10-Year-Old Dinosaur Expert Loves Paleontology

Boy Scout Volunteers at Dinosaur Digs and Local Museum

Jul 23, 2009

Although only 10, Ben Mohler has already participated in three fossil digs and is the youngest volunteer at the Arizona Museum of Natural History.

At an age when most kids only see dinosaurs in a Jurassic Park movie or at a dinosaurs museum, Arizona native Ben Mohler finds fossils at Wyoming and Arizona dinosaur digs – and gets to be one of the first humans in millions of years to see the prehistoric creatures captured in the rocks.

Thanks to these experiences, this 10-year-old Boy Scout has amassed a fossil collection that includes an Allosaurus tooth, 50 million-year-old fish fossil, and a sun-bleached dinosaur bone. His knowledge of dinosaurs has helped him become the youngest volunteer at the Arizona Museum of Natural History where he educates visitors about prehistoric life and helps clean fossils – many of which he dug up himself.

Going on Dinosaur Digs with Neal and Peter Larson

While Ben has been interested in paleontology – the study of prehistoric life – since he was three, his adventures really started at seven when his mother, a junior high science teacher, took him to the Arizona Museum of Natural History for a summer dinosaur camp. Encouraged by Ben’s interest, his father Sherman bought him the dinosaur book Guide to Wild Dinosaurs [Sterling, 2002] by Adam Yates. Ben eagerly devoured the book and spent hours poring over the pages.

Curious about how much Ben was learning, Sherman asked Ben to identify a dinosaur skeleton at the museum without looking at the plaque – and was amazed when Ben gave the dinosaur’s scientific name (Probactrosaurus gobiensis), rattled off every fact on the plaque, and went on to offer additional dinosaur facts the plaque had missed.

Soon after, Sherman and Ben met Neal and Pete Larson – the paleontologists who led the excavation of “Sue the T Rex,” the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur skeleton to date – at an Arizona Gem and Mineral Show where enthusiasts can find fossils for sale. Impressed by Ben, the Larsons, who often take kids on their dinosaur digs, invited him to their Waugh Dig in Hulett, Wyoming to dig up Allosaurus dinosaur fossils.

“I spent a week with Ben to see if he would take the dig seriously – and he did,” says Sherman. “He’d wake up at the crack of dawn and was like, ‘Dad, let’s go!’”

Together with his father, a paleontology team, and two other kids, Ben spent a week digging for fossils – and ended up finding a fragment of an Allosaurus tooth that he got to keep for his dinosaur fossils collection.

Volunteering at the Arizona Museum of Natural History

After returning to Arizona, Sherman learned about the Arizona Museum of Natural History’s volunteer program, and asked Kathy Eastman, the curator of education, if Ben could participate. While the museum requires its volunteers to be fourteen, with Sherman’s assurance that he would be there to supervise, Ben, by then eight, became the youngest person to enter the museum’s volunteer training program.

Soon after, the museum’s Southwest Paleontological Society – a nonprofit corporation that offers paleontological digs for its members – invited Ben to go on another dinosaur dig in Tombstone, Arizona. There, he helped dig up dinosaur fossils of a possible new species of Hadrosaur dinosaur from the mid-Cretaceous period. Later, he volunteered at the Southwest Paleontological Society lab to clean the fossils – including his own finds.

Today, Ben also volunteers every first Sunday of each month when the museum offers free admission to visitors. On these days, he runs a dinosaur cart that displays prehistoric fossils visitors can touch and pick up. As visitors examine the fossils, Ben answers questions and gives explanations on each one.

“Sometimes children, while they’re fascinated with the big bones, have trouble understanding this really complicated information, but Ben is able to speak to young audiences and their families in a way that they understand,” says Eastman, who adds Ben’s entire family – including his father, mother, and twelve-year-old brother Alex – also volunteer at the museum.

Always Walking with the Dinosaurs

In 2009, Ben completed his third dig at the Green River Formation Dig in Wyoming where he found fossils of prehistoric fish. And while some would be amazed by his accomplishments, for Ben, it all comes down to a love of learning. He constantly seeks to expand his knowledge – whether by reading dinosaur books like Bones Rock by Peter Larson, watching a Chased by Dinosaurs DVD, or experiencing paleontology first-hand at dinosaur digs.

“If you’re really serious about trying to find something, they’ll let you on,” he says, when asked how kids interested in going on dinosaur digs should act. Even so, the enthusiasm he displays as he shows items in his fossil collection reveals that as serious as he is about paleontology, working in this field is also a huge thrill.

And given how committed Ben has been to working on dinosaur digs and volunteering at museums, it’s a sure bet that he’ll be making greater contributions to the field of paleontology in the future.

Mohler, Ben. Interview, Dinosaurs and Dinotrux. Changing Hands Bookstore. Tempe. 27 June 2009.

Mohler, Sherman. Interview, Arizona Museum of Natural History. Mesa. 27 June 2009.

Eastman, Kathy. Interview. Arizona Museum of Natural History. Mesa. 27 June 2009.

The copyright of the article 10-Year-Old Dinosaur Expert Loves Paleontology in Resources for Gifted Children is owned by Michael Jung. Permission to republish 10-Year-Old Dinosaur Expert Loves Paleontology in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.