An 11-year-old boy in the United Kingdom has found a fossilized elephant tooth estimated to be 1.8 million years old.
Charlie Orchard-Lisle discovered the fist-sized tooth, identified as an upper left molar from an Anancus avernensis, while walking with his family on East Lane beach in Bawdsey, Suffolk, in May. The Anancus avernensis was an extinct relative of the modern African bush elephant.
"It must have been quite distinctive because it caught both our eyes — we could tell it was something different, it had a different feel to it," Charlie's mother, Eleanor, told the South West News Service. She added that her son had been talking about his love for elephants just 10 minutes before the discovery.
The tooth, which is approximately 4 inches wide, has preserved enamel. Paleontology Professor Adrian Lister of the Natural History Museum in London confirmed the age and species. Experts believe that erosion from the Red Crag cliffs, a fossil-rich geological formation along England's east coast, likely exposed the tooth.
"I can’t believe you can find something so old that existed 1.8 million years ago and then just rocks up on the beach," Eleanor Orchard-Lisle said.