Hello, Ella. Where are we beginning today?

Today we're beginning in 1971. So on this day, a paleontologist named Mike Voorhees and his wife, Jane, they were out for a stroll through some farmland. This was in northeastern Nebraska and Antelope County.

Okay. And they're walking around when they come upon an 80-foot cliff.

So where he's, he's a paleontologist, and he just has to find out more.

Because a cliff, it means that all of these old layers of land are exposed.

So you can see a little cross-section of history, right, without having to

dig. You might even find some cool bones, which is exactly what happens. Or the story would

have just ended. So, Mike, after walking along this cliff for a bit, he sees a skull poking

out, a rhino skull.

Maybe I'm a little bit ignorant, but I did not know that rhinos lived in North America.

Yeah, I, they don't, they don't. Especially in Nebraska. Not outside of zoos today. Yeah. So today the kinds of mammals that you see in Nebraska, you know, you might see a raccoon.

Possum. Right. White-tailed deer, maybe a little rabbit. But 12 million years ago, North America looked very, very different. There were rhinos. There were camels.

Really? Yes, camels. And some very strange early horses, just to start you off.

That's wild. I had no idea. This, like, paints a picture of a world that I did not know

existed. I didn't either until a few years ago

and I kept bringing it up and no one seemed as amazed by it. But this is the right reaction.

You're reacting correctly. Thank you. Okay. So scientists did know, by the time Mike is going for the

stroll, they do know about these species. But usually they would find scattered fossils of these animals, you know, a part of a

skeleton here or there. But this place that Mike Verhuis had found, it would soon become a very

important archaeological site. They would call it asphalt fossil beds. And this place was packed

with animals. Way more fossils than you'd usually find at one site.

And they weren't broken up the way that fossils usually are.

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