Location : Collected in the Ashpoo River Bone Valley Formation. South Carolina, USA.
Lenght of longest edge: 117.6 mm
This tooth is indeed a fossil!
It comes from an extinct shark called Carcharocles megalodon, which lived approximately 20 to 3 million years ago during the Miocene & Pliocene periods
The word megalodon comes from Ancient Greek words meaning ‘big’ and ‘tooth’
The shark is known by various names, including the Giant ‘Mega-tooth’ Shark, Giant-toothed Shark and the Fossil Great White Shark.
Megalodon was distributed throughout the oceans of the world, with fossil remains found from Belgium to California; from Morocco to Peru.
They are also found at a number of sites in Australia.
Only the teeth, vertebrae and fin bones of the Megalodon have been found, because shark skeletons are mainly made of cartilage, which decomposes too quickly for it to become fossilised.
The largest chips and gouges on the tooth's blade are the norm and were caused by the shark biting down on bone.
The serrated edges of this tooth makes it easy to distinguish from the Isurus hastalis; the Fossil Mako Shark Teeth, which is often found in the same deposits as megalodon.