Workers digging on the underground network in the western city of Düsseldorf have uncovered a 34-kilogramme woolly mammoth tusk over 10,000 years old, city officials said.

Excavation work was stopped immediately, while the 1.20-metre-long tusk was gently removed and taken away for scientific study, Düsseldorf authorities said in a statement.

The tusk was the only part of the animal found during the dig, some 12 metres below the surface.

Woolly mammoths died out in the region around present-day Germany some 10,000 years ago.

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