Fossil hunters find different halves of same ancient shark tooth 4 weeks apart in SC
The odds of two strangers finding different halves of the same ancient megalodon tooth would seem astronomical, and yet it recently happened in South Carolina’s coastal Lowcountry.
Stranger still, the halves were found within a month of each other.
The pieces are now reunited, creating a single 5.5-inch-long, 5.1-inch-wide tooth that came from one of the world’s most fearsome predators — a prehistoric shark that reached nearly 60 feet in length.
Palmetto Fossil Excursions, located about 25 miles northwest of Charleston, reported the dual discoveries in a Nov. 3 Facebook post, and included photos of the large, rust-colored tooth.
“On October 7th of this year one of our clients unearthed half of this megalodon tooth and took it home to love it even as a heartbreaker,” the company wrote.
“Last week, our buddy Logan (@east_coast_fossils) was digging with us when he unearthed the other half! As we all stood there together talking about the upset of heartbreak with broken fossils, I suddenly recognized the ‘funky’ notch at the base of the blade and said: ‘Wait, I know this tooth!!’”
Company officials contacted the woman who found the other half, and asked if she’d be willing to mail it in for a side-by-side comparison.
“Fast forward to today when it arrived in the mail and it’s a perfect match!” the company said. “Now, the tooth is about to be shipped right back to Ashley — the client to find the first half — who will officially have her first big complete meg!”
Ashley Hansen of Fountain Inn, South Carolina, reports she uncovered the half a tooth while on “an anniversary trip” with her husband, according to WYFF. Hansen told the station the other half was found about 20 feet from where she had been sitting that day.
South Carolina’s Lowcountry, which was once under water, is “one of the best hotspots worldwide to find megalodon teeth,” experts say.
Megalodon sharks were “the size and weight of a railroad car” and reigned over the world’s oceans “roughly 23 to 3.6 million years ago,” according to the National Museum of Natural History.
“It had a powerful bite with a jaw full of teeth as large as an adult human’s hand. They likely could tear chunks of flesh from even the largest whales of the time,” the museum says.
“Many whale fossils have distinct gashes from megalodon teeth, and sometimes an entire megalodon tooth is found embedded in a whale bone. Scientists calculate that a bite from a megalodon jaw could generate force of up to 40,000 pounds, which would make it the strongest bite in the entire animal kingdom.”
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