Molly Sampson has hundreds of shark teeth. The 9-year-old even owns some stingray teeth too. But one tooth in her collection makes the others look like baby teeth. She found a tooth from a megalodon — a super-sized shark that swam millions of years ago!
Molly found the near her home in Prince Frederick, Maryland. She went to Calvert Beach with her dad and sister on Christmas morning. They left early on December 25 to catch the low tide on the Chesapeake Bay. The low water level would help her spot a fossil in the sand.
The weather was very cold. Molly bundled up in winter gear. And she wore the waterproof waders she just got for Christmas. “We were knee-deep in the water,” Molly remembered. “And I looked over and saw it in the sand in the water,” she said.
Molly spotted a pointy shark tooth. And it was huge — 5 inches (13 cm) long! The tooth was about the size of her hand! The fourth grader had made a rare discovery. “I was really excited and surprised,” Molly told News-O-Matic.
The megalodon arrived on Earth about 20 million years ago. It was the largest shark in the world — and one of the biggest fish ever. The top used its giant teeth to eat dolphins and whales. In fact, the shark’s scientific name is Otodus megalodon. That means “big tooth!”
The megalodon went 3.6 million years ago. But their teeth still wash up in Calvert Cliffs State Park in Maryland. Those fossils show the size of the sharks. “People use the teeth to figure out how big the shark was,” said Molly. “Every inch is 10 feet,” she explained. That means Molly’s megalodon was close to 50 feet (15 m) long. That’s longer than a school bus!
Stephen Godfrey is a paleontologist at the Calvert Marine Museum in Maryland. He described Molly’s megalodon as “like a teenager.” He explained to News-O-Matic: “The shark that shed that tooth may have had a much longer life and then grown to a much larger size.”
Molly will keep searching for fossils. Yet she knows she likely won’t ever find a bigger tooth. “This could be a once in a lifetime find,” Godfrey admitted. After all, Molly’s father has hunted for fossils for years. He’s found many shark teeth. His biggest is a 3-inch (7 cm) megalodon tooth.
Molly likes to put her shark’s tooth next to the one her dad found. “We’ve always been super proud of his really big megalodon tooth,” said Molly’s mother, Alicia Sampson. “Then she finds this one, and it makes his look like a little baby tooth.”
Updated January 19, 2023, 5:02 P.M. (ET)
By Lucy Albright
