LA CROSSE, Wis. -- Three-year-old Kaleb Kidd spotted what looked like an unusual rock while chasing squirrels Monday at a family friend's property on St. Joseph Ridge near La Crosse.

"Grandpa, what's that?" Kaleb asked his grandfather, Gary Kidd.

Fortunately for the elder Kidd, the find was similar to one he made in 1998.



He told his grandson it looked like the tooth of a wooly mammoth - the extinct, hairy elephant that once roamed North America.

Next stop for the two was the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, which confirmed that it was, indeed, the tooth of a mammoth.

Connie Arzigian, the center's laboratory director, couldn't precisely date the tooth but estimated it could be 10,000 to 30,000 years old.

It weighs 2 pounds and measures 6 inches long and 3 inches wide.

"The mammoth is a grass eater," Arzigian said. "Think about cows and what they do as they graze - they're grinding the surfaces. They need flat surfaces to work against each other. They grind the surfaces down to make grasses consumable."

The tooth Kaleb found was even bigger before its outer surface wore away over the thousands of years, she said.

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That would be so exciting to find!

Wow another mamoth found!Pretty soon there will be groups of these guys being found.

To find a whole herd would be cool. If the people of that day did what the natives did at Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump, they coudl relaly find a payload and also learn more about the people of that time.