In November 2016, Jude Sparks, now 10, was on an outing with his family near their New Mexico home when he tripped over what he thought was a cow skull. Now, researchers at New Mexico State University are preserving the discovery, which was identified as a Stegomastodon -- a mastodon-like or elephant-like animal. "I imagined through my own mind of being 9 years old and finding something like that and how incredible it would be," dad Kyle Sparks.