A family enjoying a walk on Langevelderslag beach in the Netherlands made a surprising discovery thanks to their dog.
Tamás, 18, who posts on Reddit under the username u/Serious_Comfortable3, shared the discovery on March 10 on the r/Fossils forum. The photo he initially posted looked like a giant black tooth, about the size of a hand.
“Just found this on a Dutch beach. Looks like a tooth. Does anyone know what it is?” he wrote.
Tamás told Newsweek that while his family was out for a walk, his dog came running up with a strange object in its mouth. At first, he thought it was just a stick and threw it away to play fetch. But when he looked closer, Tamás realized it looked like a fossil.
After bringing it home and posting it on Reddit, Tamás’ post received a lot of comments. Reddit users came up with various theories, from a sloth claw to a shark tooth to a pterosaur’s toe.
Finally, an archaeologist helped solve the mystery. The expert said that it could be the fossilized inner horn of an aurochs, which lived during the last ice age.
Tamás has now sent these photos to the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the largest natural history museum in the Netherlands, to confirm the discovery. If the center is interested, the specimen could be displayed at the museum. If not, he plans to make a small wooden stand to display it in his room.
Some Redditors also shared that bison bones were once quite common in Dogger Bank, a sea area in northern Europe, before the ban on bottom trawling was enacted. However, fossil specimens such as horns still wash up on the shores of northern Europe and the eastern UK.