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A nine-year-old girl has made a sensational find. On the shore of Calvert Beach she discovers the tooth of a megalodon.
Calvert Beach – Nine-year-old Molly Sampson has made an extremely rare find on the beach at Calvert Beach, Maryland, United States: a megalodon tooth. The shark species has been considered extinct for at least 3.5 million years. Obviously, the student has a feeling for it, because like her mother bbc.com explained her daughter wanted to look for exactly that. The find is causing fascination online and feeding old myths about the megalodon.
location | Calvert Beach-Long Beach |
population | 860 |
Surface | 6.6 km² |
US state | Calvert County |
“Future Paleontologist” Finds Megalodon Tooth: “Once Upon a Time Find”
The local Calvert Marine Museum has posted several pictures of the girl with her find on social media, dubbing the girl a “future paleontologist”. It continues, “Molly was excited to share her amazing find with our paleontology department at the museum last week.”
Stephen Godfrey, curator of paleontology at the museum, called the discovery a “unique find”, after all, such objects are of great relevance for marine and species research. It was already possible to determine on the basis of a tooth analysis that the much smaller great white shark had wiped out the megalodon. “People shouldn’t get the impression that teeth like this are common on the Calvert Cliffs,” Godfrey said.
“Like professionals hunting shark teeth”: Nine-year-old discovers shark tooth in knee-deep water
Nine-year-old Molly discovered the tooth in knee-deep water. She didn’t even have to dig it out, so the tooth was lying exposed on the ground. Alicia Sampson, the finder’s mother, explained that her daughters Molly and Natalie “go shark tooth hunting like professionals.” Her husband has been looking for fossils since childhood and daughter Molly has already found over 400 specimens alone. But none of the shark teeth they found were as big as this one.
Girl finds five-inch megalodon tooth
After all, megalodon are considered the largest species of shark that has ever existed. He could reach a body length of around 20 meters. A single tooth of the animal alone could grow up to 17 centimeters long. Sampson’s specimen is still an impressive 12 centimeters in size. For comparison: the adult tooth of the great white shark can only grow up to 7.5 centimeters.
According to her mother, the nine-year-old wanted the tooth of a megalodon for herself for Christmas. Shortly after the holidays, she and her father went on a search. And as fate would have it, that’s exactly what she did that day.
Tooth find fuels megalodon theories online
The network congratulates the girl on her achievement. But the find also revives old megalodon myths. Only recently did the discovery of a megalodon tooth lead to the assumption that it was not yet extinct. A user comments on the photo: “The tooth still looks pretty good. And it should be at least 3.5 million years old?”. Another user also suspects: “I’m sure he’s still hiding somewhere down there in the oceans”.
Only recently researchers seriously thought they had spotted a megalodon with a thermal imaging camera. Also had Bite wounds on a great white shark fueled the theory of an extant megalodon. Nevertheless, science is and remains generally certain that the existence of the megalodon is impossible today.
Rubric list image: © Calvert Marine Museum
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