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Longest fossilised poop goes on sale

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This old, one-metre-long poop might be worth a lot of money.

On Saturday, IM Chait Gallery in Beverly Hills plans to auction off the unusual fossil -- a 40-inch-long (101cm) piece of excrement -- for a price of around US$10,000 (S$12,400).

The gallery waxed lyrical over the piece of crap: "It boasts a wonderfully even, pale brown-yellow coloring and terrifically detailed texture to the heavily botryoidal surface across the whole of its immense length.

"The passer of this remarkable object is unknown, but it is nonetheless a highly evocative specimen of unprecedented size, presented in four sections, each with a heavy black marble custom base, an eye-watering 40 inches in length overall."

The fossilized dung (also known as coprolite) is about 33 million years old, said Mr Jack Chait, a director at the gallery.

He doesn't know which species excreted it, but "it is supposed that the fine examples found in a small area of Washington State are from a Miocene turtle," Mr Chait told the Daily Mail.

Mr Chait has sold a few coprolites before for around US$6,000 each. 

So what makes this one so special?

"I've never seen anything close to this in terms of size," he told Live Science. 

Sources: Live Science, Newser, Daily Mail