A 16th Century Pope Buried His Pet Elephant Under The Vatican

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In February of 1962, while digging up the Vatican's Belvedere Courtyard to modernize a heating and cooling system, a group of Italian workers hit bone. There was a large tooth and four pieces of a giant jawbone, and at first they thought they had found a dinosaur.

But the bones were not fossilized, and when the custodian of the Vatican Library collection had them examined, he learned that they belonged to a much more modern mammal - an elephant.

(via Neatorama)