An 11-year-old boy searching for seashells with his father on the Jersey Shore discovered a massive tooth that has been identified as belonging to an Otodus megalodon, an extinct species of giant predatory shark. The fossil was found near the Townsend Inlet in Sea Isle City.
Megalodons were the largest sharks to have ever lived, reaching lengths of up to 60 feet, and they went extinct approximately 4 million years ago. The tooth, which measures roughly the length of the young boy's hand, was found lodged between two rocks.
Bo Bowers and his father, Mike Bowers, were vacationing in Wildwood when a cloudy day led them to explore a different beach. "There was a rock jetty and a real nice looking beach," Mike Bowers told Fox News Digital. "And I was like, well, let's go check it out."
Mike Bowers spotted something unusual in a crevice between rocks but found his hand was too large to retrieve it, so he called his son over. Bo Bowers initially hesitated but reached into the opening and secured the tooth. "He likes to look for shark teeth and stuff like that," his father added.
The family, upon learning of the fossil's potential significance, stopped at the New Jersey State Museum on their way home to western Pennsylvania. A museum official examined the tooth in the fossil lab and confirmed its authenticity, stating it is "100% a true megalodon tooth."
Dana Ehret of the New Jersey State Museum confirmed the discovery to Fox News Digital, noting that such finds are uncommon in New Jersey because the geological conditions for preserving such fossils are rare. "These teeth are highly uncommon in New Jersey because we do not have the right aged sediments preserved at or near the surface," Ehret explained. "The Bowers tooth is in extraordinary good condition for a tooth from New Jersey."
Ehret added that typically, teeth found in the state are significantly worn from prolonged submersion in water. According to Mike Bowers, the museum official indicated that only five megalodon teeth had been previously recorded as found on New Jersey beaches, making their discovery the sixth such find.