OREANDA-NEWS Paleontologists have discovered a 385 million-year-old tree stump in the Leningrad Region. Scientists from St. Petersburg State University will undertake his research, Anton Barashenkov, popularizer of paleontology and author of the Paleogorod project, told Fontanka.

The expert called the stump the find of the century. "The real protopen, the ancestral stump, the king of all stumps! For almost the whole week, I rode with paleontologists from St. Petersburg State University under a Meadow in a cold spring — all for him!" said Barashenkov.

The source stressed that the stump, which was discovered by amateur paleontologist Denis Goguev, is of significant interest to world science. Barashenkov believes that the fossil may turn out to be an unknown variety of the first trees on Earth.

Earlier, a scaly hedgehog mushroom, or "moose", grew on the field of moose mating fights in the Vsevolozhsky district of the Leningrad region.