Tripping over T-Rex

  • Bob Harmon works on the pelvis of a Triceratops at the Museum of the Rockies

    COURTESY MUSEUM OF THE ROCKIES
  • Tyrannosaurus rex (nicknamed B-rex for Harmon, who found it in eastern Montana)

    COURTESY MUSEUM OF THE ROCKIES
 

Name: Bob Harmon

Hometown: Bozeman, Montana

Vocation: Chief preparator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies and crew chief

Known For: Finding the first dinosaur bones with soft tissue

Bob Harmon is not an excitable man. His face isn’t animated as he points out the sauropod leg he is building out of fossils and plaster for a Museum of the Rockies exhibit that will open this summer. He doesn’t jump up and down describing the Tyrannosaurus rex fossil he found in the Montana badlands, which — when sawed open and put under a microscope — revealed the first soft tissue found in dinosaur bones.

But the slight grin on his weathered face and the way his brown eyes laugh as he shares his stories make it clear that wandering around in the hot sun looking for dinosaurs electrifies this 50-something Montana native. As he puts it: “Prospecting and finding bone is a kick for me.”

Harmon is the right-hand man of Jack Horner, who is perhaps the world’s most famous paleontologist, the man who discovered that dinosaurs care for their young and also served as technical advisor to the Jurassic Park movies. Harmon is the chief preparator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies and crew chief for a three-to-four-month field season each summer. Harmon is also something of an anomaly: Though his colleagues mostly have master’s or doctoral degrees, he never graduated high school.

“In a way, I don’t have any right to be here,” he says. “I quit school at 16 and never went back; I’ve just bluffed my way through it.”

Harmon grew up fishing and hunting around Cut Bank, Mont. As a kid on family outings, he collected fossilized snails. Then one day, 26 years ago, he stubbed his toe on a dinosaur bone. He didn’t know it was a dinosaur bone at the time, but the fossil intrigued him enough to prompt him to do a little research at the Cut Bank library. Unfortunately, he chuckles, “all they had were little kids’ dinosaur books.”

Not long after the failed library expedition, Harmon met the people who could satisfy his growing curiosity. One day, as he was out roaming the riverbank looking for fossils, Harmon spotted a paleontology field camp. Knowing the crew would be curious about someone wandering through their prospecting territory — and hoping they could identify the bones he had found — Harmon made sure to get noticed. “I kind of set myself up on a hill with my big Samoyed dog, and they came running,” he recalls.

This encounter led to dinner and Rainier beers with Jack Horner and his field crew. By the end of the evening, Harmon had been hired, giving up his career as an oil rig roughneck to become a professional bone collector.

Every summer, the hunt for fossils takes Harmon and his crew to some of the most inhospitable parts of Montana and Wyoming. With the sun blazing down, the crew spends all day prospecting for bones.

And sometimes the bones almost fall right out of the hillsides. Harmon was eating lunch one day in 2000, near the Fort Peck Reservoir in eastern Montana, when he turned around and noticed a T-Rex bone jutting out of the anticline above him. There was still soft tissue in the cracked femur of this 68 million-year-old dinosaur. It had been previously thought that organic material couldn’t exist in fossil material over 100,000 years old.

The dinosaur was named “B-Rex” for (Bob) Harmon, and today it sits in the museum upstairs from his lab. Harmon enjoys working in the lab, preparing fossils for researchers or museum exhibits. Still, it’s the fieldwork he loves. “It’s really something to see an animal come out of the earth,” he says, a grin spreading across his face. “You see a T-Rex skull come out of the ground, and it jacks you up.

“The prospect of discovery is the coolest thing. You never know what’s in the dirt until you start digging. Ninety percent of the time it’s nothing good; the good ones are so rare, but that’s what keeps it exciting.”

The author writes from Livingston, Montana.

High Country News Classifieds
  • EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
    California Coalition for Rural Housing (CCRH) seeks a strategic and visionary Executive Director: View all job details here- https://bit.ly/CCRHED
  • MONTANA BLUES
    The new novel by Ray Ring, retired HCN senior editor, tackles racism in the wild, a story told by a rural White horsewoman and a...
  • DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT SPECIALIST
    Title: Digital Engagement Specialist Location: Salt Lake City Reports to: Communications Director Status, Salary & Benefits: Full-time, Non-Exempt. Salary & Benefits information below. Submission Deadline:...
  • CONSERVATION FIELD ORGANIZER
    Title: Conservation Field Organizer Reports to: Advocacy and Stewardship Director Location: Southwest Colorado Compensation: $45,000 - $50,000 DOE FLSA: Non-Exempt, salaried, termed 24-month Wyss Fellow...
  • UTAH STATE DIRECTOR
    Who We Are: The Nature Conservancy's mission is to protect the lands and waters upon which all life depends. As a science-based organization, we create...
  • EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
    Apply by Oct 18. Seeking collaborative, hands-on ED to advance our work building community through fresh produce.
  • INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS EDITOR - HIGH COUNTRY NEWS
    High Country News is hiring an Indigenous Affairs Editor to help guide the magazine's journalism and produce stories that are important to Indigenous communities and...
  • STAFF ATTORNEY
    Staff Attorney The role of the Staff Attorney is to bring litigation on behalf of Western Watersheds Project, and at times our allies, in the...
  • ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT FOR DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
    Northern Michigan University seeks an outstanding leader to serve as its next Assistant Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion. With new NMU President Dr. Brock...
  • EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
    The Clark Fork Coalition seeks an exceptional leader to serve as its Executive Director. This position provides strategic vision and operational management while leading a...
  • GOOD NEIGHBOR AGREEMENT MANAGER
    Help uphold a groundbreaking legal agreement between a powerful mining corporation and the local communities impacted by the platinum and palladium mine in their backyard....
  • EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
    The Feather River Land Trust (FRLT) is seeking a strategic and dynamic leader to advance our mission to "conserve the lands and waters of the...
  • COLORADO DIRECTOR
    COLORADO DIRECTOR Western Watersheds Project seeks a Colorado Director to continue and expand WWP's campaign to protect and restore public lands and wildlife in Colorado,...
  • ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF HISTORY - INDIGENOUS HISTORIES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN WEST
    Whitman College seeks applicants for a tenure-track position in Indigenous Histories of the North American West, beginning August 2024, at the rank of Assistant Professor....
  • DAVE AND ME
    Dave and Me, by international racontuer and children's books author Rusty Austin, is a funny, profane and intense collection of short stories, essays, and poems...
  • CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
    Rural Community Assistance Corporation is looking to hire a CFO. For more more information visit: https://www.rcac.org/careers/
  • EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
    The Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness Foundation (ABWF) seeks a new Executive Director. Founded in 2008, the ABWF is a respected nonprofit whose mission is to support...
  • CANYONLANDS FIELD INSTITUTE
    Field seminars for adults in natural and human history of the northern Colorado Plateau, with lodge and base camp options. Small groups, guest experts.
  • COMING TO TUCSON?
    Popular vacation house, everything furnished. Two bedroom, one bath, large enclosed yards. Dog-friendly. Contact Lee at [email protected] or 520-791-9246.
  • ENVIRONMENTAL AND CONSTRUCTION GEOPHYSICS
    We characterize contaminated sites, identify buried drums, tanks, debris and also locate groundwater.