Routine city dig in Oceanside turns up a 45-million-year-old 'thunder beast.' The paperwork just got interesting.

ABC News reports that crews on a routine city infrastructure project in Oceanside, California, about 40 miles north of San Diego, hit fossils roughly 12 feet down. Paleontologists believe the limb bones and ribs came from a large hoofed mammal that lived in the area 40 to 45 million years ago. It's either a titanothere, nicknamed the "thunder beast," or an amynodon, the "swamp rhino." Paleontologist Joseph El Adli's team spent seven days freeing the bones from several tons of hardened rock. The city isn't saying exactly where the dig is, to protect the site, and the bones are expected to end up in a museum. One correction for the record: at one point the article calls these dinosaur bones. They aren't. The dinosaurs had been gone about 20 million years by the time this animal was around. The swamp rhino could not be reached for comment.