From the BBC News:
The partial leg bone of a sabre-toothed cat, Homotherium crenatidens, has been dredged from the seabed by a trawler in the North Sea.The fossil, which is between one and two million years old and was found near the UK coast, is from a type of sabre-tooth called a scimitar cat. It is the furthest north this species has ever been found, and the first time remains have come from the North Sea.
The fossil remains of more common extinct beasts such as the mammoth are routinely recovered from the sea by trawlers. Beam trawlers use special gear to gently touch the sea bed, capturing flatfish lying in the sand. But this also stirs up shallow, buried fossil remains which can end up in the nets. In the Netherlands, trawlermen are paid up to 100 euros for such discoveries.
Read the press release
