Walk on Southwest Florida beach leads to finding this impressive piece of buried treasure
Cassie Shivley recalled the conversation she had with her father. He was going for a walk on the beach and he had one thing in mind.
Shivley's father, Brad Vanderstow, lives in Central Michigan. He is spending two months this winter vacationing in Florida. He has enjoyed looking for shells on Satellite Beach and on Fort Myers Beach. On March 6, he visited South Englewood Beach neat Stump Pass, just south of Sarasota.
"He has found quite a collection of small (shark's) teeth, and was hoping to at least find a decent sized one for a necklace," Shivley said. "He jokingly told me he wanted to find a megalodon tooth after he started finding the small ones."
Vanderstow, 64, found one. A big one.
It was around 6:30 p.m., Shivley said. Her father was finishing up his beach walk.
"My dad was looking down searching," Shivley said. "He saw something black that was mostly buried in the sand and decided to check."
It was a megalodon tooth. And it was significantly bigger than the tiny shark's teeth he'd already collected. Shivley said the buried treasure her father uncovered is 3 1/4” long.
This was one of those moments you never forget.
"My mom said he could hardly speak while trying to say her name and get her attention when he found it," Shivley said. "He FaceTimed us immediately to show his two granddaughters and me. It is safe to say he won’t be able to look up while on the beach for the rest of their stay."
According to the website fossilera.com, the standard measure for megalodon teeth is slant height, or the longest edge of the tooth. Adult megalodon teeth were typically in the 4 to 5 inch range; teeth over 6 inches are rare and represent super-sized individuals. Only a handful of teeth have ever been found larger than seven inches.
The tooth Vanderstow now owns is too big for a necklace, for sure, but he plans to keep the tooth as a souvenir, Shivley said.
What is a megalodon?
According to National Geographic Kids, "the most famous prehistoric shark, Carcharocles megalodon, nicknamed megalodon or megatooth, ruled the seas from about 17 million years ago up to almost three million years ago. The colossal predator reached lengths up to 60 feet, stretching as long as a boxcar. The only marine animal ever to outweigh the massive megalodon is the blue whale, which weighs up to 200 tons, or just more than double the size of a megalodon.
A megalodon’s bite could crush a car.
The largest megalodon tooth ever discovered was about the length of a TV remote.
Megalodon had a bite force at least three times stronger than T. Rex.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Large Megalodon tooth found on Florida beach by Michigan man
