It was a jaw-some find.
A massive tooth from a prehistoric megalodon — the largest shark to ever live, popularized in horror movie lore — was discovered along the Jersey Shore by a vacationing father-son duo from Pennsylvania.
Michael Bowers, 42, said he discovered the fossil from the 3.6 million-year-old beast while visiting Sea Isle City with his son Bo, 11, last Tuesday.
“I always seem like I find crazy stuff in the water,” Bowers toldNJ.com. “I never in a million years would have guessed that we would have found something like this. My son was speechless.”
The duo from Monongahela, Pennsylvania, were walking along a jetty when they spotted the tooth in a narrow opening.
Bowers wasn’t able to fit his hand through the crack to pull out the timeworn tooth, but his son Bo was able to grasp it and pull it out with ease.
“It’s on my bucket list of stuff to find,” Bowers told the outlet. “My knees were shaking.”
The two then presented their discovery to the Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center, which confirmed that the tooth was a bona fide fossil.
The tooth belonged to a megalodon, a fearsome species of shark that grew up to 60 feet long — and has been extinct for over 3.6 million years, the center’s research director Melissa Laurino said.
Fossils of the prehistoric sea predator are rather rare in New Jersey, according to experts.
Fewer than five megalodon teeth have been found in the state, according to New Jersey State Museum curator Dana Ehert.
Researchers believe that the tooth was dredged up during a replenishment project carried out by the US Army Corps of Engineers in Sea Isle City in July.
“If the sand came from a few miles offshore, it is very possible the tooth came with it,” Laurino told NJ.com. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime beach find that the Bowers family will treasure for a lifetime.”
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