geezerhood ago , a French farmer came across something rather strange on his land near the Pyrenees sight . What he discover appeared to be some kind of big fossil , but afraid that his farm would be swarmed by amateur palaeontologists , he maintain his find muted .
That was in 2014 . Three years later , he at last decide to show it to expert . He contacted the Natural History Museum of Toulouse , who sent their scientist to take a look . They were astonish by what they saw .
" It was only when we operate there , in 2017 , that we realized the significance of the find , " the museum ’s direction said , reportsAFP .
Unbeknown to him , what the farmer had stumbled upon was , in fact , the first ever complete skull of a Pyrenean mastodon , otherwise known asGomphotherium pyrenaicum .
Pyrenean mastodons were large elephant - like creatures that roam Europe about 13 to 11 million twelvemonth ago . They likely stood around3 meters(10 feet ) high and weighed around 5 piles . Unlike today ’s elephants , the huge creatures had four tusks , each about 80 cm ( 31 inches ) long . Two protruded from the upper jaw , while the other two extended from the scurvy jaw . The miserable pair were fairly flat and were potentially used for digging up root .
There were various species of mastodon , and they ’re thought to have originated in North America before prompt across to Africa , Europe , and Asia millions of old age ago when ocean levels dropped . Fossils of the fauna have been bump in a number of res publica around the globe , including Germany , Kenya , and Pakistan . The last mastodons did n’t cash in one’s chips out until about 11,700 yr ago .
Evidence of the Pyrenean mastodon is pretty lacking in the fossil book – a few dentition were found in the same area back in 1857 , and that ’s it . Now we have an entire skull .
“ I ’ve been expect for this coinage for 35 years , and my professor – he ’s bushed now , but he was looking for it for 50 years , ” museum director Francis Duranthon toldCosmos powder magazine .
“ It is a marvellous discovery . A complete skull with the jowl is very rarefied . And for this species , it is the only one in the cosmos . It confirms the existence of large mastodons in this part of Europe 11 million years ago . "
Hopefully , the unexampled fossil will be able to say scientists a lot more about the inscrutable beasts , give us a better idea of what they might have looked like .
" We ’re putting a nerve on a mintage which had become almost mythical,“addedcurator Pierre Dalous .
The fossil is now in a laboratory being canvass by scientists , although much of it is still trapped in rock . " Now we have to nick away , centimetre by centimetre , to reveal the rest of the skull , " Dalous enjoin . This should be completed in the next few month .
Weirdly , it ’s not all that strange for people to just accidentally happen upon unbelievable dodo . to begin with this yr , a man come across Scotland’sfirst ever woolly gigantic bonewhile on a walk of life near a Loch . What ’s more , an “ unremarkable ” fossil detect 10 ago on an Australian beach recently twist out to besomething much more exciting .
