3 year old Billy finds a 22 to 26 million-year-old shark tooth

THREE-year-old Billy Dullard was hunting for fossils with his dad along the Jan Juc cliffs recently when he discovered a shark tooth between 22 million and 25 million years old.

Billy’s dad Ross Dullard is a keen amateur fossil hunter and has donated a number of fossils to the Melbourne Museum, but Mr Dullard said Billy found the fossil on February 27 of his own accord.

“He loves collecting things, he loves collecting bugs, sap, rocks and crystals, shark eggs and fish eggs he finds on the beach,” Mr Dullard said.

“So we’re always hunting for fossils along the beach looking under rocks, finding crabs, finding anything that looks a little bit different.

“When we were walking along the beach I was about 10 or 15 metres in front of him, he knows what a tooth is and he knows what fossilised bones are, and he gave a really high pitched yelp and said ‘Dad! Dad! I’ve found a bone tooth’.

He knew it was a bone, he knew it was a tooth, but he didn’t really know what it was 100 per cent.

“But by the exclamation in his voice I knew that he’d found something, he was pretty pumped up.
“So I went running back and it was a little shark tooth within the rock that he had.

“Then we gave each other a big hug and a high five, and a cuddle.

“Now it lives next to his bed and he gives it a kiss every night, it’s the cutest thing. It slept in his bed for the first three or four nights, now it lives next to his bed.”

 

Mr Dullard felt the part he played in Billy’s discovery was passing onto him the same love of the outdoors that his parents passed on to him.

“I’ve got an interest in searching for fossils, so he comes with me and we go walking along the cliff faces in Jan Juc, and he spends his time with me looking under rocks, looking for a shell or a crab.

“By the time he was two years old he could probably identify 10 different bird sounds … and one of his first 10 words was fossil.”

Mr Dullard said the community of Surf Coast fossil hunters had identified the fossil as a 22 million to 25 million-year-old shark tooth, and the discovery has been celebrated throughout the community through local Facebook page “Fixated on fossils”.

 

Founder of the group Yestin Griffiths, who volunteers for the Melbourne Museum and has donated several fossils to the museum’s collection, said publicising discoveries like Billy’s helps show the community the age of area they live in as well as the creatures that once existed in the area.

“It not only keeps people in touch with what’s going on in the area, but it also keeps the paleontologists informed of any significant finds that are happening on the coasts here,” Mr Griffiths said.

To find out more about recent Surf Coast fossil finds, head to the “Fixated on fossils” Facebook Page.