Wyoming
Fossil Geeks Excited Over 52 Million-Year-Old Salamander Discovered Near Kemmerer
When Dean Sherman got the photos of a new specimen found in one of the famous fossil quarries near Kemmerer, Wyoming, he immediately dropped what he was doing and rushed to the site.
“I knew exactly what it was as soon as I got the picture,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s a salamander. That has to be a salamander.’”
Sherman, the owner of In Stone Fossils, has found thousands of incredible fossils from the Green River Formation. But the foot-long salamander he saw in that photo is a new milestone personally, professionally and paleontologically.
“In 20 years-plus of digging experience, I’ve never discovered anything even remotely like it,” he said. “It’s definitely a one-of-a-kind piece.”
Special Soft Salamander
While the Green River Formation is one of the most fossiliferous rock formations in the world, the National Park Service says amphibian fossils are “extremely uncommon.” Dave Dilworth, one of In Stone Fossils’ employees, found the fossil while excavating a new layer in an existing quarry that had already produced several incredible Green River discoveries.
Sherman identified the specimen as a Paleoamphiuma, an omnivorous salamander that lived around 52 million years ago. It’s only the third specimen of the prehistoric amphibian ever found.
“We know for a fact that we have the skull, at least two appendages in the front, and the back two appendages that to be laying over on top of each other on one side of the specimen,” he said. “The only thing missing is a little bit of the tail.”
What’s especially exciting is that there are telltale signs of soft-tissue preservation. Sherman could tell by the “halo” surrounding the specimen.
“The halo around the fossil is a visual sign that there’s skin around the specimen itself,” he said. “That would be the first Paleoamphiuma ever found with soft tissue preservation.”
No Place Like Home
The salamander’s scientific implications are exciting enough, but that’s not everything exciting about the fossil’s future. This important Cowboy State fossil is staying in Wyoming, now and forever.
Sherman explained that the quarry where the salamander was found is on a parcel of land In Stone Fossils is leasing from the state of Wyoming. That means the fossil belongs to, and will ultimately reside in, Wyoming.
“When a rare (fossil) is discovered in a state quarry, it will go into the repository of the state of Wyoming,” he said. “When it’s prepared, it could be displayed at the Wyoming State Museum or somewhere else, but it’s in public retention. The state of Wyoming will have ownership of it.”
Fossils from the Wyoming deposits of the Green River Formation are crown jewels in museums around the globe. A first-of-its-kind mouse bird found by In Stone Fossils in a private quarry in Kemmerer was recently donated to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
The newly discovered salamander may go out of state temporarily for research and display at other institutions, but it will never be gone forever. The Wyoming salamander will always come home.
Hours And Years Ahead
The salamander was fully excavated on the same day it was found. It’s in the possession of In Stone Fossils and will remain there for the foreseeable future.
Even though the rare fossil belongs to the people of Wyoming, they won’t be able to see it for a long time. There are hundreds of hours and many years between the fossil’s discovery and its public debut.
“It’s sitting in limbo right now,” he said. “It will be distributed to the state of Wyoming soon, but I’ve seen things put into a cabinet for a long period of time.”
The state will have to find money to prepare the fossil, a meticulous process where the rock must be removed without damaging the delicate bones. Sherman estimated that hundreds of hours of preparation would be needed to fully reveal the salamander.
“You’re looking at probably 200-plus hours of preparation on the specimen alone, and it (could) easily exceed that,” he said. “I don’t know what funding Wyoming has for a project like this.”
When the funding is available, a bidding process will open for the fossil’s preparation. That could be when the fossil takes a temporary trip out of state to be worked on by a professional preparator.
Sherman has won bids to prepare several fossils for the state of Wyoming, but he’ll probably pass on prepping the salamander. He’s still in the midst of a much larger project, preparing a massive and immaculately preserved crocodile.
“The crocodile is the priority for us,” he said. “With the projects in front of us, I don’t believe I would want to bid on this particular one.”
Sherman isn’t sure how long it’ll be before Wyomingites see their salamander’s full grandeur. Regardless, they’ll need to be patient.
“I’ve seen things put into a cabinet for years before the funding was available to do the preparation and put it on display,” he said. “It’s all funding.”
A Fossiliferous Future
The remarkable fossil salamander is the first fossil found in a previously untouched layer in the Kemmerer quarry. It’s an early indication that the layer has much more to offer than previously believed, and more 52 million-year-old secrets are emerging from the rock.
“We just discovered a bulb-like plant attached to a flower today,” he said. “We work with a paleobotanist at the Field Museum who will be out here in less than a month, and some of this information is very important to his studies. This kind of plant material from the Green River Formation hasn’t been highly studied.”
Better yet, all the fossils in the layer are within the state lease. Whatever Sherman and his team find, it’ll belong to Wyoming.
“The quarry’s been active for a while, but nobody’s dug this layer,” he said. “Many people didn’t know there was this vast amount of material in it, but we’re finding some pretty interesting things already.”
Even so, it’ll be hard to top the discovery of the third-of-its-kind soft-tissue salamander.
“We’re really proud to have it in public retention in Wyoming,” Sherman said. “It’ll be there for future scientists to study.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
CASPER, Wyo. — High school athletics in Wyoming could see some drastic changes in the coming years following legislative changes to the state’s education budget, the Wyoming High School Activities Association recently announced in a statement.
According to the WHSAA, Wyoming school districts are facing a projected $3.9 million shortfall in activities funding, forcing officials to consider significant cuts to high school sports and extracurricular programs.
The WHSAA shared details regarding a new “silo” funding model implemented by the Legislature, stating that the recalibrated block grant model reduced funding for student activities and extra-duty responsibilities from $46.3 million to $42.4 million, an approximately 8.4% decrease statewide.
WHSAA Commissioner Trevor Wilson said the restructuring also restricts district access to an additional $76.2 million in previously flexible funding.
“A significant portion of the [April 28 WHSAA Board of Directors] meeting was dedicated to discussing the projected funding shortfall,” Wilson wrote.
The WHSAA is weighing several strategies to address rising costs with fewer resources. Proposed changes include eliminating regional tournaments and reducing the number of teams qualifying for state events from eight to four; limiting wrestling to two classes and restricting track and field state participants to the top 16 marks; making cuts to soccer, indoor track and field, Nordic and Alpine skiing, swimming and diving, spring golf and tennis; and reducing in-person speech and debate events by half and centrally locating All-State Music events to minimize travel. The board also recommended increasing gate admission or implementing student participation fees to offset costs.
While the WHSAA release states that no plans have been finalized and the various changes are currently just possibilities, Natrona County School District 1 Board of Trustees member Mary Schmidt criticized the WHSAA’s handling of the news at Monday’s board meeting.
“I take some issues with this, [including] the sheer fact that we as Board of Trustees members have not talked about that at all,” Schmidt said. “It is not our intent and it has not been brought to us to cut our athletics or activities budget for the upcoming school year. … I take issue with them picking sports and getting the community upset and ginning them up to be upset that this is all going to be cut when that hasn’t been discussed.”
Later in the meeting, Superintendent Angela Hensley clarified that Natrona County School District 1’s athletics and activities budget saw a reduction of roughly $550,000 in the coming year’s budget, but said the local school district does not plan to cut any sports.
“Thank you, Trustee Schmidt, for saying this, because I think people are wondering — we are not planning to cut athletics and activities for next year,” Hensley said. “We do have to take a look at our entire budget as we have talked about, as we learn more about these new rules that come in.”
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Republished with permission from Wyoming News Now, a TV news outlet covering the Cheyenne and Casper areas.
Cheyenne City Council has introduced a temporary moratorium, or pause, on new data center construction.
“The end goal is to actually have regulations in place, to have really heavy public involvement with this with data centers,” said Councilman Mark Moody.
The proposed ordinance is not a permanent ban on data centers and would not affect data centers currently under construction.
Councilman Moody says this is a bipartisan issue.
“I just want to make this clear, I’m not against data centers. We do need them from a national security perspective,” he said.
He said there needs to be more public input and regulations regarding data centers in Cheyenne.
The ordinance would require city staff to study data center impacts such as electricity usage, electricity tariffs, closed-loop cooling systems, groundwater impacts, agricultural impacts, and land value.
Cheyenne LEADS, the economic development corporation for Cheyenne and Laramie County, reported in November 2025 that there are 12 operational data centers in Wyoming, five under construction and plans for 43 data centers announced across the state.
“There needs to be more public input with this, and also to see how many we can sustain here in this community, cause there are talks of 43, and then another day 70. How many can we sustain here?” said Councilman Moody.
The proposed moratorium will now go to the Public Services Committee on Monday, May 18 at noon in the Municipal Building.
Sheridan will play in the North Regional Tournament at Gillette, while the South Regional Tournament will be played at Rock Springs.
North Regional Tournament at Gillette:
Checking record vs. highest team in the quadrant not involved in the tie, Thunder Basin gets the #1 Northeast seed over Campbell County, because the Lady Bolts went 3-1 vs. Sheridan, whereas the Lady Camels went 2-2.
Friday, May 15th:
(#1 NE) Thunder Basin vs. (#4 NW) Jackson – 11am
(#2 NW) Natrona County vs. (#3 NE) Sheridan – 11am
(#2 NE) Campbell County vs. (#3 NW) Kelly Walsh – 1pm
(#1 NW) Cody vs. (#4 NE) Worland – 1pm
Semi-Finals:
Thunder Basin/Jackson winner vs. Natrona County/Sheridan winner – 3pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Campbell County/Kelly Walsh winner vs. Cody/Worland winner – 5pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Consolation Round:
Thunder Basin/Jackson loser vs. Natrona County/Sheridan loser – 3pm LOSER OUT!
Campbell County/Kelly Walsh loser vs. Cody/Worland loser – 5pm LOSER OUT!
Saturday, May 16th:
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
2 10am winners vs. each other – 1pm 3rd Place
TBA vs. TBA – 1pm 1st Place
South Regional Tournament at Rock Springs:
Friday, May 15th:
(#1 SW) Laramie vs. (#4 SE) Torrington – 11am
(#2 SE) Cheyenne East vs. (#3 SW) Green River – 11am
(#2 SW) Rock Springs vs. (#3 SE) Wheatland – 1pm
(#1 SE) Cheyenne Central vs. (#4 SW) Cheyenne South – 1pm
Semi-Finals:
Laramie/Torrington winner vs. Cheyenne East/Green River winner – 3pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Rock Springs/Wheatland winner vs. Cheyenne Central/Cheyenne South winner – 5pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Consolation Round:
Laramie/Torrington loser vs. Cheyenne East/Green River loser – 3pm LOSER OUT!
Rock Springs/Wheatland loser vs. Cheyenne Central/Cheyenne South loser – 5pm LOSER OUT!
Saturday, May 16th:
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
2 10am winners vs. each other – 1pm 3rd Place
TBA vs. TBA – 1pm 1st Place
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