An 11-year-old boy in England recently made an unusual beach day discovery: an ancient elephant tooth from a species that lived about 1.8 million years ago.
The tooth was found at East Lane beach in Bawdsey, a coastal village near Ipswich, Suffolk, in May. It was discovered near the shoreline and later identified as an upper left molar measuring about 4 inches wide.
The specimen once belonged to Anancus arvernensis, an extinct relative of modern elephants, including today's African bush elephant. Photos of the tooth show that its enamel has been preserved and mineralized over millions of years.
According to the boy's mother, the timing of the discovery was particularly striking. "Basically, we were walking along, and 10 minutes before, my son Charlie was saying how much he loves elephants," she said. "We were walking along and could see this thing by the lapping waves. So it must have been quite distinctive, because it caught both our eyes. So we picked it up, and my husband came over."
The family isn't sure where the tooth came from, but they suggested that it had been buried within a Red Crag cliff, a fossil-rich geological formation found along parts of England's eastern coast. The tooth may have then been flushed out by erosion before appearing on the beach.
The discovery is incredible, and it's not the first time a child has stumbled upon a remarkable ancient find. In late April, a group of first-grade students in Norway uncovered a rare Viking-age sword while exploring a field. An 8-year-old boy in Israel also discovered a 1,700-year-old fragment of a Roman statuette while visiting the Ramon Crater in the Negev Desert.
