- Over on that far ridge there's something very
white in coloration. (rocks crushing) (breathing heavily) That is a jaw bone. Yes! Wow! That is an amazing find. A legit jaw bone. Oh, this is exciting. - [Mark] Guys, is that
a saber from a cat? Kinda looks like it, right? (egg cracking) (dramatic music) - [Coyote] Many miles out
into the vast wilderness of the Badlands, the
crew and I are searching for fossils alongside
paleontologist Pete Larson. So far at this top
secret dig site we've uncovered the remains
of two ancient turtles. And now with some fossil hunting
knowledge under our belts, we have been turned loose to search for
artifacts on our own. - Rolling?
- Rolling, action. - Rolling?
- Yeah. - I'm rolling too.
- Man, it's hot. - It is super hot. We have made some
incredible finds thus far. Turtles and a whole bunch
of little bones and teeth. Now, Pete has showed us the
process we need to go through to search for these fossils. And at this point he
has turned us loose and sent us on the
mission of finding a saber-toothed cat skull. It could happen, guys. They do find them out here. Now what I'm gonna
do is give you a GoPro, Mark.
- Okay. - There you go.
- Got my GoPro. - I'm also gonna give
one to you, Mario. - Oh, I see what's
goin' on here. - And I've got one
right here filming me. Now, we're gonna break
down the main cameras and use the GoPros
to film ourselves walking around,
searching for fossils. Now if you find something
epic, call it out. May the man with
the best fossil win. Good luck, guys! Let's see what we can find. - All right, Mario, ready? - All right.
- Let's do this. - Which way do we go?
- Any way you want. - [Mario] All right,
I'll go this way. - All right, guys. They have turned the bone
hound loose into the Badlands. (gentle acoustic music) What is this here? That is just a rock. Oh, look at this. That's pretty cool. That's one I'm
gonna keep for sure. (blows) - Piece of a turtle
shell right there. Just a fragment that's come
down the wash, so it's tricky. This is a lot of times a
good place to find fragments of fossils but if you
wanna find something whole, you really need to
look on the edges for something that just was
exposed by the recent rains that came through the area. And that's what I
think I'm gonna find if I keep going this way. - Check that out. A little femur bone
I'm suspecting. That's cool, actually. (groans) There's the top of it. Those are worth holding
onto right there. All right. We're gonna cut down
through this valley and see what we can find. - Tell you what it's hot out here. And finding fossils is not easy. That's for sure. Your eyes have to be trained to catch any different texture
in the soil or coloration. - Look at this. This is a huge tortoise. (sighs) That's a big piece of
carapace right there. Wow! You can see where all the bones have just crumbled
down the hillside. Now that's considered
an ex-turtle, as Pete calls them. Nothing to be collected there
but for me, still a cool find. All right. I'm almost to the
top of this ridge and that's where we're
gonna find something cool. (footsteps thumping) (suspenseful music) - [Mario] Look at this. This is a tiny, tiny rodent jaw. It's amazing 'cause
you would think how are you gonna find
such a tiny object? But that just stands
out quite well in this type of substrate. - Over on that far ridge about there, there's
something very white in coloration sticking
out of the substrate. Could just be another
piece of a turtle shell (breather heavily) It's big enough to be a skull. All right, I'm goin' for it. (dramatic music) I'm gonna have to slide
down through this canyon to get there. And I'm just gonna go for
a basic skeet slide here. Here we go. (crunching down rocks) (sighs) Now I gotta get
up the other side. A lot easier said than done. - Oh my goodness. Guys, is that a
saber from a cat? - Check this out. (breathes heavily) That is a jaw bone. Yes! Wow! That is an amazing find. A legit jaw bone right there. Okay, I'm gonna look around, see if there's
anything more of it. Yes! - Get out of here. That is awesome. Man, I wonder if
there's any more of it. - Oh, this is exciting. Very gently, yes. Oh, almost lost it. Wow! (breathes heavily) Stay there, knife. That is the find of the
day for me right there. The jaw bone of... It could be a cat. Those look like cat teeth. All right, I gotta
investigate this area a little bit more and
see what else I can find. Yes! Yes! That is a huge find for me. Man, the skull hound delivers. (light tonal music) - Oh! Cool. So, I found this fossil here. Looks pretty big as it stands. This is the biggest
fossil I've found so far. Everything so far
I've been finding has been tiny, like mandibles. But this appears to be maybe some type
of leg bone or arm bone. I'm not sure. But anyways, you gotta
put this in the pack and go see what else I can find. - I have investigated
the area pretty well, and I don't see any more
fragments of the skull. I'm checking down
in this canyon now with the hopes that
maybe something washed all the way through, but... Oh, oh, oh, more teeth,
more teeth, right here. Look at this. This is a different animal but that's another
jaw right there. All right, I think I'm, more jaw, more jaw. Hold on a second, what's this? (light orchestral music) This might be the
back of a skull. It is. It's the top of a skull. I found a skull,
I found a skull. Hold on a second. Yes! Man, it's a strike again. Okay, I've got small
jaw fragments right here and what appears to be a
cranium without question. Look at that. You can see where the
brain stem connected, it's all broken apart
but that is a skull. All right, guys. Well, I've got a pocket
full of good stuff. I think it's time to head back
and meet up with the team. - All right, guys, well we
are back from the adventure. It was hot, it was
dry, it was dusty. But we all made it and
it certainly was epic. Now we found lots of
incredible specimens. Look at all these fossils. On the end we have Mario's. In the middle we have Mark's. And right here we have Coyote's. Now we have placed
our prized fossils out here on these pieces of wood but we saved our
best pieces for last. And at the end, we're
each gonna reveal our most, you know, sort
of celebrated relic. - Kind of like our grand finale. - Yeah, the grand finale. So what I wanna do now is first we're gonna go
through Mario's stuff, then Mark's, then mine. And Pete, if you
would be so kind as to help us identify
some of these fossils. - Sure. - That will help everybody
out there watching know exactly what
it is we found. - [Mark] All right. So Mario, you're up.
- Sound good? - Okay.
- All right, buddy, what did you find? Man, looks good. - All right, so, I do
know what this one is-- A tortoise.
- Yep, that's a turtle. Yep, very good.
- Okay. And then I kind of
of get lost over here with maybe some type of mammal? - [Pete] So this is, this
actually is also a turtle. - Okay. - [Pete] So that's
a turtle tibia, the distal end of
a turtle tibia. - [Mario] Gotcha. - [Pete] Another
piece of turtle here. This is a pelvis,
part of a pelvis. You can see right where the
femur would go right in there. Anybody needs a hip
replacement, contact Mario. - [Mario] Okay. (drum drops) - And then we've got leptomeryx. Leptomeryx is a relative
of the antelope caprid, the modern day pronghorn.
- Oh. - [Pete] This is actually
a little paleolagus, a little rabbit jaw.
- Cool. - [Pete] And this is a mouse. A guy called yumeze or as they said in the
oligocene, yummies. - All right, Mark, you
want me to take over on that camera? - Yeah, here, do you
wanna take this one? - Sure, I'm gonna
cut the GoPro here. - All right.
- I will take this. Still rolling?
- Yeah, I'm rolling. - Okay, and get the ear buds. Oh, yeah, all right. Coyote's got the big camera. - Man, you got a lot, Coyote.
- I did. - You got a lot of fossils. I had to work hard for my stash, but I'm feeling
like my grand finale is gonna be worth the wait. But just before then,
let's go through these. I know what this is. That's a turtle. I thought that was pretty cool. This looks like a
piece of a carapace. - [Pete] Yep, part of
the turtle as well. - [Mark] Yeah. This I have no idea. Pete, you're gonna have to
help me out on that one. - [Pete] That's a humerus. That's an oreodont humerus probably from the
bigger oreodont, merycredidon culpra sonine. - Okay. This is a shard of a
bone but it was larger so I picked it up. - So a little bit
harder to identify. Possibly, it looks like
probably a long bone, probably a part of a
femur from something big like one of the rhinos. - Oh, rhino bone.
- Yeah. - I'll take that. And then I have a
whole smorgasbord of different looking teeth here. I'm not sure if they're
all the same species? - You have uppers and
lowers from this guy called leptomeryx evansi and then this little guy here is a little tiny antelope
called antelope caprid, called Hypisodus. So this is a pretty
rare little guy here. - Oh, cool! - I think we found
only one skull here the whole time we've dug here. - All right, Coyote. - All right. I filled almost an entire
two by four with fossils. Now, like I said, I
am the bone hound. The skull hound,
and I actually found a crushed skull out there. Now Pete, I don't know
what species this is but it is definitely a cranium. You can see where the back
of the skull would connect-- - [Pete] There's
little condials there-- - [Coyote] To the
vertebrae there. - [Pete] Yep, so that's
a brain case, basically. - Yeah. - Judging from this and
also the teeth all match a leptomeryx, so
leptomeryx evansi. - Okay.
- The antelope caprid. Yeah, so yeah, both maxilla
and there's, looks like some of the mandible too there. So that's very cool. All the same beast. - That was one of
my coolest finds. Then I found even
bigger jaw pieces. Now, I got really
excited because I
thought that I had found the cat skull. I just saw these two
pieces sticking up from the dirt and I saw
these big sharp tips, dug down, but these
were the only pieces that I managed to unearth. Now what are those, Pete? - And these are actually
two different individuals. You can see, they're
both the left maxilla-- - Oh, wow. - [Pete] Of the oreodont,
probably merycoidodon halprinae. - [Coyote] Okay. - [Pete] So, sort of the
middle sized oreodont. But you can see they're
exactly the same. - Really? 'Cause I found those like
both right next to each other. - Isn't that interesting?
- Wow! - How you'd think
they'd be the same but it can't because
that's repeat. - Yeah. - They're both left maxilla. - Very cool. This guy had two left
feet, as they say. - Yep, that's right. - I have a couple of other
teeth and jaw pieces here. But then check this out. This is some sort of
a femur bone, tibia? - It's distal femur.
- Okay. - [Pete] It's just
missing this condyle here. Probably goes back together. Maybe missing a piece
in between but-- - [Coyote] Yep. - [Pete] Yeah, so a femur,
probably oreodont again. - Of course a neat little
piece of turtle carapace. - [Pete] Yep. - [Coyote] I found this then
bigger bone again maybe a-- - So this is actually a
humerus from a turtle. - Oh, from a turtle?
- Yeah. - Okay. Neat, a big turtle bone. All right, guys. Well, it's about time to reveal
our final prized fossils. Shall we start with Mario? - [Mark] Yeah, I say we
go back down the line. - Okay. - [Mark] Mario, why don't you
hand your camera to Coyote? - [Mario] Here you
go, it's recording. - [Mark] Coyote, why don't
you get the tight shot? - [Coyote] Yep. - [Mark] I heard you might
need two hands for this fossil. - Well, I saw this
and it's definitely the largest fossil that
I encountered and-- - [Mark] It just made
a thump, everybody. - Yeah.
(laughing) And so it's definitely
dense in weight and I'm thinking it's
some type of leg bone. - [Mark] Whoa! - So I found it, there is
kind of the top part of it. I'm gonna see if I could
get it back in place there. There you go. So that's how I found it. Just on the ground
and it's pretty big! So Tyrannosaur? - No, it is mammal and it's one of the biggest
mammals that we have out here. - [Mario] Oh. - This is a rhino
tibia, distal tibia. - A rhinoceros! - Yep, and you can
tell by the shape of where the astragalus
would go what it is. - [Mario] Whoa! - And so this is one of
the very biggest animals that was out here,
this and the giant pig. So it's an animal
called Subhyracodon, Subhyracodon occidentalis. - Subhyracodon.
- Yep. - Subhyracodon, a big
prehistoric rhino, all right. - [Mark] All right, Mario, you may win big
fossil of the day. Big bone of the
day goes to Mario. - All right, who's next? - [Mark] All right, I
guess that would be me. - [Mario] Mark's up. - [Coyote] All right, guys. - Now, this is one
of those situations where I think I found
something pretty cool, but I'm not 100% sure. So I'm gonna be a little
reserved in my reveal, but if it is what I think it is it might be the
fossil of the day. All right, you ready? So...
- You got me curious here. - I think--
- Oh. - I may have found
the saber to a cat. - You did, that is.
- Whoa! - [Mark] Yes, yes! - [Coyote] Wow! - [Pete] That's a saber from a
dynexis the base of the saber so this is all root here
and there's some breaks. Unfortunately, it's not complete which would be really awesome. And where's the skull
that this should be in? - I know. It was the only
piece I could find. But I do know where I found it so I will let you guys know
so you can mark it down. - Yeah, we'll go back
and check it out. But, oh, that's awesome. So far you're the only
one with a cat today. - Yes! - It's not a whole skull, but it's the best we got so far. That's awesome. - Yeah, I saw the bend in it and I was like, that feels
like it could be a saber, so-- - Awesome ID.
- Saber! It's a saber! That's what I got, guys. Coyote, it's your turn. - [Mario] What do
you got, Coyote? - Coyote is supposed to have a complete saber tooth
cat skull in his pocket. - [Mario] What? - That's what I'm
expecting here. - Well guys, I did not come back with the saber tooth cat skull. I saw one out there but it
wasn't pristine condition so I just kind of left it.
- You just left it? - I just left it. I didn't think anybody
wanted to see it. - [Pete] A broken
saber or something? - No, it had a
bunch of dust on it. It just looked really aged. No, no saber tooth cats but--
- You got something for us. - I got something cool. Check out that jaw piece.
- Whoa! - Nice.
- Yeah, that's awesome. - [Mark] That's
a nice, nice jaw. - Now this has a cool
story to it as well, because I did spot
it from a distance. I had to scale
down into a valley and mountain goat
climb up to get to this and filmed it all the
while on the GoPro and sure enough
after I got close I got so excited, I said, "It's a jaw bone, oh my gosh!" And then as soon as I grabbed it I was like, "The skull's
got to be here somewhere." Did not find the skull but for me, that is
a pretty good find. Now, Pete, what species is this? - [Pete] So that's
merycoidodon culbertsoni. It's the oreodont.
- Okay. - [Pete] It's the
biggest of the oreondonts that were down here in
the lower oligocene. - [Coyote] Very cool! - And there's something cool
you may not have noticed. See that little hole there? - Yeah. - That's not
supposed to be there. - [Coyote] Really? - [Pete] So it was fed on
possibly by a hyaenadon because the hole's round not
like a cat would be sort of so that's a poke
hole from a tooth. - [Coyote] Okay, so something
might have bit or chewed on this jaw.
- Yeah. - Well that could
possibly explain why I saw it broken apart and this is the
only piece I found. But pretty proud of this fossil. - Very nice jaw. - I'm gonna place it down there. Wow! - [Mark] Let's take a
step back in the shadow-- - [Coyote] Yeah.
- The final. - That is cool. What a layout of incredible
prehistoric prizes right there. Now we have Mario
with the rhino bone. Of course Mark,
with the cat saber, and then there's me
with the oreodont jaw. Write in the comment
section below and tell us which one of
these finds was your favorite. Now every one of these
specimens is gonna be taken back to the Black
Hills Institute where it will be used
for research purposes. And while we didn't find the
saber tooth cat skull today that just means we'll need
to return to the Badlands to find some more fossils. Pete, thank you so much
for having us out today. We could not have
done it without you. I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave. Stay wild. We'll see ya on the next
prehistoric adventure. (light music) Of the countless expeditions
the crew and I've embarked upon searching for fossils in the
Badlands alongside Pete Larson is by far one of
our most memorable. No, we didn't find the coveted
saber-toothed cat skull we were all hoping for but that simply means we
will need to one day return to this fossil rich location. (light music) The art of paleontology requires an incredible
amount of patience. And while the conditions
are often harsh with the strong
will of persistence you're almost certain to
find prehistoric treasure. Stay tuned as we return to
the Black Hills Institute where Pete teaches us how to
take a fossil from the field and perfect it into
presentation status. If you enjoyed all of
these incredible fossils, make sure to travel back in time and watch where
the adventure began as we headed out
into the Badlands. And don't forget subscribe, so
you can join me and the crew on this season of
Beyond Dinosaurs. This is the foot of a bird. - [Mario] So that's an
avian dinosaur technically. - This is a modern day dinosaur. - Yes, absolutely, absolutely. - Boom, for sure. (animals roaring)
(birds chirping)
