Emily Baldry, an adorable 5-year-old girl from the UK, was doing what a normal kid her age would be doing: Hanging out at with her family and digging. Unlike other normal kids though, she found a 160 million year old fossil. She called it Spike.
It's an absolutely amazing and rare discovery that happened by complete chance: Emily was just using a plastic spade to dig around on her first organized digging trip at Cotsworld Water Park in the UK with her dad. Little did she know what would come out of it: the Rieneckia odysseus fossil—which is like a gigantic mollusk from the Jurrasic period—16-inches in diameter and completely intact, other fossilized ammonites in the UK have all been fragmented into little pieces.
Emily actually made the discovery last year (so she's now 6) but only got to see Spike this past week because geologists had to restore the fossil (it originally looked like a mud block). Emily was thankful for that and said:
It is so exciting to see him. I was very happy when I first saw him and now he looks very shiny.
I hope she keeps digging. [Daily Mail]