Fossilised tooth of gigantic 'killer' whale found in Australia

Erich Fitzgerald, a paleontologist at the Museum Victoria, holds an extinct sperm whale tooth found on a beach near Melbourne.

Sydney (AFP) - A huge, five-million-year-old whale tooth has been discovered on an Australian beach, providing the first evidence of the now extinct killer sperm whale outside the Americas.

The 30-centimetre-long (12-inch) fossilised tooth, which is larger than that of a Tyrannosaurus rex, was found by a fossil enthusiast at Beaumaris Bay near Melbourne in February.