Ice age vole teeth discovery on Texel island

Translated from Ecomare museum on Texel island in the Netherlands:

08-06-14

Midas found this special teeth on the Texel beach

A water vole molar from perhaps more than half a million years old and a younger one, possibly two hundred thousand years old! These are the main components of the extraordinary discovery which the 13-year-old Midas Verbeek made last month, going to Ecomare with it. Just above the tide line at beach post 17 he found some small molars and teeth. Because such small molars are difficult to name mouse molar specialist Francine Dieleman was told about it. She had her first research results last week.

Oldest mice

The discovery by Midas, she discovered, included vole molars from the last ice age, incisors of voles, a tail vertebra of a water vole, a strange skull fragment, fish vertebrae and teeth. Francine Dieleman has named them provisionally and will continue to investigate them further still. She will publish about the molars in a specialist magazine. Such old rodents had in fact never before been found in the Wadden Sea area. The mice molar specialist works at Naturalis museum in Leiden.

Related articles

• What Texel island barn owls eat
• Nightjars on Texel island
• Extinct Fox Species With Supersharp Teeth Discovered in Tibet
• Orkney vole originated from Belgium – study finds
• Of vole plagues and hip glands
• Texel, Netherlands: An island where science and culture meet