Ancient shark tooth as big as a human hand pulled from river bed in South Carolina
A South Carolina woman exploring the muddy banks of a river near Charleston has reported finding an ancient megalodon shark tooth that weighs a pound.
Jessica Rose-Standafer Owens says the discovery was made after she spotted a large chunk of gray tooth sticking out of the sand along the Stono River. She says she knew instantly it was bigger than average.
“I became excited and asked my husband (Simon) to come down and to grab the phone (to record), because who would believe we found one that close to the surface? I always hear of people finding them by digging and/or diving,” Owens told McClatchy News in an email.
The video posted on Facebook shows her gasping as she brushes away gravel to reveal a tooth nearly as big as her hand. “I’m literally about to cry,” she says in the video.
It measured 5.75 inches and weighed 15.9 ounces, she told McClatchy News.
“We were shocked,” she said in an email. “The tooth is just incredible and it’s mind boggling that we now have a fossil on our mantel that is 3-5 million years old. Just wild.”
Owens, who lives in Charleston, said she and her husband had been searching about 10 minutes when she found the tooth May 17. The couple had visited the area once before, but the tide was too high to allow closer inspection, she said.
“Right now we have it on our mantel. I’d love to get a shadow box or stand of some sort to display it up right,” Owens said.
The unofficial record for a megalodon tooth found in the state is 6.5 inches. That tooth sold at auction in December for $2,600, including fees, McClatchy News reported. The biggest meg tooth currently on display in the county is a 6.4 inch-tooth at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, according to a study published in September.
Coastal South Carolina was once seafloor and the mud there is famous for hosting teeth from ancient megalodons. The sharks are considered “one of the largest predators to have ever lived” with some fossils dating back 20 million years, according to The Natural History Museum.
Megalodons averaged 6 feet in height and 50 feet in length, though rare examples could have been in the 60-foot range, according to a study by Kenshu Shimada released in September.
This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 7:34 AM with the headline "Ancient shark tooth as big as a human hand pulled from river bed in South Carolina."