000-year-old squirrel.

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A stiff ball of brown fur sits in a pair of human hands wearing white surgical gloves.
This ball of brown fur and gnarled legs and claws turned out to be a mummified Arctic ground squirrel.

Yukon Government

The partial skeleton of an ancient whale shows it could've weighed nearly as much as a Boeing 747, making it one of the heaviest animals ever

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Reconstruction of Perucetus colossus in its coastal habitat, a manatee-like ancient whale with a tiny head and small limbs
Since its skull and limbs were missing, much about Perucetus colossus remains a mystery.

Alberto Gennari

A new fossil shows a prehistoric badger-like mammal and a dinosaur locked in 'mortal combat'

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A fossil of a Psittacosaurus dinosaur and Repenomamus mammal skeletons fighting, with the mammal on top and biting into the dinosaur
The Repenomamus is on top of the Psittacosaurus, biting into its ribs.

Gang Han

A T. rex skeleton sold at auction for more than $5 million. It's been named Trinity and will reside in Europe's oldest skyscraper.

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A male auctioneer pointing at the T. rex skull for sale
The skull of a T. rex skeleton named Trinity sold at auction in Switzerland for more than $5 million.

(Michael Buholzer/Keystone via AP)

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