An eight-year-old school boy has made a rare discovery along Dorset's 'Jurassic' Coast.
The boy found a giant tooth belonging to a woolly mammoth on Charmouth beach, in an area famous for dinosaur finds from the Jurassic period 200 million years ago.
Woolly mammoth lived 40 000 years ago during the Ice Age, rather than during the Jurassic period, making the find somewhat of a rarity.
It could reveal more about the type of animals that roamed the area and may point to more recent activity on the coast than previously suspected, scientists say.
An eight-year-old school boy made a rare 'non-Jurassic' discovery along Dorset's Jurassic Coast that is famous for its dinosaur remains. The boy, known as Sebastian, found a tooth of a woolly mammoth (pictured) which scientists have say lived around 40, 000 years ago
The tooth has been confirmed as belonging to a woolly mammoth, and seems to have eight enamel plates. it is thought to be a molar although scientists say it's impossible to tell whether it is an upper or lower molar or its exact age in the Ice age due to its battered condition
The avid young archaeologist, only known as Sebastian, found a tooth of a woolly mammoth while scouring the coastline with a group of other fossil hunters.
The tooth is bigger than his fist and was found on Charmouth Beach while the group was was taking part in one of Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre's fossil walks.
Woolly mammoths were 15ft tall and bigger than elephants that lived in the Ice Age which gradually died out and became extinct.
Professor Danielle Schreve, Royal Holloway University of London and patron of Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre, said 'It is part of a mammoth molar - I think although it is hard to tell from the photo.
'It is very battered and worn so I am afraid I can't say more as to whether it is an upper or lower tooth, or indeed which tooth it is.
'However, it is definitely a woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, and therefore, although it could be as old as 180,000 years, the first appearance of this species in Britain.
'It is much more likely to date to the period between 60,000 and 25,000 years ago, the Middle Devensian, when these animals were very common in Britain, and 40,000 years old would therefore be a reasonable estimate.
'Mammoths go extinct in Britain very late compared to other megafauna such as woolly rhinos.
'The youngest mammoths date to 12,500 years ago, right at the end of the last Ice Age, so potentially the specimen could also be as young as that date.'
The woolly mammoth roamed the icy tundra of Europe and North America for 140,000 years, disappearing at the end of the Pleistocene period, 10,000 years ago. They are one of the best understood prehistoric animals because their remains are often not frozen and preserved
But the discovery is a surprising given that the woolly mammoth lived 40, 000 years ago in the Ice Age, not 200
