Farmer Discovers Mammoth Skeleton in Soy Field. Then Gives Paleontologists a Day to Dig It Up So He Can Stay on Schedule.

A Michigan farmer was digging in a soy field when he saw something coming up out of the soil that he thought was a bent fence post. He later learned it was far more interesting.

"It was covered in mud," farmer James Bristle in Lima Township told the Ann Arbor News, noting that it turned out to be "probably a rib bone that came up."

That rib bone belongs to what Dan Fisher, director of the University of Michigan's Museum of Paleontology, said is one of the most complete mammoth skeletons discovered in the state, he told the Detroit Free Press.

The Free Press reported that the paleontologists were only given a day to dig up the skeleton because Bristle had to stay on schedule as a farmer.

“We didn’t stop to eat or drink. It was a hard, hard day of work, but every bit worth it," Fisher told the newspaper of the effort by about 15 people from U of M.

Image source: MLive/YouTube

In total, the the Free Press reported that the skeleton was comprised of the head, tusks, some ribs and vertebrae, making up about 20 percent of the ancient animal. Fisher estimated it to be about 40 years old at the time of its death 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. He told the News it was likely hunted, butchered and then stored in a pond.

"They did that to store meat and come back to it later," he told the News.

Further research is needed on the remains, but Fisher told the Free Press that the mammoth could be a woolly mammoth or a Jeffersonian mammoth, which is a hybrid.

Watch some of the excavation that took place Thursday in this video: