A Pennsylvania boy on vacation in South Carolina made an incredible find: a fossilized tooth from a species of shark that’s been extinct for ages.
Riley Gracely of Lebanon, Pa., made the discovery in Myrtle Beach’s Palmetto Fossil Excursions.
The 8-year-old “was walking around the bases of these piles of gravel and dirt and noticed what he thought was the edge of a tooth,” his father Justin told Fox News Digital in an email. “When he pulled it out, he was so excited.”
The staff at the facility, which specializes in educational fossil-hunting, explained just how amazing the boy’s find was.
The 4.75-inch tooth was from an angustidens, a relative of the megalodon shark that lived between 33 million and 22 million years ago. Megalodons are believed to have been the biggest sharks of all time, measuring over 68 feet long in some cases, while angustidens were about half that size at around 30 ½ feet.
The facility posted the find on Facebook, writing, “CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! This young man just scored a 4.75" Angustiden tooth in our Premium Gravel Layer piles on a dry dig!!!”
“Just to give perspective — any [angustidens] over 4" is the equivalent of finding a 6" [megalodon], and an [angustidens] at 4.75” is the equivalent of finding a 6.5” megalodon tooth,” the group added.
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