Rare Fossilized Shark Tooth Found On Jersey Shore Beach

CAPE MAY, NJ — A Pennsylvania family made a rare find on a beach in Cape May County — a fossilized tooth from a shark that became extinct 3.6 million years ago.

The Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center shared information about the find on its social media on Friday, including a photo of the massive tooth.

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"We had some very excited visitors stop by the Cape May Whale Watch & Research Center after making an incredible discovery on the beach in Sea Isle City," the organization wrote.

The megalodon, the largest carnivorous shark in history, lived in the world's oceans from 23 million to 3.6 million years ago, the center said.

The tooth was found by the Bowers family while they were searching for shells on the beach and brought it to the center, whose fossil expert verified it was from a megalodon. The center called it "a once in a lifetime beach find!"

Mike Bowers told WGAL 8 that he discovered the tooth as he pulled a shell out of a rock.

"I was just astonished, but I couldn't fit my hand in there," he told the station. He called his son Bo over to retrieve it.

"I was scared to put my hand down to, like, see it," Bo Bowers told the station.

Megalodon sharks were roughly three times the length of a great white shark and had "a powerful bite with a jaw full of teeth as large as an adult human's hand," according to the Smithsonian Institution.

Because the sharks were mostly cartilage and due to a lack of cartilage fossils, scientists have had to estimate megalodon sizes based on known relationships between tooth size and shark body length, the Smithsonian article said.

"For a long time, scientists believed the megalodon's closest relative was the great white shark. In fact, the two species likely even lived at the same time," the article said. "Modern scientific studies have shown that megalodon was more closely related to an ancestor of mako sharks—smaller but faster fish-eating sharks."

Megalodon teeth can be found on beaches all over the world because the shark had worldwide distribution, but they are more commonly found in the United States in the Carolinas and Florida, according to the Fossil Guy.