July 8 (UPI) — A Florida man talking a walk on a beach found a 4-inch tooth from a prehistoric megalodon shark just three weeks after he found a smaller tooth from the same species on the same beach.
Jacob Danner said he was walking on Fernandina Beach on Thursday morning, after Tropical Storm Elsa swept through the area, when he came across the 4-inch tooth.
Danner said he found the tooth near where he found a 3-inch megalodon tooth three weeks earlier.
Jim Gelsleichter, an associate biology professor at the University of North Florida, said the first tooth Danner discovered could be millions of years old. He said tooth discoveries can tell researchers a lot about the extinct species.
“The megalodon fossils that have been observed usually run around 30 feet in length or so,” Gelsleichter told WJXT-TV.
“So we can use information about the size of the teeth to extrapolate the ultimate size of the animal. We can look at the distribution of where teeth are found and get an idea of the distribution of the animal.”