SUFFOLK, ENGLAND, June 29 (World Daily Times) — An 11-year-old boy found a beach object in Suffolk that was later identified as a fossilized upper left molar from an extinct elephant relative, according to a SWNS report. The tooth is said to be about 1.8 million years old and roughly 4 inches wide.
Charlie Orchard-Lisle found the object in May on East Lane beach in Bawdsey, a coastal village near Ipswich, the report said. SWNS said the fossil belonged to Anancus arvernensis, an extinct relative of modern elephants.
The reporting did not name the specialist or institution that made the identification, and it did not say how the age estimate was determined.
Eleanor Orchard-Lisle said the tooth may have been buried in a Red Crag cliff, a fossil-rich formation along England’s eastern coast, before erosion exposed it and washed it onto the beach. She told SWNS it was “quite incredible” to find something so old on the shore.
