Ancient woolly mammoth tusk on display at zoo

A tusk from a woolly mammoth, estimated to be 10,000 years old, has gone on display.

The tusk originated from somewhere around the North Sea, according to Will Dorrell, co-owner of Hoo Zoo and Dinosaur World in Hadley in Telford, Shropshire, where the tusk can be seen.

It was acquired from a collection in Holland, where it had been for five years.

"It's great to be able to get this piece of history and bring these prehistoric animals, in a weird way, back to life," said Mr Dorrell. "It's great to be able to show people the real life remains of this animal."

"It's obviously a fossil from… a prehistoric woolly mammoth that would've been found all across northern Europe, including the Midlands.

"We've had quite a few pieces off them [the collection]… we've also got a woolly rhino skull that we've had off them previously."

The tusk now sits in a bespoke display in the zoo's "Prehistoric Park HQ" experience, which includes life-sized animatronic Ice Age creatures.

"Woolly mammoth tusks, particularly of this sort of size, don't come around every day," said Mr Dorrell.

"A lot of the ones that you see on display are replicas because the real ones can be quite fragile - this one that we've got on display is a genuine real woolly mammoth tusk."

Woolly mammoths were six-tonne prehistoric beasts with huge tusks and metre-long hair, distant cousins to elephants.

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