Show and Tell is guaranteed to produce some real gems over the years. But none tops that of a 10-year-old Briton who brought along a 300-million-year-old fossil he found while holidaying in on the coast of Cornwall.
According to an article in the Digital Journal, Bruno Debattista, a primary student from Oxford, had a hunch that the fossil was of a footprint.
And the pre-history buff was right on the money when he showed off his find at an after-school club at Oxford University's museum of natural history.
“Footprints of this age are incredibly rare and extremely hard to spot, so we were amazed when Bruno produced them at our After-School Club,” said museum education officer Chris Jarvis. “Still more impressive is the fact Bruno had a hunch they might be some kind of footprints, even though the specimen had some of our world expert geologists arguing about it over their microscopes."
It's thought that the footprints belonged to mating horseshoe crabs, dating back to the Carboniferous period, around 308 to 327 million years ago.
Well, now you know. Debattista has kindly donated his fossil to the museum for display. Talk about history at your fingertips. Should encourage the pint-sized archeologist in your household to find something a little more exciting during the next local dig than a crusty old dog doo.
What's the best thing you've seen at a Show and Tell?
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