Kenton Stufflebeam, a fifth-grader from Michigan, noticed a 27-year-old mistake in a display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

The Tower of Time, a display that has drawn millions of gazes since the early 1980s, lists "Precambrian" as an era. That, young Kenton knew, was incorrect. (Click here for an explanation.)

"So Kevin Stufflebeam took his son to the information desk to report the concern on a comment form," the Kalamazoo Gazette reports. "Last week, Kenton received a letter of acknowledgment from the museum that his observation was 'spot on.'"

A Smithsonian official tells the paper that this was the first time a patron has complained about the mistake, which has long troubled the museum's paleobiology department.

"The question is why was it put up with that on it in the first place," spokeswoman Lorraine Ramsdell says.

But the museum's embarrassment doesn't stop there. Kenton says they addressed their response to the wrong name in the wrong city: "Kenton Slufflebeam" in "Allegany" instead of "Kenton Stufflebeam" in "Allegan."