KENT CITY, Mich. – Road crews on Michigan’s west side discovered a mastodon on Friday.
Kent County crews over in Kent City discovered bones while digging up 22 Mile Road, according to WOOD-TV. Staff members from the Grand Rapids Public Museum and experts from the University of Michigan analyzed the bones to determine the mastodon’s species and age.
Mastodons are extinct relatives of the elephant. Over the decades, pieces from roughly 300 mastodons have been found in Michigan.
Related: 6-year-old boy finds historic mastodon tooth in Rochester Hills creek
“What I thought (initially) was a femur and a tibia (discovered), but just in the last few minutes we’re looking at them and they may be two femurs and from the same side. If that’s the case, we have two animals,” Scott Beld, a research assistant at the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Michigan, told WOOD.
Read more: Michigan team recovers most complete ice age mastodon skeleton in decades
Make no bones about it — we’ve found a mastodon!
— Governor Gretchen Whitmer (@GovWhitmer) August 13, 2022
During construction in the Geers Intercounty drain construction project, a mastodon has been discovered! Archeologists from @UMich were on-site yesterday. I dig it! pic.twitter.com/42D0rGBUpf