A six-year-old boy in the United Kingdom has recently discovered a rare shark tooth, the largest species of shark ever. The shark, known as Megalodon, lived on Earth approximately 3 million to 20 million years ago.
Baby Sammy holding the teeth of a megalodon shark.
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Sammy Shelton recently went on vacation with his father Peter Shelton to Bodsey Beach in Suffolk. That’s where he gets the 10 cm long tooth.
Seeing such big teeth, father and son have an idea, it must be something special. Finally, Professor Ben Gard, an evolutionary biologist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, confirms that the tooth belongs to the long-extinct Megalodon.
Bodsey Beach is quite popular with fossil researchers. Baby Sammy, his father Peter Shelton was also looking for fossils. At this time he saw the huge tooth. Peter Shelton said Sammy was thrilled to get the tooth because they had never seen a shark’s toothpick on the beach before and never found anything so big and heavy. Peter added that Sammy loved the tooth so much that he slept on it by bed at night.
Peter Shelton sent Professor Ben Garrod some pictures of the teeth they had found. He confirmed that the tooth belonged to a megalodon, which is by far the largest shark in the world. Megalodon grows up to 18 meters (60 feet) in length. The weight was up to 60 tons.
Professor Ben Garrod says Megalodon eats whales. They were naturally aggressive predators. This species was dominant in all the oceans of the world except the parts around Antarctica. The name Megalodon means ‘big tooth’.