Moore, of Elkhorn, Nebraska, may not have done well in a recent fishing tournament on the Missouri River, but he snagged the biggest catch of the day: a 90-million-year-old “bulldog fish” fossil.
His lure got stuck on a rock, so he paddled over to free it. He saw some bones that he thought were recent remains of a deer or catfish, snapped a quick picture, and continued fishing.
When Moore got home, he posted a picture on social media.
“I don’t know what it is. I thought, it’s just a skeleton from a year ago,” Moore told KETV. As soon as his friends realized that, they began raving about it, exclaiming, “Dude, do you know what it is?!?”
When his friends informed him that he found an ancient fossil, he contacted the Army Corps of Engineers, which controls that stretch of the river just west of Yankton.
The fossilized remains were confirmed to be those of the extinct Xiphanticus audax, or “bulldog fish,” which roamed the shallow seas covering large parts of North America during the Cretaceous period.
As a ferocious predator, bulldog fish reached a length of 20 feet and weighed up to 1,000 pounds.
This makes it one of the largest fish to roam the North American seas during that period, and it likely fed on anything that would fit into its considerable jaws lining with fang-like teeth more than 3 inches long.
“It’s that primordial jolt you get in your spine when the fish bites your line,” Moore said. “It goes right to my brain. That’s why I fish to WOWT.”
Sources: Themeateater
