Description

This fantastic Megalodon tooth is approximately 5 5/8 inches tall and approximately 4 inches wide.  We love this particular specimen for its unusual and beautiful coloring.  In addition to its unusual coloring, it also has an impression (underside of tooth) that was probably created by a whelk.  Whelks usually feed on mussels and barnacles by boring through their shells, but in this particular case, the whelk was most likely feeding on calcium.

Megalodon, meaning “big tooth,” is an extinct species of shark that lived approximately 23 to 3.6 million years ago, during the Early Miocene to the Pliocene. It was formerly thought to be a close relative of the great white shark; however, it is now classified into the extinct family Otodontidae, which diverged from the great white shark during the Early Cretaceous.

While regarded as one of the largest and most powerful predators to have ever lived, megalodon is known from fragmentary remains, and its appearance and maximum size are uncertain. Scientists differ on whether it would have more closely resembled a stockier version of the great white shark, the whale shark, the basking shark or the sand tiger shark. Most estimates of megalodon’s size extrapolate from teeth, with maximum length estimates up to 47–52 ft, and average length estimates of 34 feet. Estimates suggest that their large jaws could exert a bite force of up to 24,000 to 41,000 pounds. Their teeth were thick and robust, built for grabbing prey and breaking bone.