Skip to content
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Menu
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Happy News

The Ancient Smiling Fossil That Has The Internet Delighted

When Christine Clark set out for a Boxing Day walk along the beach on Holy Island in northern England, she was simply hunting for the small disc-shaped fossils that locals have been lovingly collecting on that stretch of coast for over a thousand years. But something entirely unexpected stopped her right in her tracks: a tiny pebble nestled in the sand appeared to be smiling back at her. What she had stumbled upon turned out to be a 350-million-year-old fossil from an ancient sea creature, curved and split in just the right way to look strikingly like a grinning set of teeth. She posted a photo to a fossil identification page on Facebook, and within days the little smiling rock had collected thousands of delighted likes and comments from people all around the world.

Scientists at the British Geological Survey confirmed the fossil belongs to a crinoid, a marine animal that first appeared on Earth more than 500 million years ago and still has living relatives in our oceans today. Known affectionately as sea lilies, crinoids have graceful branching arms that fan out like flowers from a long flexible stem anchored to the sea floor, and what Christine found was a curved section of that stem, naturally split to create its unforgettable smile. Holy Island itself has a wonderfully deep and magical history with crinoid fossils: locals have been collecting the small round disc pieces since the 1300s, once believing that the beloved monk and saint Cuthbert was crafting them by hand as spiritual gifts from beyond. Christine has received offers to purchase her one-of-a-kind grinning fossil but plans to keep it, saying with a smile of her own that it simply brings far too much joy to far too many people.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7v0ev05mdjo

PrevPreviousScientists Discover World’s Largest Coral Colony On The Great Barrier Reef
NextNASA Just Set The Launch Date For Its Historic Moon ReturnNext

Recent Articles

Happy News

For The First Time In History Medicare Is Covering Weight Loss Drugs And The Price Is $50 A Month

May 14, 2026

Starting July 1, 2026 eligible Medicare enrollees will be able to access GLP-1 weight loss medications including Wegovy, Zepbound, and the newer drug Foundayo for a flat $50 monthly copay, in a historic first for the program, which has never before covered anti-obesity medications despite covering many of the serious

Read More
Happy News

Swedish Scientists Just Grew The Cells Type 1 Diabetes Destroys From Scratch

May 13, 2026

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden have developed a more reliable method for growing insulin-producing cells from human stem cells, and the results published in Stem Cell Reports represent one of the most encouraging steps yet toward a potential treatment for type 1 diabetes.

Read More
Happy News

New Research Reveals The Personality Trait That Predicts Whether You Will Seek Out A Cat When Stressed

May 12, 2026

A study published in the journal Anthrozoös, conducted by researchers at Washington State University and KU Leuven in Belgium, has identified the personality trait most likely to predict whether someone will seek out a cat for stress relief rather than a dog, and the answer has a name: emotionality. Researchers

Read More
« Previous Next »
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2026 HappyNews.