Grandparent scam: London, Ont., senior beats fraudsters not once, but twice
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
A woman taking a Memorial Day weekend stroll on a California beach found something unusual sticking out of the sand: a tooth from an ancient mastodon.
But then the fossil vanished, and it took a media blitz and a kind-hearted jogger to find it again.
Jennifer Schuh found the foot-long (.30-meter) tooth sticking out of the sand on Friday at the mouth of Aptos Creek on Rio Del Mar State Beach, located off Monterey Bay in Santa Cruz County on California's central coast.
"I was on one side of the creek and this lady was talking to me on the other side and she said what's that at your feet," Schuh recounted. "It looked kind of weird, like burnt almost."
Schuh wasn't sure what she had found. So she snapped some photos and posted them on Facebook, asking for help.
The answer came from Wayne Thompson, paleontology collections advisor for the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.
Thompson determined that the object was a worn molar from an adult Pacific mastodon, an extinct elephant-like species.
"This is an extremely important find," Thompson wrote, and he urged Schuh to call him.
But when they went back to the beach, the tooth was gone.
A weekend search failed to find it. Thompson then sent out a social media request for help in finding the artifact. The plea made international headlines.
On Tuesday, Jim Smith of nearby Aptos called the museum.
"I was so excited to get that call," said Liz Broughton, the museum's visitor experience manager. "Jim told us that he had stumbled upon it during one of his regular jogs along the beach, but wasn't sure of what he had found until he saw a picture of the tooth on the news."
Smith donated the tooth to the museum, where it will be on display Friday through Sunday.
The age of the tooth isn't clear. A museum blog says mastodons generally roamed California from about 5 million to 10,000 years ago.
"We can safely say this specimen would be less than 1 million years old, which is relatively `new' by fossil standards," Broughton said in an email.
Broughton said it is common for winter storms to uncover fossils in the region and it may have washed down to the ocean from higher up.
Schuh said she is thrilled that her find could help unlock ancient secrets about the peaceful beach area. She didn't keep the tooth, but she did hop on Amazon and order herself a replica mastodon tooth necklace.
"You don't often get to touch something from history," she said.
It's only the third find of a locally recorded mastodon fossil. The museum also has another tooth along with a skull that was found by a teenager in 1980. It was found in the same Aptos Creek that empties into the ocean.
"We are thrilled about this exciting discovery and the implications it holds for our understanding of ancient life in our region," museum Executive Director Felicia B. Van Stolk said in a statement.
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
The deaths of four people on a farm near the Saskatchewan village of Neudorf have been confirmed a murder-suicide.
Genetic analysis has shed light on a long-standing mystery surrounding the fates of U.S. President George Washington's younger brother Samuel and his kin.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is officially selling a copy of the Bible themed to Lee Greenwood’s famous song, 'God Bless the USA.' But the concept of a Bible covered in the American flag has raised concern among religious circles.
The Parole Board of Canada has granted full parole to one of three men convicted in the brutal murders of three McDonald's restaurant workers in Cape Breton more than 30 years ago.
Rainfall warnings of up to 90 millimetres and other alerts have been issued for six Canadian provinces, according to the latest forecasts.
Ontario released its annual sunshine list Thursday afternoon, noting that the largest year-over-year increases were in hospitals, municipalities, and post-secondary sectors.
A bus carrying worshippers headed to an Easter festival plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames in South Africa on Thursday, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.