Paleontologists are usually the ones to find bones and remains of dinosaurs or the large elephant-like species, Mastodons, that roamed around North America more than 10,000 years ago.

But last summer it was a 9-year-old Michigan boy that unearthed a prehistoric object.

Phillip Stoll, who earned the nickname "Huckleberry Phil" by the folks in his neighborhood because of his explorative nature, told CNN on Friday that he discovered a mastodon tooth after stepping on it by his local creek.

"I was walking down at the creek last summer. I felt something that I stepped on so I picked it up and everybody in the neighborhood thought it was pretty cool," said Phillip.

Phillip's mother Heidi Stoll said Phillip took the fossil home to wash it off in the sink and see if it was magnetic, which it wasn't. Stoll said she initially guessed that it was tooth after holding the object, which was roughly 8 inches in length, brown and had six peaks.

"I was holding it in my hand for a few minutes and then it gave me the creeps so I put it down on the desk," Stoll said. "It looked like a tooth. It looked like there was something like gum tissue, a little bulgy thing around the top."

The mother and son began to do their own research by looking up "large tooth object" online. They then contacted reptile and amphibian expert James Harding at Michigan State.

The herpetologist confirmed with Stoll and Phillip that it was a tooth and one that belonged to a long-bone beast millennia ago.

"This is indeed a mastodon tooth," Harding told CNN in an email. "Apparently (it is) the upper surface, broken off at the roots."

Phillip's discovery only fueled his previous interest in becoming a paleontologist when he gets older. With summer about to begin, Phillip has a lot more time to explore, even if that means some dirt getting into the house, CNN reported.

"It's going to be hard to get him to run around with shoes on or come inside to do his schoolwork," Stoll said of her son.