![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Mom-holds-Anancus-arvernensis-molar-found-on-beach\u2013SWNS.jpg\")
Mom holds Anancus arvernensis molar found on beach \u2013SWNS<\/p>\n Mom holds Anancus arvernensis molar found on beach \u2013SWNS<\/p>\n
An 11-year-old boy made a once-in-a-lifetime discovery after finding an ancient elephant tooth right on the beach.<\/p>\n
The day of the big find, May 24, Charlie Orchard-Lisle was walking with his mother along East Lane beach in Bawdsey, a Suffolk coastal village in eastern England 75 miles from London, when he spotted the rock-like object on the shoreline.<\/p>\n
The discovered tooth, which measures four inches in width, was confirmed as the upper left molar of an Anancus arvernensis.<\/p>\n
The extinct mammal walked the Earth from the Late Miocene era to the Early Pleistocene, roughly 8.5\u20132 million years ago.<\/p>\n A six-ton relative of the African bush elephant, and originally mis-classified in 1828 as a Mastodon with straight, uncurved tusks), it reached a shoulder height of around 8ft.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were walking along and, ten minutes before, my son Charlie was saying how much he loves elephants,\u201d Charlie\u2019s mom Eleanor told SWNS news.<\/p>\n Then, they spotted something sticking out of the lapping waves.<\/p>\n \u201cIt must have been quite distinctive because it caught both our eyes, so we picked it up.<\/p>\n \u201cWe could tell it was something different. It had a different feel to it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is quite incredible.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t believe you can find something so old on the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n An image of the tooth was shared with Professor Adrian Lister, a research leader in paleontology at the Natural History Museum in London who confirmed its origin.<\/p>\n They believe the tooth may have been buried in the red crag cliff at Bawdsey and was flushed out by erosion.<\/p>\n MORE LUCKY DISCOVERIES:<\/strong> PLAN A TRIP TO A FOSSIL BEACH When You Share the Lucky-Find With Friends on Social Media\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mom holds Anancus arvernensis molar found on beach \u2013SWNS An 11-year-old boy made a once-in-a-lifetime discovery after finding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[273],"tags":[18,18108,4507,8399,4352,19,17,3917,12151,133,1691,461],"class_list":["post-535499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-eire","tag-elephants","tag-england","tag-fossils","tag-found","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kids","tag-paleontology","tag-science","tag-surprise","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116751151779349472","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Nobu-Tamura-illustration-of-extinct-elephant-relative-Anancus-arvernensis-CC-BY-SA-4.0.jpg\")
Illustration of extinct elephant relative Anancus arvernensis \u2013 by Nobu Tamura (CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Family-found-Anancus-arvernensis-molar-found-on-this-English-beach\u2013SWNS.jpg\")
Family found an Anancus arvernensis molar on this English beach\u2013SWNS<\/p>\n
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