When Daisy Morris was four years old, she found fossilised bones of a previously undiscovered species of the flying reptile beast pterosaur. Now, at nine years young, scientists have decided to name the reptile, which lived during the same time period as dinosaurs, after Daisy. It's called Vectidraco daisymorrisae. How cute.
Daisy, who according to her mom has been digging for fossils since she was three, found the blackened bones at Atherfield beach in 2009. The family then passed the bones to Southampton University's fossil expert Martin Simpson, who discovered that the fossil found by a child was a new genus and species of the small pterosaur. They existed 220 million years ago along side dinosaurs.
Simpson says that if Daisy hadn't had found the fossils, they likely would have been washed away by the eroding coastline. Good job Daisy. You've done more at 4 years old than most people would do in 4 lifetimes. [PLOS One via BBC via Neatorama]