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October 4 (UPI) – A 6-year-old child walking with his family in a Michigan nature reserve has made a rare discovery: a 12,000-year-old mastodon tooth.
Julian Gagnon, 6, was walking with his family in Dinosaur Hill Nature Reserve on September 6 when he found an object he initially identified to his parents as a “dragon tooth”.
“I just felt something on my foot and grabbed it, and it looked a bit like a tooth,” Gagnon told WDIV-TV.
Gagnon’s parents allowed him to take his find home, where the family took a closer look and realized that it could indeed be a fossil.
The family contacted the University of Michigan Paleontological Museum, which identified the find as the upper right molar of a young mastodon, a species that lived in Michigan about 12,000 years ago.
“Mammoth and mastodon fossils are relatively rare in Michigan, but compared to other places in the United States, there have been more occurrences,” Adam Rountrey, head of the collection of the research museum of the museum of paleontology.
Experts said that although mammoths and mastodons are known to have lived in Michigan, finds are rare because animal carcasses were typically taken by scavengers long before they could become fossils.
The Gagnon family donated the tooth to the museum, which said Julian will be rewarded for his donation with a behind-the-scenes tour this month.
“It only fueled his passion for archeology and paleontology,” said his mother Mary Gagnon. “As far as he’s concerned, this is the first discovery of his career, and now it’s hard to talk him out of picking up everything he sees in the natural world.”
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