Mastodon bones discovered in Michigan man's backyard

Nearly 40 mastodon bones will soon find their place in a Michigan museum after a pair of neighbors stumbled upon the bones in one of their backyards.

Ancient mastodon vertebrae bones that Dan LaPoint unearthed excavating a pond 
on Eric Witzke's property outside Olivet, in Bellevue Township, Mich. 
[Credit: AP/The State Journal, Rod Sanford]

Eric Witzke recruited his neighbor, contractor Daniel LaPoint, to dig up a pond last November in the backyard of his home in Bellevue Township, Michigan.

As the two men dug, they realized they were excavating something much more than just dirt.

"It was just something different. I automatically assumed dinosaur. That's what popped into my head," LaPoint told local news station WWMT.

"It was amazing to see these bones and see the size of these bones coming up out of the ground," Witzke told WWMT.

After uncovering a total of 42 bones, Witzke and LaPoint realized they had discovered the skeleton of a mastodon, a prehistoric creature related to the modern-day elephant that began to disappear tens of thousands of years ago.

“I’m speechless because it's just a once-in-a-lifetime find," LaPoint said.