A German tourist found the bone at the end of October and brought it to Ecomare. They immediately saw that it had to be a piece of breastbone from a bird, although they did not yet know which bird species.
After consulting specialists in the field, the suspicion was confirmed that the bone was indeed from a great auk. The bone is probably thousands of years old and it is the second discovery of a great auk in the Wadden area. More finds of this large, extinct bird species have been made on the southern coasts of the Netherlands.
Great auks have been exterminated by humans
The bone piece found on Texel probably came from the North Sea and ended up on the beach with sand nourishment. It is difficult to say exactly how old the bone is. Experts suspect that it is from the Holocene era, and that it is between 2,000 and 10,000 years old. Great auks then wintered here and nested on remote rock islands.
Like the dodo, the great auk was a large bird that could not fly. It was easy prey for humans, who exterminated the animal. The last great auks were killed in 1844.