Teen Aiden Andrews finds megalodon shark tooth while diving in Florida – Courtesy of Fossil Junkies
A Florida teen will have quite the story for his friends to chew on when they all meet back in class after spring break.
16-year-old Aiden Andrews found the 6-inch-long tooth of an ancient shark known as a megalodon while diving near Sarasota.
This was the largest shark species in history, and is believed to have had a stronger bite than any other creature to ever live. The largest megalodon known weighed an estimated 50 tons in life, and stretched 60 feet nose to tail.
Aiden was on a shallow-water dive expedition with his dad Brian through a fossil-hunting tour group in Venice, Florida, called Fossil Junkies when he pulled the giant gnasher from the silt off Manasota Key, near Sarasota.
Though experts call it a rare find, Fossil Junkies seem to be experts in knowing where to look, as their homepage is covered in smiling, ecstatic divers holding their megalodon teeth.
Though the megalodon shark was enormous, its teeth do seem to have a habit of ending up in small hands.
In 2022, GNN reported that a 6-year-old walking on Bawdsey Beach in the UK turned up a 4-inch-long tooth of a megalodon, buried for at least 3 million years.
Semi-professional fossil hunters with trowels and knee pads for kneeling in the mud told the father and son at the time that it’s nearly unheard of to find megalodon teeth in Great Britain, despite the fact they have been found nearly everywhere on Earth.
It’s not that unheard of, as it turns out, because in 2023 another young man, 13-year-old Ben Evans, found a 10-million-year-old megalodon tooth at Walton-on-the-Naze Beach in Essex.
On Christmas Day, 2022, Molly Sampson from the Chesapeake Bay area went fossil hunting with her dad after receiving a pair of insulated waders and a sifting basket from Santa Claus. She too pulled up a ‘meg’ tooth that was roughly 15 million years old.
Molly told local news that when it comes to megalodons, every inch in the teeth was 10 in the body, so Molly’s would have been 50 feet long.
WATCH Aiden pull up the tooth from the shallows below…
SHARE This Great Spring Break Surprise With Your Friends Who Can Dive…
