This Myrtle Beach pirate — yes, pirate — sells megalodon teeth for a living. Are they real?
Once upon a time, Candi Lynn Nichols was a flight attendant for American Airlines. She spent her life crisscrossing the globe, a free spirit if there ever was one.
And while it’s easy to see Nichols going anywhere and everywhere, it’s hard to imagine her confined to an airplane cabin, based on the story of her life these days.
Nichols is not a flight attendant anymore. She’s “Cutlass Candi” the pirate, she’s a mermaid, she’s a diver, and she’s an amateur historian.
And maybe most famously — she sells megalodon teeth for a living.
Yes, megalodon teeth, as in the massive prehistoric sharks whose contemporary representation is low-budget sci-fi flicks and as the enemy of Godzilla.
The teeth Nichols sells are 4, 5, even 6 inches long. Among Nichols’ shoppers, the megalodons are always a big seller, but she sells a lot more than just teeth.
“It’s very attractive to not only the children, but the adults, because the adults come and spend a lot of money with me to buy the shark teeth in particular, and to buy the jewelry and to buy the mermaid glasses, the wine glasses and the shirts,” she said, “because it’s fantasy, but it’s reality, and it’s just really neat.”
She lives some of that fantasy mixed with reality herself. For decades, she’s loved pirates and the “romance” of their history. She can easily recall the details of dozens of major seafarers, their legacies and where their ships sank.
“I’m a pretty complicated person when it comes to understanding some things. People say, ‘Man, you are really interesting individual,’” she said. “It’s years of culmination of different things that are extremely romantic.”
And each summer, she walks the beach in Florida, planting roses at the beach access points in honor of the sailors who died when the 1715 Treasure Fleet sank and gave the Treasure Coast its name.
“Listen, when it comes to the pirates and treasure, it’s romance of the high seas,” Nichols said. “It’s the adventure of people that set sail in 1492 when Christopher (Columbus) sailed the ocean blue. There are those of us who are visionaries who are always seeking treasure. My motto is, what you seek is seeking you.”
Teeth
Despite her multifaceted personality, Nichols is most known for the megalodon teeth, which she goes diving for herself near Charleston and sells at the Litchfield Beach farmers market on Wednesdays.
But, are the megalodon shark teeth ... real?
Were ... megalodons real?
Turns out, the answers are yes and yes. While an initial internet search turned up links to websites such as “FossilGuy.com,” deeper research and clearer answers can be found at the place where fantasy meets reality in Myrtle Beach — Ripley’s Aquarium.
Ripley’s, known for its Believe It or Not! museum exhibits, has always been a bit, shall we say, out there. And, of course, Ripley’s Aquarium in Myrtle Beach has a fossilized megalodon jaw on display.
Megalodons lived from about 20 million years ago up to about 3 million years ago, said Stacia White, the aquarium’s director of husbandry. (However, megalodons never lived at the same time as dinosaurs.)
Megalodons were massive, weighing 50 to 70 tons (about half a house) and stretching 40 to 60 feet long. (For comparison, the “Hollywood” sign is 50 feet long). The only marine animal to ever exceed them in size is the blue whale, which weighs about 200 tons. Megalodons lived to be up to 40 years old.
Even without examining Nichols’ shark teeth in person, White said it’s unsurprising that Nichols found so many. The teeth are fairly common around the world. They are especially easy to find in South Carolina’s black rivers, especially around Charleston, where Nichols hunts for them.
Why are these teeth everywhere? Like sharks today, megalodons would shed thousands of teeth over their lifetime. Considering they ruled the ocean for 17 million years, if you multiply possibly hundreds of thousands to millions of megalodon sharks by thousands of teeth each — you get a lot of teeth.
Most of the time, megalodon teeth will only be found when diving for them, White said, but periodically they will show up on shore.
“When we have dredging and things that are going on offshore, off the coast here that brings new sand up on the beach, we’ll find a lot more teeth during that time because it’s bringing kind of buried treasures up,” White said.
Fun megalodon facts
Now that megalodons are on the brain, here are some fun megalodon facts from White and National Geographic.
Full name: The word “megalodon” means “big tooth” in Greek, and the creature’s full scientific name is Carcharocles megalodon.
Shape: The shape of a megalodon tooth is similar to that of great white sharks because they have similar jaw structures, which is also the reason why both species shed so many teeth. The shape is that of the prototypical triangular tooth that might be found on a necklace at a shell shop.
Big appetite: Megalodons needed to devour 2,500 pounds of food each day. Scientists believe its diet was probably whales, dolphins, seal and maybe even other sharks.
Steven Spielberg’s nightmare: The shark’s jaws were big enough to eat two adult humans at the same time. Its bite could also crush a car with a force three times stronger than a T. Rex’s jaws.
Where they lived: Megalodons spent most of their time in shallow waters close to the shore (hence the ease of finding their teeth in rivers near the coast).
Waiting to be king: Some megalodons were unlucky enough to get eaten. The newborns were only 6 feet long and likely could’ve been eaten by other sharks.
Still lurking? “Some people argue that megalodons could still be swimming in unseen parts of the ocean,” National Geographic said. “Although it’s true much of the ocean has yet to be explored, scientists note it’d be really difficult to miss a 50-foot-long, nearshore shark with a taste for whales.”
How did they die off? White said that climate change millions of years ago pushed many marine mammals into colder waters where megalodons couldn’t survive. Without food, they likely starved until extinction.
