Tim Rider reeled in a well-preserved woolly mammoth tooth while fishing for scallops.
Captain Tim Rider was fishing for scallops when he reeled in something much rarer and more valuable - a 12,000-year-old woolly mammoth tooth. Mr Rider, part of a crew called the New England Fishmongers, was fishing off the coast of Newburyport, Massachusetts, last December when he made the unusual catch, reports NBC News. He has now put the woolly mammoth tooth up for auction and will donate the proceeds to support people in war-torn Ukraine.
According to NBC News, Mr Rider, captain and co-owner of the New England Fishmongers, took his catch to the University of New Hampshire, where experts identified it as the tooth of a woolly mammoth that roamed the earth thousands of years ago.
"It's quite big," said University of New Hampshire professor Will Clyde of the 11-inch artefact.
He said that while other fishermen have also reeled in fossils, none are as well-preserved as Mr Rider's.
"I always love thinking about the landscape in New England, with mammoths and mastodons walking around, and in terms of geological times, that wasn't that long ago," he said.
The woolly mammoth tooth has been put up for auction on eBay, where it has already received over 50 bids. At the time of writing, the highest bid was $7,300 (more than Rs 5.5 lakh).
All proceeds from the auction will go to World Central Kitchen, an organisation working to provide meals to Ukrainian refugees in Poland.
"We found out what it was from Google," Mr Rider told Seacoastonline. "Since then, we've allowed kids and families to come in and see it and talk about it. Basically everyone asked what we were going to do with it and in light of everything in the world going on right now ... the best thing was to donate it for charity."
Woolly mammoth, distant relatives of today's elephants, went extinct about 4,000 years ago.
Click for more
trending news