4-Year-Old Boy Finds 'Very Important' 500,000-Year-Old Fossil

Martin Landini, a 4-year-old boy exploring a beach with his family near the Argentine city of Mar del Plata, found fossils this week that might be over 500,000 years old, according to the initial estimates by researchers at one of the museums in Buenos Aires province.

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Lorenzo Scaglia Museum of Natural Science, located in Mar del Plata, confirmed the finding on its Facebook page Thursday.

Ines Cordero, the boy's mother, told EFE that Martin and his father, Luis, went out early Tuesday on one of their frequent "paleontological escapades" in search of fossils, which are abundant around Mar del Plata and alerted the museum's experts when they found the bones.

"We usually go as a family group, searching for remains. The kids are the ones who know more about this," Cordero said, adding that Martin and his 8-year-old brother, Nicolas, became interested in paleontology after attending a workshop offered by the museum.

Cordero and her husband were surprised at the importance of their son's discovery, although this is not the first time they have found fossils in the area.

The mother said their procedure is always the same—if they find something interesting, they send a picture to the museum and leave the "treasure" untouched.

Martin "is happy because it was his brother who got him hooked on this, who would find remains," Cordero said.

After Martin's call, scientists from the museum visited the site and took the remains to the institution, where expert Matias Taglioretti will prepare them for research and the exact age of the bones will be determined.

"It's a very important paleontological find," the museum said in a statement, explaining that the remains would help in preparing paleoclimate, paleoecology and paleoenvironmental reconstructions.