An “extremely rare” 250,000 year-old bone unearthed in Devon is being examined by a Peterborough palaeontologist.

The 80cm-long woolly mammoth leg bone was pulled up from the bottom of the English Channel last week.

The ice-age specimen has now been collected by palaeontologist Jamie Jordan, and transported back to his museum Fossils Galore.

Mr Jordan was alerted to news of the unusual discovery on Thursday July 17, when he received a phone from a harbour worker in Devon.

Jamie Jordan, back at Fossils Galore with the mammoth leg bone.

placeholder image — Jamie Jordan, back at Fossils Galore with the mammoth leg bone.

Museum director Sarah Moore explained: "The caller was Phil Penny who works on the harbour in Brixton. While making his rounds, Phil came across an interesting object that has been brought to shore by one of the trawlers who were working in the western English channel.

"In his curiosity to discover what this object’s true identify was, Phil found Fossils Galore online and through the ‘report a find’ portal he managed to get in contact with Jamie.”

When Mr Jordan received a photo, he was able to quickly identify the object as a juvenile woolly mammoth femur bone - thought to be 250 thousand years-old.

“It is a very unusual discovery from where it was trawled up,” he said. “And it shows that mammoths once roamed the English Channel."

Left: Phil Penny with the mammoth leg bone he found. Right: Jamie Jordan, of Fossils Galore, carefully wraps the bone up ready for transportation back to the museum.

The fossilised bone is now at Fossils Galore Museum, in High Street, March, being cleaned and preserved live on display for the public to watch.

Sarah added: “This is the first recorded mammoth fossil to be discovered in this area, making this discovery both extremely rare and exciting.”

Adult femur bones are said to measure up to 4ft (121cm) in length. It is the most complete woolly mammoth leg bone now in the museum’s collection.

Woolly mammoths were a species of megafauna that roamed Britain during the Ice Age, becoming extinct between 14,000 and 11,500 years ago. Although traditional theories about their extinction point to over-hunting by humans, other more modern theories suggest climate change or a global cataclysm eventually obliterated them.

• During the Summer holidays Fossils Galore will be open:

Monday – 10am-4pm

Tuesday – Closed

Wednesday – 10am-4:30pm

Thursday – 10am-4:30pm

Friday – 10am-4:30pm

Saturday – 10am-4:30pm

Sunday - Closed

For more details about the exhibits on offer, visit the museum’s website or email [email protected].