Tourists find ancient shark tooth in North Myrtle Beach

  • 2016-10-25
Nat and Peggy Campbell, who stay in Myrtle Beach for a month every year, went beach combing the day after Hurricane Matthew. Although they hoped to find sharks' teeth, what they did find astonished them.

Aquarist Brady Stoever at Ripley's Aquarium took a look at the Campbells' discovery, and confirmed that what they had found was a tooth from a Megalodon, a prehistoric shark.

Stoever said the Campbells simply walked into the aquarium and asked him about the tooth, which is approximately five inches long and over a million years old. Shark expert Tom Pierce said it is possible to determine the size of a shark from its teeth, but only if it's known whether the tooth came from the side of the mouth or the front.

In this case, Pierce says that if the tooth came from the front of the mouth, the shark was probably 40 feet long, and if it's from the side, the shark would likely be even larger. The Megalodon was once the world's biggest shark, though Pierce says the size of this particular tooth means there is no possibility it was from a great white.

Hurricane Matthew brought unusual objects, such as the tooth, to shore. Myrtle Beach visitors will now be on the lookout for such objects more than ever.

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