A Chinese villager preparing a duck for dinner was left stunned after discovering gold particles worth about £1,300 inside the bird’s stomach.
The man, identified in Chinese media only by his surname Liu, found the particles of gold in Longhui county in central China’s Hunan province after slaughtering a free-range duck he had raised himself.
According to the South China Morning Post, Liu had been preparing the duck for cooking when he cut open its stomach and found several gold-coloured particles mixed in with its digestive contents.
The man initially believed they might simply be small stones or metallic debris before he noticed a distinctive sheen.
Local reports say that the particles Liu found weighed around 10 grams in total, giving them a value of roughly 12,000 yuan (£1,304).
Liu reportedly carried out a rudimentary heat test, a method often used to distinguish gold from other metals. When the grains did not change colour after being burned, he suspected they might indeed be gold.
The Natural Resources Bureau of Longhui Prefecture has not confirmed if the particles were indeed of gold. “Further verification by specialised agencies is needed to confirm whether the particle is gold or not,” they said.
Local authorities said the find was plausible given the region’s geological history, a translated report in Liaoshen Evening News stated. Rivers in the surrounding area have been historically associated with naturally occurring particles of gold found in river sediment.
The Hunan province is known for its significant mineral resources. In 2024, geologists identified a vast gold reserve beneath the Wangu gold field in Hunan’s Pingjiang county, with confirmed resources of around 300 tonnes, and could yield more than 1,000 tonnes of gold. Gold can also occur as “placer deposits” in river sediment, where small particles are eroded from ore bodies and carried downstream, which in turn leads to traces of the metal sometimes appearing in mud along riverbanks.
Ducks that forage in mud and shallow water can ingest small stones and sediment as part of their feeding process, making it possible for trace minerals to accumulate inside their digestive systems.
The duck had been raised in an area that was close to such waterways, where it likely fed freely along riverbanks or muddy ground. According to the Korean outlet Maeil Business News, this may explain how the bird swallowed gold particles while searching for food, inadvertently concentrating them in its stomach.
